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Right away I’m hearing, “I don’t know about the PRO/KEY ratio now, so why do I need to know it? You need to know and use the PRO/KEY ratio in your work because it knows about YOU. If you are trying to make money online, you can’t make money without it.
Don’t wave the bullshit flag just yet. Let me ask a question. If you don’t work efficiently by profitably using every minute of your time on the computer, will you make as much money as the person who does profitably use every minute of their time?
“Put that in short English,” I hear someone saying.
Sorry, not yet. We will build up to it together.
Right now, without hesitation, answer this question: “Is your strategy succeeding?” Then answer this question. “How do you know?” Wrong question as most likely won’t be able to give a provable answer, so I’ll ask a different question.
How much are you making for every hour you spend on the keyboard? Prove it. Did I say to subtract keyboard usage for activities other than working your business? Nope. That is mostly wasted time. Sure, we can use some time for entertainment, but it is still time we could have used for working in our business or getting needed rest and recreation away from the computer. Not to mention completing our other responsivities in life.
Agree? Disagree? Please don’t decide just yet. Not until we have some facts.
Need for a universal measurement
I tried to find one activity that would work for all sorts of online businesses from writing books to building a business with a combination of seminars, coaching, blog posts, social media time, social internet activities, etc. The one common activity is hours of keyboard usage. That means active use pressing the keys.
Some will say, and on the surface rightfully so, they make money from coaching over the phone, giving online séances, selling products in an online store or even a brick and mortar store. It doesn’t matter because it is all related to the amount of time the entrepreneur spends on the keyboard. That is if they have an online presence. Those who don’t have an online presence won’t read this post.
Except for social bloggers and people who come online solely to interact with people, is there anyone who disagrees that keyboard usage is an important part of their business? Let me fix that. Is there anyone who disagrees keyboard usage that results in profits is an important part of their business? Is there anyone who disagrees keyboard usage that doesn’t increase profits is often a waste of valuable time? (This is called begging the question, so I’m begging you not to disagree with me.)
Would our business make more money if we dedicated a higher percentage of our time to money making activities? Notice I said money making. Many people think they are successfully marketing, but they don’t have a way to prove their marketing is money making. Wouldn’t it be great to prove if a marketing strategy was money making?
Enough motivation. How can we measure keyboard usage? We could use a stopwatch and keep a log. Wouldn’t it be better to have an app run in the background to measure our keyboard usage? One that wouldn’t make exceptions or forget to start a stopwatch? And one that will keep a log for years without any effort on our part? Well, there is such an app. It’s called Manictime. The free version doesn’t do everything, but the paid version does. It costs $67 to buy the paid version. There is a 15-day free trial. Yes, it’s a lot of money. No, I don’t do affiliate marketing, so I don’t make anything if you buy it.
In conclusion, the KEY in PRO/KEY is keyboard usage
Guess what PRO is? It’s PROFIT. Now we have the ratio PROFIT/KEYBOARD usage. It’s similar to profit/hour, except it includes ALL your time on the computer. The idea is to maximize the PRO/KEY ratio by avoiding time wasters. Easy, huh?
Our goal is to make the ratio as high as possible. That’s good enough for now. We can do that by making more profit, or we can do that by reducing keyboard usage. We could make it infinite if we make a dollar and don’t use the keyboard. Let’s set INFINITE as our target. Impossible, you say? Yes, it is, but we can at least head in that direction.
Once a month, record the total minutes on the keyboard since the start of tracking and the total profit since the start of tracking. Using the time from the start is important as it smooths monthly fluctuations. The ratio should go up over time. That’s all there is to it. Now how do we make the ratio go up?
1. Reduce our wasted keyboard time.
2. Become more efficient in how we do our work.
3. Spend our time on the most profitable activities.
If we focus on ways to increase this ratio, we will automatically favor activities that make a profit. It is also a way to test new activities. If, after a few months, the ratio starts to go up, the activities are productive. If not, stop doing it.
Gary Thaller
