Mastering Business Metrics - Essential Data for Creative Entrepreneurs

hey welcome back to the channel I'm Mike

jand I'm glad you're here in this video

we're going to talk about tracking

business data this is the kind of

barebones stuff you need to be tracking

in your creative business to understand

what is happening you got to understand

the numbers but before we dig in uh

check out the description down below I

got a couple of free courses not a

couple a few a few free courses for you

down there and also check out my

creative Community uh more creative

Academy which is a community of creative

entrepreneurs all growing their business

together and I am the mentor and you

have daily access to me and you have a

live session every single week group

coaching and live lessons uh and so

anyway let's dig into the content today

uh we're going to talk about business

data do you know these numbers I was

shocked at my own stupidity in the early

days of building my agency I wasn't

tracking any numbers I was just waiting

for the next project to come in waiting

for the next project and the next

project and the next project and by the

end of the year if I was profitable then

yay and that's the situation that so

many Freelancers and agency owners are

in they're just cranking out waiting for

the next project next project it wasn't

until I started tracking the data

that I really started to understand my

business and in this video I'm going to

give you the barebones data that you

need to be tracking in your creative

business the first piece of data that

you need to track is your annual

revenue and it and the numbers you want

to have this for every single year but

we're going to put in this little

guide what were your numbers two years

ago your annual revenue two years ago

your annual revenue last year and your

Revenue this year to date that's what

you want to track those three things and

I'm going to give you some examples of

how we take these numbers and use them

to analyze and understand our business

I'll show you that here in a second the

next piece of data that you want to that

you want to uh track is your monthly

Revenue how much did we invoice two

months ago last month this month

projected next month projected and 2

months from now projected so we're

looking forward on this data trying to

track our monthly revenue or how much we

are invoicing every single month the

next one is our expenses what were our

expenses last month this month and in

two months that's what we want to look

forward to uh we're going to compare our

annual or monthly Revenue to our monthly

expenses and we're going to be able to

understand a story in our business I'll

show you that here in just a second then

we want to track our sales efforts how

many project opportunities did you have

this month how many of those project

opportunities turned into official

proposals how many of those proposals

did you win what was the average price

of the proposals you pitched and what

was the average price of the proposals

you won those are the data points that

you want to track and let's go to the

real magic of what happens when you

start comparing those numbers we're

going to look at some spreadsheets and

let me get my screen ready here we have

this little example spreadsheet right

here okay on this example spreadsheet I

just took two of the data dat points and

a profit and loss and the two data

points are what did we invoice or our

Revenue per month and our expenses per

month so across the top we have January

February March one column for each month

and then we total it right here and then

we have the next year 2025 so this is

2024 numbers this is 2025 numbers so

let's say that it's at the end of 202

when you're watching this video what we

can start to do when we track this data

over time is we can start to see

patterns in our business patterns in our

business so I have last year's data

remember in this video it's January 2026

or December 2025 we have two full years

worth of data we're going to look for

patterns and what we see here in

November and

December of

2024 we have a monthly loss we lost

$11,000 here and $2,000 here now you

really don't care about those losses

when they're offset by profits so we

have that right here we can see that for

the annual year we had $10,000 of profit

so it was still a profitable year even

though we lost $3,000 at the very end of

the year November and December

we invoiced less than we cost or our

Revenue was less than our expenses now

when 2025 comes around we start to

compare the data the data from 2025 to

the data to 2024 and we can start to see

some patterns and one of those patterns

that you can see here by the way this is

all just fake data I can't remember if I

said that but I just threw a spreadsheet

together and gave you some fake data so

we can look at how I did this at my

agency you have November and December of

2025 here we invoiced or we had less

Revenue than we did expenses and we lost

money again in in November and dece

December we can start to see a pattern

November and December had a financial

loss here November and December had a

financial loss here so I would start to

say why did that happen let's look at

our r Vue numbers we have $8,000 of

Revenue in November of 2025 against look

12,000 26,000 12,000 12,000 8,000 6,000

wow we had a drop in Revenue right here

we're starting to see a pattern in our

business now we can look at this and say

did that same thing happen here 9,000

8,000 invoice there against 13,000 in

October so October is Pretty solid we

had a little bit of a slow summer right

here we want to see if that pattern

reemerges cuz we didn't see that pattern

happen again in 2025 but we're going to

watch for it in

2026 and here we got uh money loss in

November and December and money loss in

November and December and a drop in

revenue from

October 2025 to November 2025 we saw a

drop in October

2024 to November 2024 so we have that

drop now when we go into

2026 we start to anticipate those same

patterns we can look at it and say okay

the last two years we had higher

expenses than Revenue in November and

December I don't want that to happen

again this year so what can I do to

reduce my costs for November and

December of

2026 so you can start to plan your

business or better yet or maybe both you

look at 2026 and you get to September or

October and you say I do not want to

have my money loss in November and

December how can I improve my sales in

September and October to hedge a against

the reduction in Revenue that I've seen

the last 2 years in November and

December this is where the stories come

from and you cannot understand the story

of your business if you're not tracking

the data in your business you got to

track this stuff that's what tells you

the story Now tracking and analyzing the

data is critical to your business if

you're not tracking your business data

open a spread sheet right now and get

started and let me show you a couple of

spreadsheets just as examples this is my

agency spreadsheet of my extreme data

that I tracked and I'm just going to

whip through this and not hover on

anything too long because it's all kind

of confidential data but this is my data

from my agency I tracked this every

single month for every year of my agency

I have it 20 25 26 27 28 29 20110

uh 2011 so I've got the data from all

the years of my business now I didn't I

only have back to 2025 because that's

when I started tracking data I actually

started in 2002 and didn't track any of

this stuff until we got to 2005 so I

have that data from my entire agency run

after I started to understand this

principle I also have an example here

and this is all fake data in here too

this is a little spreadsheet that I made

for my community more creative Academy

and I'll just give you this as an

example you can screenshot this and make

this for yourself but here we have our

sales efforts how much effort are we

putting into sales our

opportunities leads receive proposals

submitted proposals one Etc our pipeline

how many active proposals we have and

what have we won and what's our win rate

our financial

information Revenue versus expenses what

I just showed you in that other

spreadsheet our bank balances our

account receivables and then a cash flow

projection here and then some production

how many active projects do we have and

how many projects did we complete so

that's what's in this spreadsheet right

here I'm giving you these just as

examples for this video so that you can

see what it looks like to track business

data and you can get super obsessive on

this stuff I admit

this was obsessive this is so much data

my poor office manager and both my

office managers over my agency run um

loved me so and I loved them and they

tracked this data for me and it was

great but it was a lot of data to track

on a monthly basis we had out um little

offshoot uh spreadsheets that had data

points in them that would get aggregated

into this spreadsheet here anyway track

your freaking business data this is what

the difference is between being a

freelancer who's just kind of going

willy-nilly trying to grind out your

business and a business person that is

systematically

intentionally trying to grow and scale

your business or at least succeed to the

maximum in your solo business you got to

start tracking the business data I go

way more into detail on this in my

courses my my course the ultimate

freelance course you can check that out

or check out more creative Academy we I

give a lot of spreadsheets and things

like this away and teach my crew there

on how to track their business data and

we analyze data sometimes too all right

thanks so much for watching this video I

hope it kind of opens your eyes to the

data points you should be tracking in

your business get started now bust out

the spreadsheet and start tracking your

business data thanks so much we'll see

you again in another video sometime in

the future