It's All About Making Money

Posted On: 2009-12-31

Ok so this is my last column here for this year and that usually means that I talk about the year to come... and I know that lots of people are doing that. Without a doubt it's been a tough year so it's only natural that you might want to look forward to better times next year rather than back at what you've endured but perhaps you should really be looking back at the year that's gone.

I know that can be scary... even when times are good you can look back and wonder how you ever managed to survive but what's the use of heading on into a new year if all you're going to do is make the same old mistakes you made last year?

So now isn't so much the time to look forward as the time to look back. It's a time to go through everything you've done in your business in the old year and think seriously about whether or not it's worth continuing in the new year.

Now I'm not saying that you should ditch everything you did last year and start all over again. What I am saying is that you should look carefully at everything you've done in the last year and identify those things that are losing money... those things that are just breaking even... and those things that are really putting food on your table.

Things that are losing money When you look at each aspect of your business carefully you may be surprised to find that some of the things your're doing... things that you thought were really going to make money... haven't really turned a profit at all. In fact they may not even be breaking even when you consider the time and money that you have to put into them.

But once you've identified those things that aren't making any money don't instantly stop doing them. Instead take a few moments to look beyond the facts and figures for the last year and see if you can't identify the problems that have caused them to lose money rather than make money for you.

When you've identified what went wrong then it's time to decide whether or not you can turn them around and whether the time and effort it will take to turn them around is really worth it or not. Sometimes you can rescue projects that have gone bad and sometimes you can't and knowing whether you can or you can't is the key here.

You also need to be brutally honest with yourself because sometimes the things that have not made you any money may include some of your favorite projects and having the business sense to drop your favorite projects can be the difference between the survival or the death of your business.

Things that broke even Now it's time to look at those things you do in your business that just broke even. Once again you have to be brutally honest here because it could be that your favorite projects were those that made no profit for you.

Of course breaking even is not such a bad thing so you're probably not going to ditch any of these things but you do need to look at them to see if you can identify ways that you could be doing these things better. It may be that a different approach to some of these things could turn them from just breaking even to making a profit and the more things you can move from breaking even to profit making the better your business will be.

Now I did say that there probably won't be anything in the break-even group that you would want to ditch but there may be some things that are marginal... they're only just breaking even ... and the time you spend on these things may return a better profit if you dumped them and used that time to do other things. So don't be afraid to drop some of the things that you do that break even if you think your time can be better spent elsewhere.

Things that make a profit When you're looking at these things there is one very important rule to consider... "if it ain't broke don't fix it"... but that doesn't mean you can look to see if you can identify ways of doing things better so that you make even more money from them.

However, be careful that you don't improve something to the point where it stops making you money.

While you're looking at those things that you do that actually turn a profit see if you can identify ways of branching off from those profitable things you do. For example if you're making a lot of money from big-boob porn then perhaps it's time to show your surfers some mature porn or plumper porn as well.

But once again you must take care not to spend time on something that's not going to make you any money. Your time is precious and you need to focus your time on those things that will go on making you money in the New Year.

So there's something to think about on New Year's Eve... Steve and I will certainly be sitting down to look at what we've done in the last 12 months because we know that there are some things we could be doing much better and there some things we need to drop because... even though they may be pet projects of ours... they're never going to turn a profit.

And in this business... when no one else is going to put food on your table for you... it's all about making money.