Our conversation drifted toward numbers. Revenues, profits, and the total number of new clients last month were the kinds of things we tried to discuss.

I say “tried” because the conversation came to a pretty quick end.

“I don’t know what my revenues were last month,” she almost screamed at me. The conversation got heated when I asked incredulously, “You aren’t sure?”

As usual, my bedside manner left something to be desired.

She was embarrassed, annoyed, and suddenly angry with me for pushing on the numbers.

“I’m not a numbers person,” she explained as she calmed down.

I thought about asking her how exactly she managed to divide the business interests of her high-asset clients but decided that I’d keep my mouth shut and avoid another upset outburst.

Look, I get it. We think of our own businesses differently. We think of ourselves as professionals rather than business owners. We don’t wander around with our revenues, expenses, and profits running through our brains 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

But we should.

It’s a Numbers Game

We need to be intimately familiar with our numbers. We need to know what happened last year, last month, last week, and yesterday. We need to have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen today, tomorrow, next week, and for the near-term future.

It’s the daily numbers that accumulate into the monthly and annual numbers. We’ve got to be wired in to what’s happening now, or we can’t change the trends for the month and the year.

• Is your associate billing today?
• Will she record five or six hours?
• Are you making the connection between that effort and the total firm revenues for the day, week, and month?
• What about you? Have you completed your time sheets this week or counted the amount of the fixed fees you’ve collected?

Start Crunching the Numbers

You’ve got to get the numbers running through your head. They’ve got to live in your brain and be turned up loud enough that you can instantly tell me about last month’s revenues if I ask. That’s only going to happen if you make it a priority. You’re only going to know the numbers if you make yourself know the numbers.

We all have numbers we prioritize. For some of us, it’s our weight. For others, it’s our credit card balance. You’ve got to put the key metrics of your business on that list.

When you’re living your numbers, when it feels like they’re lit up on a big billboard in your brain, then they’ll start to improve. Awareness is the first step toward making the numbers better and better. It’s time to be ready to answer the key questions and know your key metrics by heart.

Are you ready to answer now? Do you know what your revenues were last month?