Understanding Business Numbers Through a Marketing Lens

RCS Influencer Anna Anderson says that maintaining regular reports on business numbers and setting goals is the key to success.

Editor’s note: The following consists of a conversation between RCS Multimedia Manager Megan Ellsworth, and Art Unlimited CEO Anna Anderson. 

Megan Ellsworth: Hello, everyone. My name is Megan Ellsworth here, atRoofersCoffeeShop.com, and I am back for an influencer response with Anna Anderson. Hello, Anna.

Anna Anderson: Hello, Megan. It's always so fun to be able to do these podcasts and articles with the RoofersCoffeeShop, and I'm super stoked about today's topic.

Megan Ellsworth: Yay, me too. So today's topic is all about understanding your numbers. What do roofing companies need to be sure they're doing to be more than profitable? So Anna, let's just dive right in. What should these companies be doing?

Anna Anderson: Well, as a marketing expert, I always look at understanding the numbers through a marketing lens. High level, every business, regardless of who you are as a business owner, you need to have weekly reporting. You need to ensure that your CFO, your accountant, whoever is managing the finances and numbers, has a weekly report that's delivered to you, or you're pulling it yourself. And then you need to understand, based off the budget and your goals, are you on track or off track? So that's incredibly high level, but then when you get a little more granular and you look at that marketing budget of understanding the numbers.

I look at these things called leads, and how are you generating them, and are you meeting your goals? And then we have the data to support that. All those pieces are critical to achieving success and making sure that when you look at those financial reports and knowing your numbers on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual basis, that you have the right tools in place to actually drive that success. So marketing is like that precursor to sales, to ops, to your admin and collections, and then your final EBITDA goals. Have you hit them or not? So that's incredibly high level, I know, Megan, but I look at knowing the numbers and hitting your goals. Those are the things that I start talking about right out of the gate.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. So also, to go off of that, hitting goals and whatnot, as an entrepreneur, as a company owner, what did you start with when you started out? What were your goals? What were the things that you started doing that helped you understand your numbers?

Anna Anderson: Well, I think the big thing that we do at our company, and I strongly recommend for every company that we work with, is making sure that you understand your profit and loss as a company. But then also, what we do is, we segment by branch or division within the company, and we understand what the overhead is, what our profit margins are, our operating expenses, if we have different partners that align with that, and do we have any supply backlog that might be bottlenecking our production. And all of those pieces are important. So it's not just financial numbers that we're looking at on a weekly basis, but we're also looking at capacity or maybe if there's product that's coming into the equation as well. Those numbers we have to understand in order to be able to supply an accurate pulse to the customers that we as service.

And ironically, again, it doesn't matter if you're running a marketing agency or if you're running a roofing company or exteriors company or construction in general, those basic principles have an impact on every business. So we look at those numbers on a weekly basis, and it gives us the ability to forecast, are we on track or off track? What needs to happen by a branch in order to achieve the success for us as a company? But then also, those are some numbers that we look at with some of our clients as well, and help them understand, okay, are they getting the leads that they need to feed those pipelines? And how do we juggle the lead flow and by type of lead flow in order to make sure each branch is successful? So it's a complicated component, but I love it, because it's what makes success happen.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. Wow, that was all so well said. Oh my gosh. I think everyone listening should have been taking notes during that, because that was brilliant. Thank you so much, Anna, for chatting with me today. Anything else you want to add?

Anna Anderson: All I would say is closely watch at EBITDA, and sometimes meeting your goals will not drive EBITDA, depending on how your year is going. So always keep that at the forefront. Have a great year, and I'm super stoked about all the amazing things that have already happened for us as a company and some of the things that are happening for our clients this year. But know your numbers and when you know them, you will achieve success.

Megan Ellsworth: That's amazing. Thank you so much.

Anna Anderson: Awesome. Thanks so much, Megan.

Anna Anderson is the CEO of Art Unlimited. See her full bio here.