Kate McKibben breaks down financial planning into three weekly metrics: sales target, conversion target, and lead-generation target. She walks through setting a realistic revenue goal with a 20% buffer, then reverse-engineering weekly numbers based on your funnel type, with benchmark conversion rates for webinars, email sequences, and sales calls.
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If you are either drowning in spreadsheets and tracking every single metric in your business, or you're hiding from your numbers completely because they feel overwhelming, this episode is for you. Because today, in part three of our end of year planning series, I'm breaking down the only three money metrics you actually need to track in 2026. Not 50, not zero, just three. And by the end of this episode, you're going to know exactly what those numbers are and and how to use them to hit your revenue goals. Are you ready? Let's dive on in. Hey there, and welcome back to the Doing It Online podcast. I'm your host, Kate McKibben from HelloFunnels. CO. And this is part three of our end of year planning series. And today I'm talking about the scary thing, numbers. And here's the good news. You only actually need to know three of them. And specifically, we're going to talk about your three money metrics, because these are the numbers that will actually allow you to grow. All right, so in my experience, there are two camps of entrepreneurs, especially in the online space. Camp number one, the super nerds. These are people like me. We love spreadsheets, we love data, we track absolutely everything. And honestly, we probably collect too much of it to the point where it's not even useful anymore because we, let's be fair, it's actually just totally overwhelming. Camp number two are the number avoiders. These are the people who completely hide from their data. They either don't want to know what it says or they find it confusing and overwhelming because there are so many data points they could be looking at and they don't really know what any of it means. And here's the truth. Neither of these approaches is going to get you very far in 2026. So instead, we're going to put on our big girl pants. We're going to have numbers, but we're only going to track a few of the most important ones, the ones that really matter. The ones that show you the health of your business and allow you to make decisions faster and simpler. Because when you know the numbers you need to hit to reach your goals, everything gets easier. And these are what I call your three money metrics. So first things first, is what I want you to do is figure out what is your revenue goal for 2026. And I want you to do something a little different because I want you to set this goal without actually including your marketing budget. Because if you set up the six step scaling system we talked about in part two, your Front end funnel is going to cover your marketing costs. So this is a separate piece. So what we're asking here is how much does it actually cost to run your business? Marketing excluded, what do you need to pay yourself? What other expenses do you have? Do you want to bring on extra people? Do you want more profit? Do you want to increase your take home pay? First I would start with what you need, the covering cost number. Then add on top the bits that you want to get you to where you want to go. And here's my rule, always add at least a 20% buffer on top of that because things happen, life happens, business happens. It's better to always aim a little higher. So that becomes your revenue goal for the year, right? Not some big fancy, glamorous, ego based number that doesn't really mean anything. A real number, one that's based on what you actually want and your business actually needs to earn. Those are way more powerful. Just a little pro tip. All right, step two. Once you know that, we're now going to start looking at these money metrics. So now we're going to assume that your front end funnel is covering your marketing costs, right? We spoke about that before. Which means that your back end offer, your profit offer is going to cover the majority of your revenue goal. Some of you listening have multiple offers where, which can make things a bit complicated. But I don't want you to worry about that and I don't recommend that you get too into the weeds here. So you, here's what you're going to do. You're going to figure out what percentage of your revenue goal this main offer is going to cover. This profit offer, maybe it's 70% if you have other offers, maybe if it's 100, if it's your only offer, then you're going to do the math. How many of this profit offer do you need to sell for you to hit that percentage of your year end goal? Sounds complicated, but it's not. Grab a calculator. You're grown up, you can do hard things. Okay, so once you've got that number, then you're going to break it down further. How many do you need to sell every month to hit that goal? And then how many do you need to sell every week? And that becomes your first money metric, the number of sales you need per week of your profit offer to hit your revenue goal. Maybe it's two, maybe it's five, maybe it's one. Whatever it is, write it down. So, so now you know to hit your revenue goal, you need to make X sales per week of this main profit product. All right, so now you know how many sales you need. The next question is, how do you get those sales? Well, you already decided your main conversion mechanism in part two of this series, so now you just need to know, what does that conversion mechanism typically convert at? And here are some benchmarks for you in case you don't know. So if it's an upgrade sequence from a front end offer, you're usually looking at between 5 to 20% conversion rate, depending on the size of the price jump. So small price jump, usually higher conversion rate, larger price jump, lower conversion rate. Right. If it's a live webinar, then you're aiming for a 5 to 10% conversion rate of those who see the webinar. If it's an evergreen webinar, you're aiming for a 2 to 3% conversion rate for for those who register for the webinar. If it's an email funnel, you're aiming at a 2 to 3% conversion rate as well. If it's a sales call, you're aiming at a 40 to 50% conversion rate for those who book the call. So now you need to be clear, how am I selling this? You already decided this in episode two. And now what is the conversion rate I'm aiming for Then? With those numbers in mind, you get to reverse engineer the number of people you need going through that conversion mechanism to hit your sales goal. So let's keep the math easy. Let's say you need to make two sales per week to hit your goal, and you're using sales calls, and they convert 50%. That means you need to have four sales calls per week to hit your number. That's your second money metric, your conversion goal for the week. And I actually like to make a little scorecard in my diary each week where I write these down and then check them off as I hit them again. Another pro tip. All right, so now you know how many conversions you need. Whether that's sales calls, webinar attendees, or people entering your email funnel. Whatever your mechanism, the final money metric is how many eyeballs do you need now? Or humans do you need to get to that number? So how many people need to come into the top of your funnel and filter down to that conversion number? The rates will vary depending on your conversion mechanism, but once you run it for a couple of weeks, you should start to know what that number is. So let's say you need those four sales calls per week, and you know that roughly 10% of people who enter your funnel end up booking a call. That's pretty high, by the way. But again, I'm keeping the math simple. But that means you need 40 new leads per week. That's your third money metric, your lead goal per week. All right, so here's what we've got. Money metric number one, sales per week of your profit offer. This is your revenue goal, broken down. Money metric number two, conversions per week. This is how many people need to go through your conversion mechanism. Whether it's sales calls, webinar, attendees, email sequence, whatever is the best fit for your offer. Money metric number three, how many new leads do you need per week? This is how many people you need coming into your funnel. That's it. Those are your three money metrics. Write them down, track them weekly, and then make all of your decisions based on hitting those numbers. Now, a couple more things, because, yes, you are probably going to start off being a little under those numbers, and that's normal. The goal is that by the end of the year, you're going to be actually over them and it'll all even out. And then next year, you can set even bigger goals. But just having those clear numbers on hand for this is really powerful because now it's. If you're getting towards the end of the week or the end of the month and you're off track, then you know exactly what you need to do. You're going to know which number is down, and you know which lever to pull to get that number back up. Do you need more leads? Go drive more traffic. Do you need more conversions? Go optimize your webinar or your sales process. Do you need more sales? Go follow up the people who are on the fence. It's that simple. All right, here's your homework for today. I want you to set your real revenue goal for 20, 26, and don't forget that 20% buffer. Then I want you to figure out what percentage of your main offer is going to cover this goal. Then you reverse engineer. How many sales per week do you need? How many conversions per week do you need to get those sales? And how many new leads per week do you need to get those conversions? Write those three money metrics down, put them somewhere you'll see every day, every week, and then track them every single week. And look, if you are sitting here thinking, I don't know what my conversion rate should be, or I really need help figuring out how to reverse engineer this, this is exactly what we help you do inside our programs. We can give you the benchmarks, the tracking systems, and the strategies you need to hit those numbers every single week. So if you're ready to stop guessing and start doing DM us @hellofunnels on Instagram and let's chat. All right, that's it for part three of the End of Year Planning series. Go figure out your three money metrics and start tracking them. Part four drops in just a few days where we're going to show you one great mindset trick that is going to make sure you don't just hit your goals, you absolutely exceed them. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out, and I'll see you in the next episode.
