Business Strategy Foundations: Revenue Goals & Awareness

What are your business revenue goals?

It may be a little blunt, but it’s one of the first things I ask my clients.

Not because money is the most important thing.

Not because there is a right or wrong answer.

Not because I want to know if they are ‘playing small’ or ‘playing big’.

(I’ve worked with coaches whose answers have been anywhere from a 10k per year side income to 2m+ per year online training business)

The reason I ask about revenue goals upfront is that it helps me get a better picture of the overall business model we are working toward.

There are a lot of different levers we can pull to help you work toward your goals. In order to move the right ones, we have to have a clear vision of what this thing will look like in the future.


All that aside, I can boil the formula down to this:

• If you want to make thousands of dollars, you need to reach thousands of people.
• If you want to make millions of dollars, you need to reach millions of people.

I’m not saying you must work with thousands or millions of people to hit these targets. I’m saying that as a general rule, you need to make these numbers of people aware of you.

And not just any people. The right people for the work that you do.

When we switch the goal from revenue to awareness, you can start to see some of the different skills that come into play to reach those targets.

Most people overestimate how hard it is to reach thousands of people and underestimate how difficult it is to reach millions.


If your goals are in the lower range, we can focus on getting the messaging around your coaching service crystal clear and growing your network of potential clients and referrers.

If your goals are in the higher range, we’re going to need to build more leverage into your time. We would focus more on building an audience + products and services that require less of your time to deliver. This means working toward hiring additional team members/contractors and potentially paying for advertising.


The point I’m making is this: neither goal is right or wrong.

It is only right or wrong for you.

If we start building out your strategy and you realize that it’s not what you want, we can make tweaks to both the goal and the tactics until you find something you’re excited to work on.
 

I want to acknowledge that like most business advice, this formula isn’t fail-proof. It’s a foundational hypothesis that is customized for each person and shifts with the data you collect about your own business.

If you’re a coach or consultant who works primarily in a corporate setting, you might need to build awareness with fewer people because your contract value may be higher.

But within those organizations, the work you do will need to impact many people directly or indirectly to justify those higher fees.

Overall, what it comes down to is this:

• The more people you provide value for, the more potential for revenue you have.
• Inversely, the more revenue you desire, the more people you need to provide value for.

So let me ask you:

What are your revenue goals? 

Reply in the comments or email me at hello [at] jessicawicks.ca to let me know.




If you’d like some help with taking steps toward making those goals a reality, book one of my Growth Strategy Intensives.