Finally, Finance Training for Marketers, Business Owners and Brand Builders From a Former Investment Banker…
Using These Inside Secrets That Took a Business to Almost 50% Return in Invested Capital Per Year!
It’s shocking but true.
Most marketers are missing out on creating high value in their businesses.
Even after working hard, not taking vacations, and sacrificing precious family time, they will never create the value they had hoped for.
Most businesses barely make net profit margins of greater than 10%
(Not the vanity metric, Return on Ad Spend, you see plastered in Facebook newsfeed)
And that’s being generous because owners aren’t paying themselves enough.
Let’s take an average margin of 7%.
Even with revenues of $1M, it only makes a net profit of around $75,000…
This means the median exit price is a disappointing $290,000, which is not a lot of money for the years of blood, sweat, and tears they’ve put in.
Because most marketers and business owners aren’t taught the required financial thinking and ‘engineering’ skills to maximize profits and the value of their business.
This goes well beyond… launching an offer…staring at stats in ads manager… obsessing over ROAS…
You can change this today…
Check out this graph from a previous business I worked with…
Return on Invested Capital of Real Company. You’ll learn the steps taken and how to apply this for your own business.
If you’re a marketer or business owner, then this is the most important metric you want to manage.
In fact, every business owner should view this graph monthly or at least once a year!
But you’ll be hard-pressed to find many marketers or business owners who are even heard of this metric, let alone tracking it…
Yet, they track ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) from their ads manager.
And not a Return on Investment Capital…
But ROIC, or Return on Invested Capital, IS the ROAS of business.
Before we understand ROIC, let’s define it…
Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) is the Profit Divided by All Capital or Investment in your business.
ROIC = Profit / (Debt + Equity)
(Debt is money you’ve borrowed to fund your business and equity is your hard earned cash invested in your business).
There are 2 reasons why you must track this number…
Reason #1: Making above the ‘Hurdle’ Rate!
Consider these 2 options…
Invest $100,000 in a business and make a $5000 net profit.
OR
Investment $100,000 in a bank and make $5000 in net interest.
You’d pick the bank.
Easy peasy profit. You can get stranded on an island or go to sleep for a full year, and you’d make 5%.
Now consider the business…
You’d have to turn up, hire people, file tax returns, work late at night and weekends, lose sleep when you have a bad month, and a myriad of truly ‘pain-in-the-ass’ things you are responsible for even if you’re not doing these yourself.
Let’s just call this…
The Business PITA Premium is the EXTRA rate of return you’d want to get for dealing with PITA issues.
There are ways to calculate the PITA premium, which you’ll see below.
Let’s make our PITA Premium 10%.
So the bank rate + PITA Premium = 5% + 10% = 15%.
Your $100,000 investment in your business must make you 15% for it to be equivalent to the bank’s 5%.
You’ll want compensation for this extra risk we’re calling the PITA Premium.
This 15% return is called the Hurdle Rate.
A 5% ROIC means that even if you’re making a profit, you are not making 15%, which the percentage profit you should be making.
You’re not getting paid to take on the PITA Premium.
In fact, this reduces the value of your business!
Think about this!
You’re making a profit, but the value of the business is actually going down!
We’ll go through this below, and you’ll discover how to calculate your own hurdle rate below.
Reason #2: Impossible to Scale a LOW ROIC Business
Almost all growth has to be financed. You might finance it from profits or by injecting debt or some of your own money.
There is no way around this. Even if you have customers paying you upfront, you may not hit the hurdle rate.
In this case, you’re cashflow positive while running a loss-making business…
Until one day, losses catch up to you. And you can no longer pay your bills.
And you’ll have to make the tough decision whether to pump more money and make a bad situation worse…
Or close the business and say goodbye to everything you’ve worked for.
IMPORTANT: This nearly happened to cashflow positive agency making about $1M per month, but with a very simple spreadsheet we’ll show you in a moment, this could have been detected and avoided completely.
In fact…Most businesses will never successfully scale a business because they lack a foundational understanding of finance.
Let alone have the skills to optimize their financials for maximum returns and exit values in minimum time.
Perhaps you’re just doing annual tax returns, and that’s perfectly ok.
But now you know better; you have no choice but to maximize the value of your business.
And create a business that competitors are fighting each other to buy!
Covid was nothing.
The real pandemic in business is spending years on a business and getting hardly anything for it!
Before we continue…
I am the founder of LeadsHook, a personalized marketing platform used in over 30 countries for marketing and leadgen.
Millions of leads have been generated… Everything from a handful a week to about 200,000 leads in a single day!
Campaign scaled to 200,000 leads per day!
I’ve worked with thousands of businesses to improve their marketing but almost always, we also need to ‘fix’ up their financial reporting.
In my prior life, I worked in investment banking, so I have a unique perspective on finance, mathematics, marketing, and technology to solve business problems.
I do almost all of our new user onboarding calls for LeadsHook. This gives me privileged access to information, offers, and their numbers.
“A short answer would be – watch every Nik Thakorlal video in his courses. He really is a master and his teaching helped me think about it differently.”
After consulting with over 4000 marketers and business owners, most are either clueless or treat financial analysis almost as an afterthought…
Things like… giving an external bookkeeper their old shoebox of receipts or PDFs in a Google Drive or Dropbox folder.
Typical way finances are handled in most businesses...
So as long as the tax returns are done, the finance part is done!
Worst part is most businesses don’t know… even profitable ones… that what they’re doing is NOT increasing the value of their business.
Life of a business owner is hard. You take an enormous amount of risk.
You sacrifice your sleep, weekends, and perhaps time away from family. Maybe you’re among the 70% of business owners who don’t take holidays!
(Yes, I was shocked to learn this as well!)
You risk your hard-earned savings for a better life for your loved ones.
Perhaps family time is having your face glued to your mobile…
You’re there but not there!
It doesn’t have to be that way.
The quickest and fastest way to stop and reverse this trend is to know your numbers.
Discover the 'levers' in your marketing numbers.
The image above is a spreadsheet you can get, which gives a breakdown of the ROIC number.
Think of these numbers as components or levers you know and can influence to change the final topline number.
ROAS is influenced by metrics like Clickthrough Rates and Conversion Rates. Similarly, ROIC is constructed from its component metrics.
In fact, these financial metrics filter down to marketing, operational, and sales metrics.
This is how you manage the financial performance of your business and make business decisions that impact marketing, sales, and operations.
And these move further up to impact various financial metrics.
This, ultimately, feeds into ROIC.
Return on Capital broken down into its components
Today, you have an opportunity below to finally see your own levers…
For the first time, you’ll see which levers are in the red.
This immediately informs you of the marketing, sales, or operational changes you must make to turn your business around…
Having personally reviewed and optimized thousands of businesses across over 30 countries and 130+ niches, a common thread ties the truly wealthy ones together.
It’s the power of Joint Ventures (JVs).
JVs can catapult your business into new markets, boost your credibility overnight, and dramatically increase your profits—all with minimal effort and in record time.
“96% of B2B leaders expect to increase revenue directly attributed to their partner ecosystems.”
But here’s the thing: you can’t just waltz into a high-value partnership.
Industry leaders aren’t looking for just anyone. Their reputations are on the line.
To get their attention, you need to bring value to the table.
Proven expertise or glowing recommendations can open doors.
One non-negotiable? Financial Acumen.
Only when you understand your numbers and can confidently discuss potential partnerships will you get the nod.
Without a solid foundation in finance, your chances of attracting these top-tier JVs diminish rapidly.
That’s where Finance SOS steps in. Not only will you master the basics, but you’ll also dive deep into understanding the nuances of finance in these partnerships’ work and give a strategic breakdown to benefit both sides.
(And also make sure you’re not getting screwed in the process.)
This knowledge?
It’s your leverage.
The difference between them chasing you rather than the other way around.
Financial savvy is crucial for business owners, even more so if you’re targeting JV partnerships.
But what about freelancers, agencies, and consultants?
Many of us begin our journey in the digital marketing world with one core skill—be it copywriting, media buying, or development.
You see, there are tens of thousands who can set up FB Ads. But how many of them possess a deep financial understanding to pinpoint the levers that extract even more profit without additional spending?
Very few.
And copywriters? They’re a dime a dozen.
Sure, they can craft a compelling email or sales page. But how many can quickly analyze conversion stats to identify where the funnel falters and what requires adjustment to maximize revenue?
With Finance, you’re no longer just a copy-and-paste agency…
You’re an agency with CMO/CMF level competency.
Knowing this stuff allows you to have the skills and capability to do more for your clients and play a much bigger client game.
And differentiating yourself in the market is no longer just a ticket to becoming a more versatile marketer.
Distinguishing yourself isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity.
With AI evolving and countless SaaS platforms launching, specialists with only one skill might soon become obsolete.
Those who expand their toolkit, especially in misunderstood yet crucial areas like finance, will thrive.
In this vast sea of digital sameness, upskilling is your lifeline.
And mastering finance?
That’s the ace up your sleeve.
This is the first course of its type that a marketer has delivered with a background in investment banking.
This course is unique because it’s all about extracting maximum value for your business from your marketing, sales, and operations. It’s a practical course for immediate impact.
This course covers a wide range of topics to give you a complete understanding of your finance and economics…
Module 1: Decoding Financial Mysteries: Your Guide to Financial Statements
1.1 Unveiling the Basics: The ABCs of Financial Statements
1.2 The Power of Interpretation: Unraveling Balance Sheets, Income Statements, and Cash Flow Statements
Module 2: Mastering the Lifeblood of Business: Cash Flow Planning and Analysis
2.1 The Heartbeat of Your Business: Understanding the Operating Cash Flow Cycle
2.2 The Strategic Player: Diving into the Investing Cash Flow Cycle
2.3 Your Key to Financial Agility: Strategies for Optimizing Working Capital Accounts
2.4 A Peek into the Future: Long-term Investments and Calculating ROI
Module 3: The Crystal Ball of Business: Valuing Future Opportunities and Optionality
3.1 The Magic of Possibilities: Understanding Optionality in Business
3.2 Hidden Treasures: Valuing Opportunities that May Not Provide Immediate Cash Flow
3.3 The Art of the Unknown: Decision-making Strategies for Uncertain Future Payoffs
Module 4: The Growth Code: Unpacking Financial Metrics for Growth and Profitability
4.1 Your Business Health Check: Key Financial Metrics for Businesses
4.2 The Art of Efficiency: Making the Most of Your Capital
4.3 The Growth Thermometer: Monitoring Revenue, Customer, and Leads Growth
Module 5: Value Amplification: Taking Action to Increase Business Value
5.1 The Value Booster: Strategies for Increasing Business Value
5.2 From Analysis to Action: Implementing Changes Based on Financial Analysis
Module 6: The Big League: Advanced Topics in Business Finance
6.1 Your Growth Engine: Investment Strategies for Businesses
6.2 The Price Tag: Business Valuation Techniques
6.3 The Profit Machine: Profitability Analysis and Growth Planning
Module 7: The Golden Thread: Linking Marketing & Sales Expenditure to Cash Flow and Valuation
7.1 The Money Trail: How Marketing and Sales Spending Impacts Your Cash Flow
7.2 Investing in Growth: Understanding the ROI of Your Marketing and Sales Efforts
7.3 The Valuation Effect: How Strategic Marketing and Sales Spending Can Boost Your Business Value
(This list alone is worth many times the price you’re paying today)
How to fix your offer using the “Assumptions vs Reality” zoom-in method used by management accountants! In fact, this is even more powerful when used by marketers!
And so much more because your feedback during calls will guide this course…
We’ll even look at how to finance high growth.
I think many businesses create marketing campaigns or offers with massive lifetime values but are cashflow negative on the front end.
Unfortunately, without understanding how to fund growth, there is a reluctance to scale.
Well, there is no need to turn a funding problem into a marketing problem…
It’s magnitudes times easier to solve funding problems than marketing problems.
Unfortunately, you can’t fund anything unless you understand the economics or unit economics of your business.
Truly this course is one of its kind.
And you’re in luck if you’re still reading because there is no other place to get this material taught by a marketing and finance practitioner with 30 years of experience.
This gets you as close as possible to becoming a World Class CFO for your own business. And you’ll have the confidence to hire and keep your CFO honest.
Now, it’s time for you to decide…
While you’re getting ready to join Finance SOS Training, take a moment to realize the permanent value you’re creating in your own capability, worth tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Average yearly salary of a CFO in the US
Use these new thinking skills to maneuver profitability growth and ‘set you up’ for a life exit that could be worth millions!
Here’s the truth: Financial analysis keeps your marketing honest!
It forces you to make better decisions and choices of the opportunities and offers you’ll launch… all the way to… what types of long-term investments you should make.
You’ll be asking new and different sets of questions.
You’ll approach and solve business problems from a new finance vantage point.
It’s all about eliminating the financial Achilles Heel, and that makes you a more considered thinker.
Ultimately, the ability to outthink your competition is the most scalable skill.
Your ability to checkmate your problems instead of toiling away with an old, obsolete framework.
The opportunity to FINALLY become an expert in your business finances...Will you take it?
Once you learn these skills, you can never unlearn them.
These are foundational skills to help with your business, your marketing, your investments, and your retirement.
Do you find yourself going through the drudgery of working out how to do something all over again… yet again, but you can’t remember what you did last time?
Or does your team keep asking for the same things over and over again?
It’s tiring, a huge waste of your mental energy, and these distractions have a very high cost.
Now multiply this by tens or hundreds of questions per month, and no wonder you’re working 50-80 hours per week and still not getting anything done!
Most, if not all, business owners are needlessly carrying around mental maps or pictures of how things work in their businesses.
This is so easily solved by creating business process maps.
Business process mapping looks trivial but is one of those critical practices to scale your business dramatically.
One more thing… this is a necessary step to automate your business.
Far too many businesses are automating the wrong part of their business. This is where your automation is not reducing your business complexity and the hours you’re working.
You’ll learn how to process map your entire business.
You’ll also learn how to prioritize and automate the right part of your business so you and your team eliminate brain-dead activities and only work on real ‘needle-movers’
Business process mapping is critical to scaling your business
While Bonus #1 shows you the map of the flow of information, money, and resources, standard operating processes are the recipes to get stuff done.
Business process maps take care of the big picture part… how different processes, team members, departments, apps, and systems relate to each other.
Standard operating procedures are recipes to create the best outcomes.
You’ll learn how to ensure you have 3 main parts every SOP must have. This goes beyond just having folders of Google Docs or a specialist app no one ever uses.
How to create a culture of ‘going-to-SOPs.’ And to stop pestering team members for things like…
“How do I download invoices from Facebook?” or “I’ve created a new Facebook ad… should I post it online?”
You’ll receive a standard set of SOPs for finance so your financials are up-to-date and your KPIs, metrics, and financials are serving you.
This bonus is easily a course on its own!
What would you pay to have the market tell you with pinpoint accuracy what hooks and appeals they want you to have with them!
Many years ago, I was in the consumer goods business selling products like toothpaste and deodorant sprays through large grocery and pharmacy chains…
This is a high-risk business where you can easily spend thousands to hundreds of thoughts to a few million dollars to launch a new product.
This is just an investment in marketing and buying offline media like TV spots. This does not even include product R&D, product development, and inventory investment.
You don’t have the benefit of jumping into Canva to smash out creatives in a few minutes and upload them into a $20 per day Facebook campaign…
Getting it wrong is expensive…
So, we spent much time on research, analysis, and market testing.
One of the main powerful ways to reduce risk is to do a ‘concepts test’ to find appeals and hooks that resonate with your market.
You get the complete concepts-testing framework, including how to think like an investment manager. Amazingly, this method is as powerful and gets fast results with online businesses!
All marketers and business owners are Investment Managers. You are deploying capital with the hopes of bringing back profits…
If you lose 10% of your capital, then you need to make 11% to get back to even!
Lose 20%, and now you need to make 25% to get back to even…
Lose 50%, and now you need to make 100% to get back to even.
Investment managers deal with this every day, but marketers and media buyers are too lax with managing their ad spend.
Like investment managers, marketers have to spend. But there is a way to model your offer that ensures you don’t move from testing to wasting…
This is called the Profitability Litmus Test…
The Profitability Litmus Test keeps you, your media buyer, and whoever else is spending your hard-earned capital honest.
The goal is to invest in your marketing without wasting. More importantly, knowing if this campaign will ever be profitable.
You’ll be shocked to learn how much money you might have wasted so far in your business. The great news is that this STOPS right now.
You’re earning money from your business, but are you growing it smartly?
One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is not diversifying and optimizing their personal investments.
I’ve seen too many owners’ businesses flourish while their personal wealth stays in first gear.
Or the words of one of our users…“Most marketers are broke”
And when a business’s inevitable revenue peaks…drop into a troth (sometimes staying there), they are left battered, bruised from years of hustling, and nothing left in their bank account for the future.
With the only option to start again from scratch.
But this can be avoided.
Now, it’s a common misconception personal investment is just about stocks, bonds, or real estate.
Actually, it’s more about understanding where to park your funds, diversifying risks, and ensuring your hard-earned money works as hard as you do.
In this bonus, you’ll learn:
Unlike most, as a business owner, you’re uniquely positioned to intelligently leverage business profits into personal growth.
Without aggressively investing 75% of your income, living in a 10ft by 10ft studio and living on a diet of crackers and water for the next ten years.
Instead, learn the strategies that the big dogs in finance use to maximize their wealth and secure their future in the quickest time possible.
Your personal investments are the natural progression of revenue from your business, not the broken link in attaining your “I never have to worry again” bank balance.
While you know your way around your industry, you might feel like you’re floundering in the deep waters of finance.
Now, even though after Finance SOS, you’ll have CFO expertise and the skills to keep your financial team honest.
(Think of it as your insurance policy.)
It doesn’t mean you’ll handle it on a day-to-day basis.
You’ll need a solid finance team drives your business in the direction of growth, stability, and profitability.
Yet, recruiting isn’t just about hiring – it’s about finding the right fit, understanding roles, and ensuring each team member ‘walks the walk’ and not ‘talks the talk’.
In this insightful bonus:
Your finance team isn’t just a part of your business – they are the guardians of your future.
Get it right, and you’ll have a team of growth multipliers…
Get it wrong, and you’re playing Russian roulette with your livelihood.
Each bonus itself is easily worth thousands of dollars.
If you hired a CFO to process map your business and create finance SOPs, you’ll easily pay $10,000+
And if you hired a finance analyst with a strong marketing background to model your offers and build financial models to validate your offer, you’d easily pay another $5,000-$10,000.
Coupled with the Finance SOS Training that gets you close to the CFO level, this course is pretty much free for the value you’re giving you’re creating for yourself and your business.
Amazingly, you’re unlikely to get this information packaged for someone who wants to grow his online business or marketing agency.
Join the training now for $1999, including all the financial models and 4 bonuses.
P.S. If you’ve read this far, then you probably need to level up with your financial brain.
Click the button above and join the Finance SOS training.
Sources
Profit Reference: https://www.thekickassentrepreneur.com/profit-average-small-business/
Exit Reference: https://massbudget.org/2022/10/24/fsa-small-business-sales/
Ok, well, it’s a misconception that Tracking is just to ‘KNOW’ your numbers.
Yes, that’s part of it…
But more importantly, when your Tracking is off, you’re not feeding the tracking signals back into the paid traffic platform A.I…
…Which means they’re not optimizing your campaigns for you…
…you’ll have higher CPLs (Cost per Lead)…
…you’re paying more for traffic in the first place…
And campaigns that COULD be profitable (but look like they are losers) and are shut off prematurely.
Meaning you could be flushing revenue down the drain.
AND…
When your Tracking isn’t accurate; you can’t make important business strategy decisions because they’ll be based on skewed data.
See what I mean?
Getting your tracking right isn’t a luxury; it’s necessary for any business wanting to scale.
100% it’s for you!
Don’t think for one second you’re alone. Most business owners sit on the creative side instead of the techie side of the business.
This is the Norm.
This is why the 30 Modules in Tracking SOS are put together in such a way you’ll understand the concepts first before we even touch GTM containers or Pixels…
That way, whatever platform you use, you’ll find it child’s play to track whatever event you need to make intelligent, data-backed marketing decisions resulting in actual revenue.
(And even if you are comfortable with Tracking, this will give you a whole new understanding of what’s possible outside of just copy and pasting a Facebook and Google Pixel)
At the end of Tracking SOS, you’ll be skilled in the following:
– Google Tag Manager,
– Google Analytics 4 (Client & Serverside)
– Google Ads Conversions
– Bing
– Facebook (Clientside & Serverside)
– TikTok
– OutBrain
– Snapchat
– Taboola
– Reddit
– Quora
– Twitter
– LinkedIn
– Pinterest
– Ringba (New addition for pay per call marketers!)
– Customer Labs
– PostHog
– Hyros
– CPV Labs for affiliate tracking.
– And More
Listen, we know your team, internal or external, but just because they say everything is being tracked properly doesn’t mean it is.
They are only human…They can make mistakes.
But it’s not their business and profits on the line…
It’s yours!
By all means, use a team if that’s your business structure, but knowing Tracking inside out so that you can verify their work, could save you Tens of Thousands of dollars in the future.
Otherwise, you’re blindly trusting them with the future of your business.
I know it sounds dramatic, but it’s true.
Yeah, of course. Our goal is to get your Tracking on point and stop losing conversions.
It’s up to you who’s the best person to do that.
With all due respect, it isn’t.
Not, when you take into account with poor tracking :
Oh, and you’re gaining a lifelong skill that you’ll apply to every business, and use data to scale them faster than you have previously.
When you look at it like that, we think it’s an extremely fair price.
I’m afraid not.
We do not offer a refund or Guarantee with Tracking SOS.
Let me explain why.
Tracking SOS is the most complete course for marketers who want to separate themselves from their competition by optimizing their tracking.
We also know Tracking properly is essential to get your business to scale.
So, by offering a money-back guarantee, we’re giving you the option to not follow through.
We WANT you to succeed, so we offer no refunds.
And secondly….there are a few bad apples out there who see no problem in buying a course, taking the material, and then asking for a refund.
Apart from being wrong, it’s unfair to those genuine people who invest their hard-earned money to upgrade their skills.
So, with that in mind, if you’re not 100% sure this Tracking SOS is for you, please don’t buy it.