Results Are the Name of the Game, and Numbers Tell the Whole Story

Your blood pressure. Your pulse rate. Scores displayed after Olympic competitions. Box office revenues. Albums sold by Beyoncé. Your income. My expenses. Climbing Mount Everest. Just about everything in life comes down to results. And most of the time, the best way to measure results is to look at the numbers.  

The kid’s name was Bruce – true story.  He bought a delicatessen called, ‘What’s Your Beef,’ in Peabody, Massachusetts. He knew nothing about the business and, apparently, had little interest in learning it. Perhaps he thought he knew it all. Here’s the thing, he’d purchase a side of ham for $100, divide it into 10 equal sellable slices, and sell each slice for $9.95. I told him, “You’re paying $100 for the ham and selling it for $99.50 – you’re losing money. As a ‘result,’ he did not address and fix the numbers, and eight months later, my youngest brother closed the business. The result of not knowing his numbers was three-fold: 1) He lost $65,000. 2) He could have earned $50,000. 3) The time lost can never be made up.

Budgeting Time and Money

Chanel lost her job, it doesn’t matter why. What does matter is how Chanel plans to spend her time and money to get a definite result… a job within 90 days. She said, “I used to spend 50 hours a week at work and work related activities like commuting. So I budgeted 50 hours a week to conduct a transition campaign. I had limited financial resources, so I made sure 50% of my campaign was going to be aggressive networking. That’s 25 hours a week, five hours a day, Monday through Friday.”  The other 25 hours were invested in target marketing (15 hours a week) and working online venues (10 hours a week). Chanel knew the results she wanted (a job within 90 days), and developed a measurable strategy to meet those goals with timelines and a financial budget, as small as it was.

Most Resume Writers and Career Coaches Undervalue Their Value

In the three decades I’ve been coaching resume writers and career coaches, if there’s one constant that rings true almost every time is that 1) they do not get paid for the full value they offer their customers, and 2) they do not know how to optimize their resources of time, money, and energy to ensure they optimize their sales and income – to get paid full value for the services and products they offer.  

In attempting to correct this, most resume writing and career coaching pros, as well as most business coaches,  would begin to address this “undervaluement issue” by budgeting. This is the time of year where most will begin to explore how best they can maximize their value and income. What do I anticipate my sales (income) to be and should I increase my prices? Can I add any new services to improve sales? What do I expect my expenses to be? How much money do I need to spend on upgrading my technologies? What are my fixed expenses? What are my variable expenses? What are my inevitable expected-unexpected expenses anticipated to be?   

Then there’s budget methodology itself, because different methods work for different people and different enterprises, and selecting one that works best for one’s short and long-term success is important. This would include the 50/30/20 strategy, Zero-based budgeting, the Envelope system, and the Pay-Yourself-First method. The goal, again, is to optimize potential sales, earnings, income, reputation, and value.

But that’s not where we begin. In a profession where most resume writers and career coaches are undervalued, earn less than they are worth to those they serve, and fail to achieve the level of respect they deserve, the transformational process to reverse this, and earn the money and respect we deserve, begins with evaluating and changing our own job search processes. 

Start with Your Processes and Systems

Sue’s Questionnaire

I have written before of a highly successful resume pro who hired me to help reduce the time it took her to write C-level resumes. I knew Sue’s process and knew I could help her. She had a 3-step process: 1) clients completed a detailed questionnaire, 2) Sue spent two hours with each client to review and discuss their responses to the questionnaires, and 3) she spent significant time with clients on the final ‘review, edit, revise, and complete’ portion of the process.  

I asked her, “When was the last time you thoroughly reviewed and updated your questionnaire, as this is one-third of your resume writing process?” We had just discussed the strategy of asking higher quality questions, because asking higher quality questions results in getting higher quality, more focused and precise answers. Sue’s answer was, “Never.” And she had been in business for over 10 years. Once we totally revamped her questionnaire, she was able to knock off almost two hours per client. 

From a budgeting standpoint, consider that in 2025, the process of writing a C-level resume took Sue 7 hours, but in 2026, armed with new tools and strategies, she will be able to do the same high quality job in 5 hours… and this will have a substantial impact on her budget! 

Rachel’s Free Advice 

Rachel had a resume writing company and 100% of her income came from writing resumes. Before she put together her next year’s budget, she reflected on every aspect of her business, and how she spent her time. And she had a major breakthrough. Rachel realized she was spending a lot of time giving away too much “interviewing” tips to her resume clients – for free! She realized if she could change her process, she could get paid for the free hours she was giving away. With a new component in place, Rachel added a new income stream to her budget, and sold interviewing services to 30% of her resume clients.  

By investing time reviewing, evaluating, and revising our processes before we begin budgeting, we’ll find unique and easy ways to reduce expenses, increase sales, and earn more money in ways we otherwise would not have considered. Rachel said, “I knew what my rent was. I knew what my cell phone bill was. I knew what my car payment was. But I didn’t really know what my hourly rate was, when I thought about all the free time I gave away and didn’t charge for. I thought I was making $125 an hour, but I now realize that every minute counts, and when I think of all the additional free stuff I gave away, I realized I have been making less than $90 an hour.

TMR – Saves a Lot of Time and Aggravation

In hidden circles it’s called TMR (Test Marketing the Resume). For every resume I wrote over the years, I saved between 60-90 minutes per client by never taking final responsibility for proofreading.  Like a printing company, I delegate this to my clients. Believe what you want, but I wrote 12 books for McGraw-Hill, and had five editing proofreaders for each one. You can’t believe what is missed. My personal belief is that the writer cannot be the final proofreader.  

When my client and I are pleased with the final resume, we then go into TMR mode – I ask them to test market the resume. I ask them to show it to four or five people whose opinions they trust for feedback, typos missed, or any other potential changes. When they return, they know exactly what changes they want to make – and are more confident in their resume because others were impressed with it. Using the TMR method, you can reduce final proofreading time by as much as 85% with less stress and hassles. This will affect your budget and provide more time to earn more money, or to spend with your family. 

Bottom Line

Whatever your overriding objectives are, whether it be more income, free time, less stress, working with ideal clients – or all of the above, before you can do a budget, you first must review, evaluate, and improve all of your systems and processes – like the iPhone does every year. What improvements can you make that can justify higher prices? What new services could you add that you don’t want to perform yourself, but can offer by creating a colleague referral system? What new upgrades and AI advancements do you need to integrate to be more efficient, productive, and to operate optimally? Once answered, then create a budget based on your new, revised processes, systems, and strategies. It makes a significant difference to how you budget and how you achieve your bottom line goals.