This question coming from a financial coach probably seems a little odd. But the fact is, you may be losing business by being too cheap with your company. Perhaps you have been holding off finding a VA or new software or marketing support. As entrepreneurs we sometimes tend to count pennies and ignore the bigger benefits that we would receive by investing a little money.

I don’t think that you should throw your money around willy nilly, however. I want to give you a quick and easy process you can use to help you make the decision to either invest in new products and services, or to find the places to trim products and services you no longer need or use. The Cost-Benefit analysis for this is simply a tool to examine whether the benefit of something in your business will outweigh the actual cost of having it.

The easiest way top do this is to sit down and write, yes hand write all of the benefits of adding the new product or service. Be specific. For example, a Virtual Assistant will save you time that can be better available for money making activities. Email Automation can make sure nobody who opts in for your newsletter falls through the cracks. And continue to list the benefits that you will personally receive in your business. Then look at the cost, financially, to your business. Many times, when you write it all out, the investment is a “no brainer” and your business will benefit so much you need to add whatever it is, now.

On the flip side, if you are wondering whether to keep something in your business, you can use the same approach. If the benefits (be honest) are not enough to justify the cost, you can likely remove or replace the product or service. I do this periodically because software and platform products evolve and add services, and it is possible that I no longer need a particular product because the function is available in something else, I am already using. I find this process especially helpful when I am trying to decide, “what goes next?” in my business.

I use a cost-benefit analysis almost every time I make a decision to spend money. I keep a list of products and services I would like to have that would make my life easier or would make my client’s experience better. When I have to choose between two services, because I want to make every change financially sustainable, I write the benefits of each service, relative to the cost, and decide which one gets me closer to my goals faster, or the one that makes back my investment quicker.

It’s critical to spend the “right” amount of money in your business every month to allow you to sustain your current level and facilitate growth. If you haven’t used this process before and need to make a next investment decision (or to remove a service) set aside some time before the start of 2020 to try it.