There are three steps that I like to look at, both in my own business and with clients, to evaluate whether or not you should actually stop one of your revenue streams in your business. The first thing to consider is, are you actually enjoying delivering that programme or service? Now, this might seem a little bit of a funny thing to start with, but actually, if you’re not enjoying it, then it’s going to be draining your energy. It’s going to be draining your resources and your creativity and your time and all those things. Firstly, ask yourself if you are personally delivering it or if your team is delivering it, do you or do they enjoy delivering the programme and service?
That is set one. Set one, ask yourself. Be really, really honest. Do you enjoy delivering this programme? Do you enjoy delivering this service? You want to look at, do you enjoy the content? Does it still excite you? Do you enjoy the type of people that you’re working with within that? Is that something that you actually like doing on a day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month basis? You can therefore see yourself continuing to do that or not. That is the first thing to consider. Do you actually enjoy it?
The second thing, what we want to do with the second point is evaluate whether delivering that programme or service is actually in line with your vision. Okay? What I mean by that is I don’t just mean the business vision. I mean the vision you have for your life as a whole because let’s say for example that delivering this programme is very intensive on your own personal time yet the vision you have for your life and for your business is to be working five-hour work weeks. Those two are just not going to come together properly. What we need to do is work out whether the programme that you’re thinking about, the service that you’re thinking about, does it actually stack up to the longterm vision you have for your business and the model that you’re running your business on, and whatever you want that to eventually be. Whatever product and type eventually is for you. Does it actually stack up?
Or are you building up this programme and actually when you think about what you want your business to look like in one year, two years, five years, 10 years, this can’t possibly fit in because there’s no way to deliver it in the way that you want in your life, the way you want your life to look. There’s no way to deliver that in the way you want your life to look. That is number two. First of all, do you enjoy it? Second of all, is it actually in line with the vision you have for your life? Does this business model and where this programme or service sits within this business model work for you in the longterm with the longterm vision that you have for your life?
These first two might sound much softer than you may have thought that I was going to speak about. But these are really, really important because these are the things that actually shape your day. These are things that actually shape your business and fundamentally shape your life. Unless these few things are actually working for you, you’re going to drain energy. You’re going to be resentful of your business. You’re going to be resentful of the time it takes up and all those types of things.
No matter how well people are paying you to deliver this programme or service, if you don’t enjoy it and it’s not in line with your vision, fundamentally, it’s not going to lead you to the place you want to get to. It’s not going to get you to where you want to be in business. That is why these two things are crucial when you are looking at which programmes, which services you might want to stop in your business. Actually, I really encourage you on a pretty regular basis to actually review your programmes and services, particularly with these two things in mind as well as the third thing that I’m about to share with you now.
The third thing, and this is probably more expected from an accountant, the question is, is your programme or service truly profitable? You need to sit down and say, “Okay, how much are people paying me for this? What is it costing me to deliver?” We want to make sure that you are putting in every cost there. For example, if it takes up three hours a week of your VA’s time within your private paid Facebook group to deliver this programme, you need to be factoring that in as well to the calculations. If you have a specific piece of software that you have purchased in order to help you run this programme, you need to be factoring that in as well. If you have people who are paying on Stripe, PayPal, you need to be factoring in your charges from those platforms, from those merchant processors in order to make sure that the programme or service is profitable as well.
If you are outsourcing any part of the delivery, you need to make sure you are including that. Last but not least, what about your time? Because this is really important as well. Once you work out kind of what the profit is, is that worth the time you’re spending on it? Is the profit per participant, the profit per client, the profit per customer, whatever you call them in your business, is that worth the time you’re actually putting in at the end of the day to each individual, to each person? Particularly if you have a one-to-one element, is that working for you? Do the numbers stack up? Is it profitable? Is it profitable enough to keep you engaged, to keep you wanting to turn up? Is it profitable enough so that as you grow and scale the programme, if that’s what you want to do, the numbers stack up and the numbers work. Because if you start to do that, you may need to bring extra team on board, for example, just help customer service inquiries, customer service, that kind of stuff.
You have to make sure is it profitable now? With the vision you have for this programme or service, is it leading to profitability in the future as well? You need to map that out and you need to work through that. If you cannot do that yourself, then I highly, highly suggest speaking to your accountant who should be able to be helping you with this stuff anyway, who should be able to map this stuff out for you anyway. You can work together to say, “Okay, what does that look like? Is this working for me?”
Those are the three things that I believe are incredibly important when looking at your programmes and your services in your business looking at where you are now and saying, “Do I enjoy delivering these? Are they in line with my vision? Are they profitable both now? As I grow and scale, will they continue to be profitable bearing in mind that you may often have to take on help to support as your programmes and services scale as well? Those are three massively important things.
Now, even if this revenue stream is delivering a million pounds to your top line revenue, this is still incredibly important to assess because if these three things are not in place, then fundamentally, you are leaving money on the table in your business because your energy could be directed somewhere better that will have a massively, massively positive impact rather than focusing on this thing that either you don’t enjoy, is not in line with your vision, or is not highly profitable for you. It doesn’t matter how much this revenue stream is worth for your business. If you don’t have these three things in place, then it’s time to think about pivoting. Is time to think about pivoting your offerings so that you can tick all three of those boxes with the products and services that you’re offering to your clients. The programmes and services that you’re offering to your clients.
I hope that this episode has been useful for understanding how to know when you should stop running one of your programmes. Â Until next time, let’s find the clarity in your numbers, increase your wealth, and get more money in your pockets.
