Amanda McVicker (00:00)
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the OBM educator. If you are in the US, happy Thanksgiving. I am recording this the day before Thanksgiving. So I am in the midst of holiday prep. personally, I love Thanksgiving because it is a holiday that has become a tradition that my mom comes down to visit me.
Probably seven years ago now, I moved away from family. And so for the most part, don't really have much family around me. And so I love that Thanksgiving is a time that my mom comes down, we don't have work, you know, we take the time off and just have like a really nice holiday together. And so I'm very excited. trying to keep it simple.
If you saw my Instagram post yesterday, I shared that I have a 13 page document that I use to prepare for this, which is normal for me at all, but it definitely sounds like the work of an OBM, so on brand. But I'm very excited to get everything going with the holidays, take some time off.
But all of this to say, I just want to say how thankful I am for all of the listeners that I have of the OBM Educator, for those who come back week after week to listen to the episodes, to those who share to their friends and their colleagues and their peers, and then to those who just kind of randomly find me. I'm so thankful for all of you guys. The beginning of this year, I...
was starting, like just starting to get the ball rolling on actually putting out this podcast. It had been something I had thought about a year at that point. And it took me a it out there. And so the fact that it has been out here, out in the world for over six months at this point,
We're at almost 30 episodes. We have dozens and dozens of listeners each week. It just kind of fills my heart with so much joy. And so I'm so thankful for you as the listener being here. And I hope that, my hope is that this podcast has been helpful. Not just a time for me to talk into a mic or whatever, but.
that there are actually things that I'm saying that are helpful to you that are helping you on your OBM journey to build this business that I have held so dear for the past four or five years. And I just, hope that this podcast has been helpful for you in that. So my little.
My little spiel before getting started. So this week is going to be a part two after last week where I was talking about the analytics that you want to be collecting on behalf of your client. Right. A lot of people are looking at 2025 right now and doing their planning. And so I shared some analytics that could be helpful for your client in making strategic decisions and how you would be able to help them.
gather those analytics. So that was last week. This week, we're talking about you. What should you be collecting in your business that's going to help you one, see what's going on in your business? Sometimes we get so sidetracked in the actual client work that we're doing, we kind of forget that we are actually running a business and we need to be aware of what is going on.
but also help you in determining future plans, right? Hiring team members, outsourcing your own business work, amping up marketing, building a website, right? We can see all of this and like what is a strategic move based on analytics that we can gather. So that is what we're gonna be talking about today. Let's get into it.
Welcome to the OBM Educator. I'm your host, amanda McVicker, a veteran OBM who serves six and seven figure entrepreneurs as well as educates new OBM Educator. I'm your host, amanda McVicker, a veteran OBM who serves six and seven figure entrepreneurs as well as educates new OBMs with the skills and confidence they need to start and grow their own successful online business management business. Follow along as I share valuable insights behind the scenes, sneak peeks and proven strategies to help you build a better OBM business.
So depending on where you are at in your business, some of these things are not necessarily going to apply to you quite yet, but it is still a good idea to space for tracking them so that as you grow, you are able to see it all come together. So as I'm talking about this, right, I usually, you know, write notes of what it is that I want to.
discuss, I'm actually looking at a spreadsheet of my analytics from 2021 because I have been tracking what has been going on in my business that long. I'm sure there is a 2021 around here somewhere, but the one that I continue I'm continuing tracking in, I have, know, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 24 in there. And so it's so fun to see.
things expand, right? You know, one of the things I'll talk about is like tracking time. You know, I can see when I got new clients, I can see, that's when I started working with them. that's when I stopped working with them, right? Like this, these analytics kind of end up being like a
like painting a picture of your business. And so that's kind of a fun thing to see in the analytics that you're tracking. Like, you know, this is when I had 25 email subscribers and now I have 300, right? And so that's just like a fun little extra bonus, but let's get into it. What should we be tracking in our OBM service provider business?
So the first thing is going to be pertaining to finances. Usually as an OBM, the main source of your income is going to be retainers. You might have VIP days or strategy sessions. You might have digital products. Maybe you do some mentoring. But as a full-time OBM or a main OBM or whatever,
the majority of your revenue is going to be coming from retainers. So I like to track that, you know, just whatever that total number is. I do break it down into the different categories. So like I said, like retainer, VIP day, strategy session, workshops, digital products, like whatever it is that you're getting money from in your business, I like breaking that down so you can see month to month.
but and then have a total sales revenue section. And then I also like to track my operating expenses. And so in this particular spreadsheet that I'm looking at, I don't have it all broken down because I do have QuickBooks for that. But I do take that final number of what are the expenses that I had.
and then that'll give me my net income. And so from there, I can see, you know, were there some months that spending was a bit more? Did I start working with a new coach? Was I, you know, buying some systems or platforms? If it was a little less, like what was going on there? But then I would be able to see, you know, my net income throughout.
And that also gives me the opportunity to see what my total is for the year, because I do like tracking that.
but having that for each month is really helpful so that you can see the health of your business in terms of money.
So then the next thing I like to track is time. Now I personally work on a hourly retainer system. And so each of my clients have a certain number of hours up to that I work for them. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, but I am tracking all of my time.
So it's really easy for me to just input that in there. But I like to track by client per month so that I can see what the total number of hours that I worked. I also like breaking it down into a weekly average. You know, there are gonna be some months that there's more work going on and some months that there are less. So being able to see that big picture can kind of help me plan.
for future years, especially if you're continuing with the same clients, you can see what those trends are.
I also like to track like for VIP days, aren't necessarily hour based. I like to track how much time I did devote to that just so that I know it in my calculations. Now, if you are a package retainer type person where you're not getting paid hourly, I would still track your time. I think I have had podcasts on this before. Like I still recommend you tracking your time.
because that is going to be the way that you know amount you're working is.
on target the rate that you're charging. And so this would be a great way for you to see per client how much time you are actually working for them and does it make sense with the rate that you're charging.
For me personally, I have a VA and so I like to track their hours as well because that helps me see how much of the total time is going to my team member versus what I'm doing. This can help me in determining do I need to bring on another team member? Does it make sense? Is there enough work for them to do?
So tracking that is really helpful. And then I also do track the business hours that I work. So that's going to be like the time that I spend on content or writing emails or, you know, collecting analytics, right? And so that's going to go in business hours work. That's not like in my total. I don't like having that in my total hours worked, but I do still like seeing that because you can see the
You know, we'll get into a couple more data points in a sec and you can see did those go up based on the amount of time I was working in my business.
So the next few things are gonna depend on how you're marketing yourself, what you have in your own business. I personally have had a website pretty much from the beginning and so I track my Google Analytics. I like seeing how many sessions and page views I have and where traffic is coming from. Those are all things that you can find in Google Analytics. I think that it's
You know, if you put time and effort into having a website and maintaining it, having the analytics to back up what are you getting out of the website is really helpful. I mentioned this last week on something that you can set up for your client, but you could set this up for yourself too, which is search Google Console.
you can see what pages of your website are being clicked on in searches, in Google searches, what was the query that made them click on that page. You can see how many times it was given as an option, like an impression, versus how many times it was clicked. And so,
I know a lot of people when they're building their website, they write blog posts. That's a great way to kind of have some long form content that gets you onto You can then see like what are the blog posts that are helping you get eyes on your webpage.
Another thing that this is going to depend on if you have it in your business or not, but email marketing. So if you do have an email list keeping track of, you know, how many new subscribers you get each month, how many emails did you send? What was your average open rate? What was your average click rate? Again, if we are going to be putting our limited time and energy into something like email marketing or a website, we want to be tracking that analytics.
to see what did we get out of it. And there are times there's nothing, you don't get anything out of it. But it is still nice to track that and see as you go how much you grow, right? Like right now I'm looking, when I first started this in 2021, I had 28 email subscribers and I know now I'm close to 300. And like that is for me personally, like feels like great.
growth. And so I like seeing that. Now in all of 2021, I'm looking at, you know, the open rates and the click rates. And I know things did not come out of it. And I know there are months I never sent emails, but I can look back and see, okay, when I did send an email, what happened? What came from it? So if you get into the habit of tracking that, if you do have those things,
you can see how it benefits your business.
Another thing that I tracked was Instagram followers. Now followers really does not mean anything. But it is a good data point to see, you know, is your account growing? I like to track the number of Instagram posts that I do each month as a way for me to see what it is that I'm doing so that I know like if there's a month that I had zero Instagram posts when I'm like going through.
You'll be like, huh, OK, it's probably time to get one up there. But you can also see, you know, how many new followers are you getting? What happened? What what were you posting that made you get a lot of new followers? Or did you just start engaging with people a lot more? So if you have Instagram like that's a really good analytic to track, it could be the same for LinkedIn or Facebook, you know, whatever.
social platform you use for your business. I also have tracked Pinterest with new followers and monthly viewers and website sessions. Again, if you're putting the energy into a platform, you want to track the information so that it's not just kind of like a willy-nilly thing. You want to get the information that will help you make better decisions.
So another thing that you can track, especially as you are growing your business, are discovery calls or lead conversations, and then the conversion rates of those. So when I was first growing my business, I would have one to three discovery calls a month. And so I liked to track how many and then how many converted into a client.
Cause then you can see, you know, if there was a month that say you had four discovery calls, but a 0 % conversion rate, you can take a step back and be like, okay, what is it about the sales call or the discovery call that's not clicking? Do I need to refresh something? Do I need to see if I, you know, I can find someone to do like a mock discovery call with me to then, you know, get feedback on that, right?
You know, it gives you good information.
And then the last thing that you can track is, you know, client success metrics. This is a bit harder, right? You can't really quantify it all that well. I mean, I guess you could probably break it down into some type of numbers thing, but taking each month to look back on your client work, what are the projects that you accomplished? What were, you know,
Did you get any testimonials? Did you get any kind words, anything like that? If you keep track of that month to month, then you are able to kind of have like a running portfolio to be able to present to someone if you're getting a new client or anything like that. so keeping track of the client success metrics, whether or not it is an actual number that you assigned to it,
Or it's just the gathering of information of what is it that we did this month? Did they have a good launch? Were you able to successfully onboard a new team member? Like all of those things. That's something that you can track.
I hope this was helpful for you. Analytics are one of those things, especially in our own business, that are like the last thing to be done, right? We're usually going, going, going, but taking a step back to review what worked and what could be better is going to be what helps your business grow more in the long
At the time that I am recording this, I'm not quite sure if I'm gonna have this in the show notes or not. But if you are interested in the spreadsheet that I was talking from, I'm thinking of turning this into a template. You can send me a DM on Instagram, which is at Amanda McVicker underscore OBM. The link is in the show notes. Or you can send me an email at hello at AmandaMcVicker.com.
If I don't have the link to the template in the show notes, if you're interested in that, I would be happy to send that over so that you can start tracking your analytics. You know, even if it's starting small, it's going to help in the log.
So again, I hope this was helpful. Stay tuned in December, starting next week. I'm so excited. I am doing a OBM interview series. I'm sure I'll come up with some other name for it by then. But I have been interviewing OBMs who have been crushing it in their business, you know, not in a...
easy way, but in overcoming a lot to get where they're at. And so I'm so excited to share those stories with you guys. And that's going to be all throughout December.
And so I will talk with you guys next week. Bye.
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the OBM Educator. I hope what you heard today is helpful for you on your OBM journey. If you loved today's episode, I would so appreciate you sharing it and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Want to be a guest on the OBM Educator? Fill out the form in the show notes and I'll be in touch. Join us next time on the OBM Educator.