How you doin'?

How's business?

If you're in business for yourself, you've been asked this once, twice... okay anytime anyone who knows you sees you this is probably the first question they ask.

I always answer "fine" or "good" or something else pleasant and upbeat - any other answer isn't all that appropriate for the masses IMHO.

But can you answer this question objectively for yourself? And how do you really know how you're doing? One way (but not the only way) to do that is to compare ourselves to everyone else.

There's a fantastic website, bizstats.com, that has taken data from many (sole-proprietorship) businesses and compiled it in a useful way for the rest of us. Go ahead and click on your industry and type in your gross sales from last year. You'll get a fantastic indication of what your expenses and net income should be based on everyone else.

The other neat thing to check, especially if you're a retail business, is the Sales Per Square Foot (SPSF) section. This is one interesting retail benchmark. Unfortunately, it's not necessarily helpful beyond giving a warm fuzzy. For example, the only stores I can really compare my paint your own pottery business to are the listings for Jo-Ann, Hancock and Michael's (arts and crafts businesses). Note that the SPSF range from $75 to $204 for these 3 businesses. That's a pretty large range. The SPSF for my business happens to be somewhere in the middle.

So what can I take away from that...? If my SPSF was under $75, things wouldn't be good and I'd be worried. If it was over $204, things would be wildly fantastic. It's really just a point of interest beyond that. Since I have a single retail location, I'm comparing my number to these other businesses. If I believed that my current number is acceptable for my single location, and was planning to open a second store, I'd set this SPSF as a goal. Make sense?

So take a look at your numbers and answer these questions for yourself... what's you're sales per square foot for each year you've been in business? What about each month? If you have multiple locations, how do they compare with each other? If you're not open yet, based on these numbers, can you set a goal for yourself?

Have fun!