The 3 Things Business Owners Need to Do Now to Guarantee More Profit in 2026 with Amy Traugh
- Amy Traugh
- Nov 12
- 12 min read
🎧 The Metrics Maven: Data Driven Business Growth Strategy for Solopreneurs is streaming on all platforms. Listen here. Also streaming on YouTube.
The 3 Strategic Moves You Need to Make Now for a More Profitable 2026
Why Next Year’s Profit Starts With What You Do Right Now
Have you ever hit December, looked back at the year, and thought, I worked way too hard for the results I got? If that gut punch feels familiar, you’re not alone. So many solopreneurs put in the effort, pour out their energy, and still end up wondering why their business isn’t reflecting the hours they put in.
Here’s the good news. Nothing is wrong with you. What usually is missing are the metrics that show you the truth about what’s working and what’s quietly draining your time.
If the thought of looking at your numbers makes your chest tighten, please hear this. The numbers are not here to judge you. They are here to guide you. And once you learn how to use them strategically, growing your business becomes easier, lighter, and so much more predictable.
Below are the three strategic moves you need to make before the year ends so 2026 becomes your most profitable year yet, without piling more on your plate.
1. Set Clear Profit Targets and Reverse Engineer Your Metrics
This is where everything begins. You cannot hit a target you never set.
When I say set clear profitability targets, I am not talking about vague goals like “I want to make more money” or “I want my best year ever.” You need actual numbers. So choose your 2026 revenue goal. Then choose your 2026 profit goal.
Now break that down.
Divide your annual revenue goal into four. Those are your quarterly targets.
Then divide by twelve. Now you have your monthly target.
Why does this matter? Because once you know the exact number you need to hit, you can finally reverse engineer the metrics that support it.
Things like:
• How many leads you need
• Your ideal conversion rate
• Your average revenue per client
• Your retention and renewal rate
• Your delivery capacity
This clarity makes your decisions sharper. One of my clients recently wanted to hit $250K but assumed she needed more visibility. When we reviewed her metrics, visibility wasn’t the problem. Her conversion rate was. Increasing it by just 10 percent made her entire plan possible without working more hours.
This is why your metrics matter. They pull you out of reactive guessing and into strategic action.
2. Audit Your Entire Buyer Pipeline to Find the Real Growth Gap
Every business has a growth gap. But most business owners assume the gap is at the top of the funnel, so they spend more time on content, reels, and visibility.
Visibility isn’t always the problem.
When you audit your numbers stage by stage, you finally see where the drop-off is actually happening. Look at your funnel in five sections:
Top of Funnel: Visibility
Reach, impressions, website traffic.
Middle of Funnel: Engagement
Clicks, email opt-ins, lead magnet conversions.
Lead Quality
Are the right people entering your world or just freebie grabbers?
Sales Metrics
Discovery calls booked, calls converted, sales page conversions.
Retention and Referrals
Renewals, repeat purchases, referrals, client lifetime value.
Most drop-offs happen in the middle or bottom of the funnel, not the top.
One of my clients thought she had a visibility problem. But when we looked closer, her drop-off was happening after someone asked for her pricing. Her response time was inconsistent, and once we tightened that up, conversions increased almost immediately.
This is why I always say: your growth gap is almost never where you think it is.
Want help identifying yours? Grab my free checklist at amytraugh.com/gap. It will show you exactly where clients are slipping through the cracks.
3. Create a Monthly Metrics Review Cadence That Keeps You Strategic
Here is where so many solopreneurs quietly sabotage their results.
They finally decide to track their metrics, but then they check their numbers weekly. A slow week hits and suddenly everything feels like it’s falling apart. They change their strategy too soon, panic-adjust their offers, or assume something is wrong.
Weekly data is just a snapshot.
Monthly data is a pattern.
Monthly reviews show you the truth about your business without the chaos.
Look at:
• Total leads
• Leads to consults
• Consults to clients
• Revenue received
• Revenue projected
• Profit
• Retention and referrals
• Content performance
• Capacity
Monthly reviews help you compare apples to apples, not apples to “I had a sick kid, my energy was low, and Instagram glitched that week.”
This is what keeps you grounded, focused, and in control.
Why Solopreneurs Avoid Their Numbers (and Why You Need to Stop)
Most business owners avoid their numbers because they assume the data will confirm that they are behind. But the opposite is true. The data simply tells you what’s working, what’s not, and what to do next.
Your metrics are neutral. They are not personal. They are not emotional. They are information.
And when you learn to look at them through the lens of curiosity instead of fear, everything shifts. You stop reacting. You start leading. You make decisions with clarity, and you grow your business with so much more ease.
This is how you build a profitable 2026 intentionally instead of leaving it up to chance.
If you're ready to finally ditch the data drama and create a simple, repeatable process for growth, this is exactly what we do inside Metrics Mastery.
Get started for free at amytraugh.com and let’s build a business that’s backed by strategy, not stress.
Until next time, stop guessing and start growing.
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Transcript for Episode 443. The 3 Things Business Owners Need to Do Now to Guarantee More Profit in 2026
@0:04 - Amy Traugh (Amy Traugh)
Have you ever had a year where you hit the month of December and thought, wow, I worked way too hard for the results that I got?
Today, let's dig in and fix this problem by breaking down exactly what you need to be doing right now so that 2026 becomes your most profitable year yet, but without piling into even more onto your plate because I know you're busy.
We all are. We're running our businesses. We're wearing all the hats. We're doing all the things, but I want you to know if the thought of metrics makes your chest tighten, you are not alone.
Most business owners are avoiding this work because they're afraid that the numbers are going to confirm the fears that they're behind, but it's actually the opposite is true.
Your numbers show you. Where your effort is actually paying off and where those little opportunities are that will grow your business with so much less stress.
Your metrics are literally the biggest differentiator between a profitable year and a year where you're just kind of stagnant in growth.
And today I'm going to walk you through three strategic things that you can do right now that will set you up for a profitable 2026.
The first thing that you need to do is establish really clear targets and then reverse engineer them into metrics checkpoints.
I want to start with this because it's all about clarity. And when you don't have that clarity, what ends up happening is everything feels like you're guessing.
So when I say set clear profitability targets, I am not talking about like these vague goals that we have.
I want to make more money. I want to live my best life ever. I'm going to get to the next level.
No, let's choose a actual number for your 2026 revenue and profit. And then I want you to break that number down, divide it into four.
Now you know exactly how much you need to bring in each quarter. But then break it down even further into months.
Divide that number by 12. So now you have a clear, tangible target. Because when you know exactly what that number is, you can reverse engineer the steps that you need to take to make it happen.
It's just like planning a road trip. If you want to drive from Ohio to California, you don't just hop in your car and hope that you're going to end up somewhere with palm trees.
You have to choose. the destination. You have to figure out how many hours a day you'll drive. You have to put that information into your GPS and then make plans to stop along the way because you can't stay awake for days on end.
You can't keep driving without fuel in your car. And without a plan, this is what ends up happening. You're just driving around and hoping that it works out.
And you're wasting so much time, energy, all of your resources. But when you know what that revenue target is, you can map out supporting metrics like, okay, how many leads do I actually need to have in my funnel?
What is that conversion rate that I'm reaching towards? What is the average value of each customer? What are my retention and renewal rates?
What is my delivery capacity? And when you have clarity on these numbers, you can really see what's realistic, what needs optimized.
And where to focus first, because when you know your target, you can hit your target. I had a client recently, and her goal was to hit $250K, right?
But when we broke down her metrics, we realized that she did not have a lead volume problem. Her problem was actually conversion.
And instead of focusing more on visibility this year, she focused on improving her consult call rate, the conversion rate, by just 10%.
This shift alone made her entire revenue plan achievable without having to work more hours or put more energy into visibility.
This is how metrics help you make strategic decisions instead of reactive ones. So that's step one. Step two, I want you to audit your entire buyer pipeline from discoverability to...
To retention, to identify where the drop-ups are actually happening. Every single business has a growth gap. And most solopreneurs assume that their gap is at the top of the funnel.
So what ends up happening? Do they focus on creating more content, spending more time on social media, more visibility?
Sometimes that can be the issue, yes. But typically the gap is hiding somewhere else. And when you audit your pipeline through a metrics lens, you'll look at each stage separately instead of treating your business like one big blob of marketing.
So how do we do this? Well, you can start to look at metrics within each category of your funnel.
So let's start top of funnel, visibility metrics. Look at things like impressions, reach, your website traffic. Then we drop down to engagement metrics.
What are the click-through rates? What is the conversion rate from social media to... your lead magnet. Let's look at the lead quality.
Who's actually entering your world and how qualified are they? Because if you have a bunch of people just coming into your world to grab your freebie, okay, well, that's great, but you're just giving free stuff away.
You're not actually attracting those qualified leads who will turn into clients. Let's look at sales activity. How many calls ended up booking?
How many of those did become clients? Let's look at those conversion rates of your freebies, of your lead magnets, of your calls.
And then let's look at retention and referrals. I like to think of this as like walking through a house, right?
Sometimes you have these beautiful homes on the outside, but when you go inside, it's just a hot mess. None of the switches work.
The sinks are leaking. The door doesn't latch. And these are all small issues that aren't obvious from the outside.
But absolutely affect the way the home functions. And your business is the same. The number of followers you have on Instagram might look amazing.
But if your conversion rate from call to client is sitting at 6% when it needs to be closer to 25%, this is your like aha moment, right?
I had a client recently as well. She discovered that her biggest drop-off wasn't happening with discoverability. She was gaining followers.
She was getting awesome engagement. But she had a drop-off when someone would ask for her price and actually book a call.
She assumed that people just weren't interested. But her metrics told another story. People were really excited to work with her.
But her response time was really, really inconsistent. And once she tightened this up, her conversion rate increased. almost immediately.
And once you identify your growth gap, you can make small adjustments instead of changing everything and hoping that something clicks.
This is what moves your business forward without chaos. I even created a free checklist for you. you go over to amytraugh.com slash gap, that helps you pinpoint the exact gap costing you clients and cash.
It's a super easy checklist. Make sure you head on over there. The link is in the show notes. And grab it.
Go through it. And step three, create a simple, consistent review cadence. This is where I see so many solopreneurs accidentally sabotaging their growth when they finally decide, okay, I need to look at my metrics, right?
They start obsessing over them. They start looking at their numbers every single week. And what happens? Inevitably, there's going to be a dip.
And what happens is they immediately change their strategy. But the problem with this, yes, it's good to have information, but when you're basing your decisions off of weekly data, you're basing your decisions off of little, what I call snapshots.
And that weekly ebb and flow in business, it can be influenced by so many things. Holidays, algorithm shifts, if social media goes down, if school's on break, or even your own energy that week, you know, if you were sick or have a sick kid at home, you know, things may dip.
It's okay. This is life. We are human. But what happens is when we're basing our decisions off of these little snapshots in time, we're not seeing the whole story.
So I always encourage clients to look monthly. Don't worry about your stats every single week. Look at them monthly because this gives you a better, clearer picture of what's actually happening inside your business because now you can see the trends.
Not just the noise. And we want to, again, be looking at those metrics that reflect the full client journey.
You'll look at total leads. Leads to consult. Consult to client. Revenue received. Revenue projected. Look at your profit and expenses.
Look at your retentions and referrals. Look at the trends in visibility engagement. And know what your current capacity is.
Monthly reviews help you compare apples to apples. So instead of reacting to a slow week or getting excited about your best week ever, you're evaluating your business in an objective manner.
It's this way that supports long-term sustainable growth. It's like brushing your teeth, you know? If you only are brushing your teeth right before you go to the dentist appointment, you might feel a little stressed because each time you don't know what they're going to find.
But if you're brushing every single day, it's like, okay, you know, maybe a cavity is going to come up, but I know.
Oh, did everything that I could to prevent that. It helps you be informed. Your business works the same way, the same with your metrics.
And when you're looking at them consistently, nothing really feels scary anymore. You learn to see those issues early, make those adjustments, and keep everything trending in the right direction.
This is how you build a profitable year intentionally instead of just hoping it all works out. And when you have this rhythm in place, everything is so much easier.
I can't even begin to tell you. It helps you stay focused, grounded, and able to make decisions backed by data instead of impulse and being reactive.
So why are we avoiding this? Well, it's simple, and we've talked about this before. It's because data feels emotional.
It's when the numbers dip, it is so easy to internalize it and spiral. into the fact that, oh my gosh, I'm behind.
My business is failing. I'm not doing enough. And if you've ever opened up your analytics and looked at your metrics and felt your test tighten and thought, nope, not today.
I'm not doing this. You're not alone. But by avoiding your numbers, you're going into that reactivity mode. That's when you start making decisions based on fear and frustration instead of strategy.
And then you end up changing your offers too fast. You end up chasing new and shiny objects and clinging on to the things that feel comfortable even if they're not supporting business growth.
It gives the illusion of movement, but it's not actually creating long-term results in your business. This is where it is so important that you truly step into the role of CEO.
And we talked about this in the CEO mindset a few episodes ago, because as the CEO of your business, your role isn't.
isn't. Your take the numbers personally. Your role is to look at the data objectively so that you can lead with clarity rather than emotion.
That objective view is your differentiator. And most solopreneurs never develop this skill. But the ones who do are the ones who build sustainable and profitable businesses because they can see what is really happening instead of what they hope is happening.
Your numbers are neutral. They're not judging you. They are there to inform you. And when you shift from this might show me what I'm doing wrong to this is actually going to help me.
It's going to help show me the way. Everything gets easier. Trends guide your decisions. And you see issues before they even turn into fires.
And you can see opportunities that you might have missed. And decisions just become so much more effective. This is what
It lets you grow your business with clarity, confidence, and ease, and will set you up to make 2026 your most profitable year yet.
If this episode resonated with you, this is exactly what I love helping clients with inside my signature program, Metrics Mastery, and working one-on-one with clients.
You can get started for free over at amytraugh.com. And until next time, stop guessing and start growing.
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