Five Important Steps to Defining the Goal of Your Marketing

Clear your desk, get some blank paper and a calculator.  Answer the following questions as accurately as you can:

1.  What is the dollar amount you need to clear from your business each month after taxes/expenses?   ________________

2.  Figure your estimated taxes. Take the number from #1 and multiply it times 1.33 or 133%.  ________________    (Note: This percentage may be high or low depending on your personal tax bracket.)

3. Calculate your monthly business-related expenses:

• Rent (professional space, not your residence)
• Car Expenses (as used for business)
• Phone (business)
• Marketing Expenses
• Other Services
• Professional Dues
• Insurance (as it pertains to your business)
• Other

Total for all monthly business-related expenses: ________  

4. Figure the total (gross) amount you need to earn each month by adding up the grand total from all the items in Questions 2 and 3.   ___________

This is the total amount of money you are going to have to earn (or gross) in order to clear the amount you declared you needed in Question 1. You will, of course, get tax deductions on your expenses, but you won't realize that money until after you've filed your taxes each year.

5. Figure how much business you need to reach your monthly income goals.

As a business person, you have products and/or services to sell. You sell them for a specific price or fee. Take the total amount you need to earn, and figure out how many clients you need to see or number of products you need to sell each month to reach the total you need to earn. You should be able to write the goal of your marketing in clearly defined, specific terms. 

Examples:

Karen is a massage therapist. She needs to make $2400 a month to meet her revenue goals and all her expenses. If she charges her clients $75 for each massage she gives, she would have to do 32 massages a month ($2400 divided by $75) to make her revenue goal.

The goal of Karen's marketing plan would be to get enough clients to schedule at least 32 massages per month.

If you are selling products, you will want to figure what an average customer purchases from you. If Jacque sells cosmetics, and an average sale for her is $40 and she needs $2000 per month, she would need to make 50 sales per month. 

Jacque's marketing goal would be to get enough customers to make at least 50 sales per month.

You may have more than one source of revenue. In that case, you'll need to complete this exercise for each of your businesses. 

If you've made it all the way through the five steps above, congratulations!  You've defined the purpose of your marketing, and you've completed the first step of your marketing plan!