The shape and pattern of your sales
Did you know that your sales have a shape, have a pattern, have a tenor to them?
And that the shape of your sales impacts so much about your business?
Today, we’re going to dive into the shape of your sales, bringing in a little aspects from science and math class!
A lot of business advice looks at revenue as a whole for the year.
Advice to get to $5K months.
How to operate a $100K business.
Secrets of a seven-figure entrepreneur.
And yes, there are some qualities about each of those revenue thresholds that are similar.
But then, I started to think about the shape, the patterns of those sales even within the same revenue range. And how those patterns inform how we consider our time, manage our finances, steward our relationships, and impact how we stay resilient.
Let’s take $100K as an example revenue, and if we mapped out our sales pattern over time.
You could have all $100K from a single corporate contract.
There’s a long consultative sales process with a culminating ‘big bang.’
The shape of your output looks like there’s nothing happening until the giant spike, but the relationship activity starts well before the results. If your sales has this shape, you’ll need the commitment to start tending the soil and planting relationship seeds long before you need that process to bear fruit. And plan for a solid cash buffer in case there is any variability in the timing or the project value.
You could have all $100K from sales of 50 $2K coaching programs sold to individuals.
Instead of a year of build up and a big spike, the pattern looks more like a tap-tap-tap-tap, a steady heartbeat. There’s a solid and consistent rhythm of sales calls and enrollments each month, but that requires a consistent way to be introduced to new people and deepen relationships with your audience regularly. And if you don’t love consistency, that might be a pattern that drains you.
You might build up your $100K with offers that range from $500 to $20K, with various products sold across different audiences and needs.
The pattern could look like a mix of big and little spikes, with a lot of variability. Sometimes it feels like you’re throwing darts around a target, nothing is “average” for you. This pattern would indicate you’ve got multiple business models, so are you able to balance and hold across different ways of generating income?
Or you generate $100K on retainer or maintenance plan, with a recurring invoice each month.
That shape could look like a straight line, with a drop-off when clients roll off unless you have a waitlist built up to fill their spot.
Same sales revenue. But a very different shape, pattern, and tenor. And a different implication for how to build resiliency into your business.
So let’s bring science into the mix! What if we looked at our sales rhythm like a wave?
From physics we’re inspired to consider sales as a wave, considering amplitude and frequency.
Amplitude: The height of the sales “wave” - aka the amount of each sales period.
Higher amplitude? More sales revenue at a time. Lower amplitude? Lower sales revenue of a given product or service at at time.
Lower amplitude models include evergreen courses or digital products, short-term advisory services, or retainer-based businesses with a stable monthly payment.
Higher amplitude models include project-based consulting or agency work, big keynote speaking contracts, or a cohort-based course (where the revenue spikes are much larger than with ongoing 1:1 work).
Frequency: The time between “waves” - aka the time between sales.
Lower frequency? A longer time between each sales spike. Higher frequency? More consistent, constant sales.
Are you selling a course launch each quarter where there’s a build up to a launch period? Or are you selling an ongoing individual coaching program that requires a steady inflow of clients?
Here’s what these patterns might ask you to consider:
If your amplitude goes up and frequency goes down, meaning you are having larger sales periods less frequently, we need to embrace that pattern in our nervous system, knowing that we need to take exquisite care of ourselves before and during sales periods.
We need to build in buffers for our finances, deciding how are we paying ourselves and our teams in between sales periods? How are we setting aside money for taxes and planning for any investments we need to make before our next cash infusion? What is our backup plan if our next sales spike is farther away, or less than before?
On the flip side, if your amplitude is lower and frequency is higher, meaning you are having more frequent sales of smaller amounts…
How are you monitoring your metrics to see any changes to sales? Are you keeping an eye on staying regularly visible to keep the marketing flywheel moving?
But more importantly, when you feel the pressure to stay consistent, to always be ‘on’ the sales conveyor belt, what is your process to take time away? How are you building in structures to give yourself white space, to give yourself space to rest and replenish, space to dream up new ideas or to go deeper into a creative project? This is a signal to build partners, advocates, evergreen assets, and even team members that can be visible on your behalf as you build in personal resiliency.
And let’s look at math! What if we mapped our sales distribution out like on a target?
Wide spread versus narrow spread
Spread and Distribution: The uniformity (or not!) in your business
This look at your sales can be both applied to what you’re selling as well as to who you are selling to.
If you’ve got a wide spread, you might make your “average” monthly revenue by selling a number of differently priced products and services. You may sell to a variety of industries, companies, or bubbles in the online ecosystem.
If you’ve got a narrow spread, you’ll be selling the same core offer over and over and over again (that ‘million-dollar’ framework). Or you've tapped into a single referral source as a primary driver of your new clients, or you're working with a select and narrow industry or problem niche.
Here’s what these patterns might ask you to consider:
If you’re selling a wide variety of products, do you know the profitability and purpose of each - the sales and expenses for each product, and how it’s feeding your business and soul?
You’ll need to consider the amount of effort you’re putting into each type of product or target audience. Are there any products or customer segments that are “suckers” on your proverbial tomato plant that you need to prune to grow sustainably? Are you willing, in this season, to have that large of a spread in your products or the spaces you spend time in?
Resilience can come from by having a broader portfolio of products or sources for your work, but could lead to you getting overextended and burned out.
On the flip side, if you’re selling a single offer or receiving most of your leads through a single partner… what’s the health of that relationship, the health of their business?
What’s the health of that core offer, is it still resonating with the market?
Have you outgrown that offer or otherwise seeing a need to shift?
Having a single product, a targeted customer segment, or a strong referral partnership can be a great way to focus… but can leave you exposed to market shifts if you’re not keeping an eye on the landscape. This would be a time to increase resilience by planting new seeds for who and how you serve now, before you need to make a shift.