What Metrics To Monitor In Your Business With Donna Dube

TRANSCRIPT AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED Hey, Hey, today's guests. Don't NG helps CEOs avoid the burnout and stress that comes with managing a growing business by making data driven decisions. But it's all data created equal. Let's find out. Hey Donna. Welcome to the show. thanks, Diane. I'm so happy to be here. I look forward to sharing with you. So first let's do a quick intro to you and your business. Thanks. Yes. So I'm Donna dubé in Canada and my business name is product. And I help six figure entrepreneurs really focus on making smart database decisions. And we do that through leveraging the power of their data. And So we figure out which metrics are most important for them to track to follow. then we figure out a plan for how they're going to actually track them get useful insights out of that. So why do you think people are so afraid of data and metrics? Yeah. Good question, Diane. I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One is sometimes we don't know where to start and so it can be overwhelming. There's so much that we can measure today. Practically every software tool we're using has some sort of analytics that they're marketing to us that they have. Right. And so if we had to go in 10 different software systems to look at data and then try and figure out what's most important, like that's just mind boggling. So we don't go there. Number one. And number two, I think a big part of it is we think it's going to be a lot of math and a lot of. And for those creative minds out there that are listening, that's not where a lot of business owners like to live. And so again, we stay away from that because we think, oh, I'm going to have to know formulas and this and that. And it really doesn't have to be that difficult data. Doesn't have to be scary. It's just answering. do you find that people are also. A little afraid to act on an onset that they got on their own. because there's so much data and because it's all overwhelming and because maybe a spreadsheet is not their favorite place to be that when they get to an onset, actually like making a decision on that onset on that metric also feel scary because you have to trust that the work you've done to create that answer is all correct. Yes for sure. That's another issue because the thing is, how long do you track something before, you know, okay, I've got enough data. This is not just a one-off case or an outlier. This is really what's happening. So let's answer that question before we talk about what to measure, how long. Do we need to measure it before data going into the machine is enough data. yes. Good point. So that was really going to depend on what metric we're tracking and how much data we have. So let me give you some examples. If we put out a brand new lead magnet next week, and we have 15 people land on. Lead magnet opt-in page and five people opted in. That's not long enough obviously to say this is the lead magnet is the one that's growing my business. So that for sure, it's going to need more time. So let's leave it there for three months or six months and see how those numbers are looking on the reverse side of that. If we're looking at our finances and we're tracking our revenue over a 12 month, If we're looking back in the last six months and we see that whoa, January was really high. Well, we can say, okay, what did we do for sales in January? Maybe we had a, a new year special, or maybe we introduced a new product or something. Or if something is really low in that in a certain month, we can say, okay, what happened that month? Then our numbers are lower. So it's really going to depend on. How much traffic and how much data we have to make that conclusion and how long it's been there. But generally I would say at least three months, we want something to be there and collecting the numbers before we're making any major decisions about it. Yeah, it's funny because you see that a lot in launches, right? So you launch and no one, no one jumps on the first two days and you're like, it's over. I failed miserably. I'm going to stop everything. But then equally on the flip side, you're going out of 15. People have opted in at the 33% conversion rate. This is it. I'm in the money. Right. We Yes. ends of the spectrum than just being patient and allowing the data to build up. Exactly. Exactly. And so in that situation, when you're in a launch, the decisions you can make instead of making that, oh, this is it. Or, you know, this is garbage. I need to throw it out. It's little tweaks you can do. So I'll give you an example. I was working with a client recently who had wanted a launch dashboard so that her and her team could see. How the numbers were going, how the, the traffic was flowing during the launch. And so about three or four days into the launch, we noticed that the purchases on mobile were very low compared to desktop. So the launch was moving along fairly well in terms of revenue, but we noticed that the mobile was low and we thought, Hm it's 20, 22. People are buying from their phones what's happening here. after digging in a little bit further, when we look at the design of the sales page accidentally, the CTA button was lower on the mobile view. So it wasn't right up. front for people to just take action as we wanted them to. And so we figured that what caused the low mobile purchases, once we, you know, got contact with a web guy and he moved. Boom. We started getting mobile sales. So it's little tweaks during a launch. Don't go overboard and throw the whole thing out, but sometimes a little tweaks can make a difference. okay. let's dive into the thick of it. Yeah. is the number one metric you would tell every single business owner that they should be tracking. Ah, good question. Okay. My number one is gotta be net. So Nat profit, just to remind everybody is not just looking at your revenue it's revenue minus your expenses, because we've all heard people on social media here. They're oh, I've got six figures. I've got seven figures, but how much did it cost to get that, that revenue? And so that nonprofit is really telling us how much we're left over. After we've paid those expenses. And so that's very important to track month to month so that we can see where we're going. And we want obviously to get that margin as low as possible so that we end up with as much profit at the end as we can. And so tracking. that. We'll allow you to compare yourself almost to yourself. So you might start with a net profit of a certain amount, and as time goes on, maybe you get rid of some tools that you don't need. You had any offering, got more clients in, you know, you did some work with your team and got a better return on investment. Whatever the things you're doing are we want to see that net profit increase. And so you're comparing it to yourself. Don't compare to your business bestie or the guru because they're running different. Right. Someone with a 20%? Yes. usually a revenue number, not a net profit A hundred percent. Diane. Yes. Yes. So net profit, definitely. Number one. And then if we think in terms of KPIs or key performance indicators outside of just financial numbers, what would be some of the key performance indicators you would say to people these are a pretty easy to stop tracking. have this data to hand. It shouldn't require anything really extra. But we'll give you a lot of infants. yeah. Good question. So I like to look at data from the business in a holistic perspective. So we want to be tracking some numbers from the finances because Yeah. we are in business, not a hobby. We want to be tracking numbers for marketing. Yes. We want to see our efforts, you know, returning the investment that we want. And then the third area I call operations or team. And so whether you're a solo entrepreneur or you have a team, there's still metrics in this area that you can track. So things like how much time is being spent on a certain client or certain activity. And am I getting the return on investment? For that. If you have a team, you know, you can do that with your team as well. If you have a membership, what's your churn rate. So those kinds of things fall in operations. And so what I tell business owners is to look at their metrics from a strategic perspective. And so we're going to go right back to the beginning and look at what this, their mission, vision, and values, because that's, what's going to drive the business forward for the next 12 months. So we're here now. at a, and we want to get to be, what are those goals that we want to reach to get to B and then which metrics do we need to track to know that we reach those goals? So those goals need to be. So you can't say, for example, well, I want to increase the number of people in my program. That's not measurable because there's no number attached to it. Right. But if you say, I want to increase the number of people in my program to 2,500, now we have a measurable goal that we can track. And then we say, okay, where is that data? Do we have a data source for it already? Great. Here it is. And then we need a process for how that's going to be tracked. So really it's getting down to what your business goals are and trying to pick metrics from those three key pillars or three areas. Yeah. And in that particular example, I can see on the operation side, you would be potentially looking at churn retention on the operation side, but on the marketing side, you'd be reverse engineering all the way to like traffic leads. Sales calls, sales and say, or webinars or whatever, stuff like that. Yes. That's right. are we measuring the generally isn't helping us. No, yes. sending us down the wrong path. Maybe it's confusing us. Maybe it's like a nice to have, but average person, it's not worth it, On. if the DIY, right. I don't want Yeah. who's DIY in their metrics to spend hours on something that then isn't the big. Yeah, for sure. So the simplest question to ask yourself is, is this metric affecting my bottom line? If it's not affecting your bottom line, you probably shouldn't be measuring it. So we want to tie everything back into our goals and moving our business forward. If it doesn't tie into. It's probably a good vanity metric, but it's not helping. So for example, if we look at social media, it's tempting to say, oh, I got so many likes. I got so many new followers. I got so many comments and those are great. We need that obviously to grow your visibility, but that doesn't affect your revenue. That doesn't affect moving your business forward. need those likes and those comments to move into conversions, right? Whether it's. A lead magnet, whether that's booking a call or an actual purchase. And so tracking conversions from your social media is much better metric than just likes and comments. And so really asking yourself, does this move my business forward? Does it affect my bottom line? Yeah, it's kind of like followers does not equal sales. Exactly. you can't, it's not like your list where you can say like, Hey Ray, roughly 1% of your list will become your launch audience potentially. Then 1% of that converting But you'll follow as you conquer, like, well, I have 10,000 followers, so 1% of them will convert. probably we don't even know. I saw somebody was sharing I think it was my friend Elise Darma sharing recent Instagram stats and they were saying on average is 1.5, five points. So that's like someone clicking like a like, or share or anything like that, but it's not them necessarily doing the thing you wanted them to do in the post. It's not them clicking anywhere on your websites. It could be that you've just gone, like, Hey, drop an emoji for Friday or whatever. exactly. Yes, exactly. And I think we have to look at the purpose of what we're putting out there. for example, if you're using organic or even paid ads, your purpose of what you're doing there is to bring people to your email list or to a page on your way. That's where it stops. If you want to say that way, don't track a post on social media that's to bring people to your web page all the way through to a purchase, because the purpose of that post was just to bring people to a website to opt in. So, if they opted in that's a conversion, you did its purpose. Then from there, now they're on your list. Now you've got your nurture emails and your sales emails. Then the purpose of those, obviously. To have them buy. So I think that each thing has its own purpose and you can't take one social media post and expect it to follow through all the way to a purchase. If that makes sense. Yeah, that does make sense, but I don't know that I've ever thought about that. I don't know that I've ever thought that, Hey, purpose of this Instagram post is to get someone on my list without thinking. And X number of people on my list means X in conversion. Right. And I mean, I come from a finance and analytics background, so I naturally want to over-complicate everything. Yeah. that's, maybe that's potentially, what's also overwhelming for people when they think about metrics is that felt really. Doable for me to think, Hey, if I share this on social media and it's this link, and I see how many people click on this link and come to that web page, that's a conversion for what I was trying to do. A hundred percent. Yes. Right. I think we do try to follow it through. Multiple systems and then you've got your car potentially, and you know, it's going all over the place. I can see why people are like, oh, that sounds like a lot of zaps to connect things or multiple systems, I can understand where the kind of overwhelm would come for that. Yes, a hundred percent. And you know, we have to remember from our buyers or even from ourselves, if you find someone new on social media, you might follow them to begin with. You might check out their free resources if they really resonated with you, you might buy. But usually there's a lapse, right? Most of us take some time to get to know like, and trust the person before we reach in our buckets. And so we have to remember that when we're sending things up to is that each thing has its purpose and it might take time. That potential customer that you got today may buy six months from now, right? Yeah. So all of metrics is the actual data itself. Yeah. So how do we get comfortable that the data is good? So two separate steps. I think one is do we even have the date? And what are our options do get some of that data if we don't have it. And then how reliable is that data? Like, how will we testing our data to make sure that it's good. yes. Yeah. Good point. So a couple things we can do is once we've asked the question. Okay. I want to know. If here's an example, I want to know if social media posts on Instagram are bringing people to my website. And so that's our question. Now we have to go and say, where's that data. So we can say, okay, if I have my website hooked up to Google analytics, that data should be in there. So we do have to keep an eye on. You're right. The data is only as good as what's being fed. And you know, there are ad blockers, there's apple iOS with their privacy. And so it's not going to be perfect. You're going to find that if you try and look at the same metric within, let's say your Facebook and the same metric in Google analytics, they're not going to be exactly the same. And I tell my clients, don't worry about that. As long as there's like a 10% or less. You're good because those tools, track and measure things differently. And so we're not going to get exactly, but we don't need exact, we're not looking for a hundred percent accuracy. We're looking for patterns and trends. Right. And so if something's a little bit off, that's not going to affect a big pattern or a big trend. And so don't get stuck in, oh, well this number said three, but the sales cart said I sold. We're looking at the big picture here. And so that's really important to keep, to keep in mind. The other thing we can do is when, if the data isn't there already, then when we hook it up, usually there's a way to test. So we can go into an incognito window, go through the process of what we want our customers to go through and then go look and see did that data show up in our data. I think that's really important when we're setting up a new funnel or a new opt-in that almost needs to be something that's on the checklist is like, is this feeding through the data? The way I expected to feed the same way you would check that you got sent the email by active campaign or convert kid with the attachment or whatever. yes, very good point. Diane is so important. we're not so great at the whole testing of. Yes. I'm sure I'm not alone, but I find it incredibly boring. Like I'm really excited to have solved the problem, but then to have to actually go and like step by step through it to make sure it's all working is just it's too much. My poor little ADHD brain. yes, I do understand. But think about it this way. For many of the data tools, they won't collect the data retroactively. Right. So it has to be set up beforehand for it to know, okay. I need to collect this data. And so think about it when you say all right, I'm going to start this launch. Do I really want to have some data when I'm finished? Yes, I do. Well then I need to spend this 10 minutes and make sure this is set up because it won't go backwards and only goes from the day you send it going forwards. Yeah. And you can't retroactively fix it either. Nope. tasted it and then you notice that you're going to have some data, that's in a different. To the new data and then good luck trying to, it's very easy to remember that in the moment, it's very difficult. Do you think you're going to remember that in January, 2021, you had this one thing that didn't quite work until 13th Yeah, you're in 2022, going, why is my data completely that's right. So I Yes. like a lot of like super complicated things and I'm sure some people are feeling a bit intimidated by like data metrics, all the words is an easy place for them to get started with this So I have a complementary website, traffic dashboard, which is an easy place for people to do. It's a little mini course, and it has about nine lessons in it with some video and some text. And it walks you through how to set up Google analytics on your website. If you don't already have that, if you have that great move to step two and also Google search console, which is easy to set up as well. And so once you've set those up, you'll be able to pull in data from your website. Who's coming to your website by who? I mean, what sources you know, you're not going to see Jane Smith, but you will see what sources they're coming to a website, what actions they're taking when they're on your website and what content is driving the most people to your website. So whether it's, you know, your homepage, blog pages about page, whatever, you've got maybe a lead magnet. So you can see what's really driving people. And then you can capitalize on. So if you have a blog about, you know, how to have a stress feet free business life, and you notice a lot of people are clicking that link, well, now you can tailor your content. Okay. My audience is really liking that. Let me see what keywords I used. How can I incorporate that in another blog and attract more of that type of client? Yeah, I think being able to see it in action, I think is sometimes I'm very visual. And for me, I understood what Google analytics and any of the other analytics programs, they will do very similar things. And for me, it only made sense when I could actually like watch it happening in front of me. Yes. And so that's what this dashboard will do you think about it? Like the dashboard in your car, where when you get in your driver's seat, you can quickly see your engine, your oil level, your gas level, all those types of things, how fast you're going. And it's a visual just like that. Once you have it. So you can go in once a month, which I suggest you do put it on your calendar, have a time once a month when you actually go in and look at that data because there's no point sending it up and collecting data. If you're not going to do anything with it. Good. I think that will really help people to feel a little less intimidated. So to finish up, I always like to ask the same two questions of all of them. The first one is what is your number one lifestyle boundary for your business? oh yeah. Good question. So this is one area that I have certainly struggled with in the past, and I'm sure a lot of us have. And so what I found worked the best for me is actually blocking off time in my calendar when it was time for. So, whether that was my exercise time, my family time, my, you know, work on my business? time, but actually blocking those and then sticking to them has really helped. And so once I did block it in my calendar, then I can tell my clients right from the get go, when you're working with me, this is how it goes, you know, Friday afternoons. You're not going to find me because that's my X time. And so having that there, um, right from the get-go and also communicating it. And do you try to keep those times like, as if it was a meeting do you find that sometimes their boundary can get a little bit. Like, how good are you at sticking to this yes. Yes. I'm going, it's taking some time. I have to admit this was not an overnight thing, but now I'm pretty good at sticking to my boundary. I have my calendar blocked off. So, you know, even if a client says to me, oh, I need a meeting. That's fine. It can happen here or here, but not. At this time. So yeah, I'm pretty rigid with it. Now I'll have to say, but it took some work to get there. and is it fairly consistent like week on week? Like, so like it's Friday afternoons or whatever? yes. Hundred percent. And that makes it easier for me to know what's going on, but also for the clients I'm working with. Yeah, I think sometimes we forget how quickly time passes. So I was laughing at myself right before. I'm studying something that starts in September, but it's, you know, a specific days at specific times for like six months. And so I was putting things in my diary into February next year. And I was like, this is ridiculous, but how quickly will it be September or, you know, I'm booking podcasts a couple of months out. So I think having that kind of rigid things set in your diary, that you can then adjust, make so many. That's I mean, you do the same. If you had a vacation, right. When you plan your vacation, you've got that booked months ahead in your calendar. So these other things are just as. I like that. Okay. Finally, what is the worst piece of cookie cutter advice you've been given as an entrepreneur? good question. Yes. I think probably for me, the worst piece was market everywhere. Tell everybody what you're doing all the time and people. And I think, yeah, I did believe that at the beginning because I'm naive and I think, well, they've got a bigger business than me. That's more my must do, but no over time I've realized I've got to do. He's aligned with me. Obviously I'm an operations analytical person. And so marketing is not my most favorite thing to do. But I, once I've been able to find what works for me and what fits for me, it's been a lot easier to do that. Cause I'm like, yeah, okay. Those people can do their tick talks and their reels. That's not me. I'm going to guess podcast or do this, that fits with me better. And how. Before, when I was everywhere, I wasn't getting any better results. I always just burning myself out, trying to do it all, but the results weren't good. Yeah, I think you touched on something that like the big names that are telling you to be everywhere. Either usually have a business that's going to sell you something to help you be everywhere. Or they have a really large team that creates that content that can be everywhere. They're not sitting there themselves being everywhere. So I think what you see is not always, what's actually happening behind the scenes of those conversations. yes, for sure. For sure. I mean, if you're a solo preneur, even if you have a VA that's, you know, part-time working a few hours a week, that's very different from having a team of 10 awesome. Well, I think we've given people a lot of things to think about too. Better business decisions. I'm sure some people are going to have some thoughts and some questions. Where's the best place for them to continue the conversation with you on social Great. So they can find me at Facebook or on LinkedIn. I am Donna dubé in both of those cases. And you're welcome to message me on either of those. And I'll be happy to chat further awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you, Diane. Happy to share.