I studied accounting at uni. It sucked. The first semester in first year was pretty interesting, and for some reason I decided to stick at it through another 8, mind-numbing subjects. I left university vowing to never look at another debit and credit again and feeling confident that accounting was very, very much not my thing.
Turns out though that it's actually pretty damn useful (who knew?). Design is great, IG engagement is great, but when you're involved with anything to do with money it helps (/is high key essential) to understand the bigger picture. It's easy to get caught up with a pretty ROAS in ads manager, but unless that's the only place you're spending those sweet, sweet marketing dollars (spoiler, it probably isn't and definitely shouldn't be) then it helps to have a closer look.
Whenever you calculate how much something will cost, go back later and see what you actually spent. It sounds simple buuut when you're busy with 1937320 other things it doesn't always feel like a priority. And, from experience, there is nothing worse than realising your margins are actually 20% worse than you think they are or that you've gone way over your campaign budget. The insights you can pull from this kind of analysis will help you make better decisions and use your precious time and dollars more efficiently.
In small businesses particularly, it can be easy to go off and chase an opportunity just because it's there. Now I *love* a bit of carpe diem as much as the next person, but this is a friendly reminder to check your priorities before jumping into something.
For most online businesses, building a consistent growth pattern on the back of good content and strong fundamentals is going to create more success in the long run than a few exciting stunts here and there. Not that you should never try something outside of the box (you should, you 100% should) buuut, you need to understand how that will impact your capacity to deliver on the things that are core to your business. Build the base, then add on - don't just throw the base out.
On that note, don't assume something is essential to your brand's success just because you've been doing it for a long time. Test your correlation/causation and go where the data tells you to go.
While I won't be consolidating any financial statements for subsidiary entities, it turns out paying attention to your numbers and data is pretty useful. Maybe the accountants were on to something after all.
In data we trust
Lizzie x
