47: Money Talk: Clearer Focus, Better Decisions, and more money with Hebe Illing

Hebe Illing is a data expert in analytics and looking at your data numbers. She has such a specific view of how to look at your numbers, which I think all of us need to be doing more often, myself included.

She works with solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, as well as bigger companies. It varies from one-person companies to 100,000 person companies. She creates dashboards for them and the most common type of data that she deals with are finance, internal business  (how many of x did you sell in your business), and marketing numbers.

How do you measure ROI in marketing?

1. Time

Measuring your time is the first. It’s not fun, but it’s also not a huge effort, and it gives you so much insight. How much time you spend on what you do is essential.

2. Sales

Next is measuring sales. One of the things that you should have is Google Analytics. If you’re doing marketing, and you have a website, you should have Google Analytics. You don’t have to go into every detail in analytics, but it’s important to know from where people are coming, in terms of sources. Of course, you can get super-advanced and super nerdy with this, and whatever extra data you can gather can help you make smarter business decisions. 

3. Profit

Your profit is another thing you should know for sure. That’s the basis of your company. Even though you don’t steer on profit only, it is one of the most important numbers in your company because if you don’t have any profit there’s no interest in your company. If you do have a profit, and you have a very low margin, then you need to do something about that. However, if you do have a big profit and still are making money, then that indicates that there is an interest in your company.

On top of this, you can add other categories: Who are your top customers? What are your most successful services? What turnover is coming from what? Are there any nuances that you notice?

4. Data

Data gives you a vision of your own company. It shows you where there is an opportunity, or where there’s space to improve, the type of customers: big companies, small, middle, solopreneurs, etc, the sector so you can even kind of find out your niche if you don’t have one yet, who is coming to you and are those people that you want, are they new or existing customers, you can also add marketing channel.

Hebe says, the biggest mistake, solopreneurs and entrepreneurs make when it comes to looking at the numbers, is not looking at them often enough but waiting for the bookkeeper or the accountant to send them to them. You need to have it somewhere stored and automated preferably so that you can always find it. You should always know how much you made this year, how much you made last month, and how much you will make this month.

If you want to get started with your data, you should first know what kind of data you already have. The next step is to know what data you want and how you can get them. After that, it’s really all about reading the data and asking the right questions: what can I pay myself, how much can I invest, what can I spend more on, etc.

Visit Hebe’s website or Instagram to get in touch with her and her services.

Love + Magic

Maggie