The Confident Entrepreneur With Jennifer Ann Johnson

Metrics That Matter With Maritza Davila

• Jennifer Ann Johnson • Season 4 • Episode 2

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Numbers don’t have to run your life—or your business. When you focus on the right ones, they become clarity in the chaos. In this episode, we sit down with business strategist Maritza Davila to reframe metrics as decision-making tools, not a measure of self-worth.

We explore how to move beyond just revenue and profit to track what truly drives growth. Maritza shares how to turn a one-year vision into weekly targets, create a simple team scorecard, and choose metrics that reflect what each person can control. For retail: think foot traffic and conversion rate. For service businesses: qualified leads and lifetime value.

We also dive into healthy tracking habits that reduce anxiety—like choosing your top three focus areas, evaluating relationships practically, and knowing when to let some numbers rest. It’s all about progress, not perfection.

If this conversation brings you clarity, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review with the one metric you’re ready to track.

Thank you to our generous sponsors for making this podcast possible!

True Fashionistas – Southwest Florida’s largest designer resale store, where fashion meets sustainability.

Golden Acorn Publishing (formerly O’Leary Publishing) – Empowering authors to tell their stories and publish with purpose.

Reinvention Studio Lab – A creative hub for transformation, innovation, and bold new beginnings.



Visit us at jenniferannjohnson.com and learn how Jennifer can help you build the life you dream of with her online academy, blog, one-on-one coaching, and a variety of other resources!

Jennifer Johnson:

I'm so glad that you're joining us today. We live in a world absolutely obsessed with numbers. From our daily step counts to our quarterly revenue reports, metrics seem to drive every decision that we make. But here's the thing. I've been thinking about this lately. Are we measuring the right things? And more importantly, how do we use metrics to actually improve our lives rather than just stress ourselves out? So today I have the pleasure of speaking with Maritza DeVilla, who's a business strategist dedicated to empowering service-based businesses to achieve their growth goals. She helps teams streamline operations, align leadership, and eliminate inefficiencies. We're going to dive deep into how metrics can be powerful for both your growth personally and professionally. And when we use them thoughtfully, how we can really harness them to take our business to the next level. And Maritza, I have seen you speak on this topic before, and I've been enthralled with it. I've been very interested. I'm like, you have to come on my podcast. We have to have this conversation. So welcome. Thank you. I'm honored to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. So I'm just going to dive right in because we have so much content, so many things that we can talk about with respect to metrics. But when you actually hear the word metrics, what's the first thing that came to your mind before you really started delving into this? And how has that changed since you started really looking into metrics and how you can use them and teach your clients how to use them?

Maritza Davila:

Yeah, metrics to me means feedback. And it's really just feedback so that I can make decisions. I learned uh a few years ago that I'm the type of entrepreneur that makes decisions based off her gut. And so, and a lot of us can be like that. And so that was very interesting to me. Uh, so even though I talk about metrics and data, um, my natural inclination is to use my gut. But I've learned um over the years that your gut is great for some things, but um, if you're going to be making, you know, really important decisions in your business, you should have data to back up what you feel, right? In your gut is correct. And so there's this happy balance of I'm gonna make a decision based off my gut, or I'm gonna make a decision that backs up my gut with the data, right? With evidence that this is what I should do.

Jennifer Johnson:

That's the important part, right? Because, like you said, you can have that gut feeling, and we, you know, especially as women, we have that intuition. Right, right. 100%. When it's numbers, you're right. You want to be right on the target. 100%.

Maritza Davila:

Because I mean, some of the decisions were you, you know, you make small decisions, large strategic decisions, um, you know, all the time, right? But um little day-to-day decisions, sure. But if I'm gonna be making really important decisions about strategy in my business, then I need to make, I need to make sure that this is just not an inclination, that I'm totally off the ball, right? And it's no, but really the the data and the feedback is really that's what metrics is to me. It's feedback of am I going the right direction in my business? Am I making the right decisions?

Jennifer Johnson:

Right. And it's a look back. Right. Because you can't really look ahead. But so your personal journey with using metrics, was there a specific moment or experience that you can remember that made you all of a sudden go, oh, that's the key here. That's the part I'm missing.

Maritza Davila:

Yeah. So I um like many people, um, you know, we we track everything, right? Not just in business, but um, you know, our weight. Um I uh I I remember I spoke a little bit about this, but like I even like track like how well my marriage is doing. And how about that?

Jennifer Johnson:

You you're you brought it up, so we are gonna talk about that if that's okay.

Maritza Davila:

Yeah, no, yeah, no problem. Um I'm as uh I'm as transparent as they come. So open book, really. But yeah, so I I you know we track a lot of different things in our life. And it what I learned or what was uh fundamental to me was that I was always tracking results or achievements, right? Because since I've, you know, was a little you know, kid, um, it was you know, very achievement driven of like I need to do this, I need to do that, right? Like step one, two, and three. But I wouldn't track right what actually led me to that result or that achievement when I was young. Like I didn't understand that before. And so the big turning point for me was learning I need to be really proud of the work that I'm doing and the things that I'm doing to get to this, right? Because it's starting to change my character. It's starting to change, right, the way that I look at work so that it's not just results driven, which I'm all about results, right? Like really in my business, you know, but um, but it's what causes the results, right? And a lot of times we can't control so many things in our life, right? We can't control um, you know, the market, we can't control the economy, we can't control government, we can't control, yeah, even the weather, anything, right? We can't, you know, we're you know, if you're married, you can't control how your husband uh deals with things, right? You can't control you can only control like what's here um between the six inches in your brain. And so all I'm saying with that is I started when I finally learned I really need to just focus on my inputs rather than the outputs and the results of things. If I focus on that, then then I'll it's a lot easier to get to the results, but it's not really what is as important anymore.

Jennifer Johnson:

Right. Let's let's talk about you said the marriage piece that you you even track your your marriage. So what does that look like? Why, why did you decide to do that? And what have the results been from that as far as yeah, a hundred percent.

Maritza Davila:

So um I've been married eight years and have been with my husband, like dating um for about 11 years now. And so, you know, my marriage in the very beginning was very easy. I was like in the honeymoon, you know, bliss for a few years. And then um, you know, life happens and things get a little more difficult. And so when we started having more issues, I was like, what is going on? You know, and I knew it was I knew eventually it would happen, right? Because everyone I know that has a long um marriage, been in marriage for a very long time, they've all told me, right? That there's work. It's work, yeah. And no, it's not the honeymoon all the time. And so when we started having a lot of issues, I downloaded this app and this app is called Marriage 365. And what I noticed is that they have you qualify or you know, your marriage uh about like once a month, and they have different categories. So they would talk about communication, conflict, um, a bunch of different things, right? That all happen with in any marriage. And so I learned from that that I can give a grade. And so that's how that's that's how I've uh adjusted it to my own thing, right? Because you don't need to have the app to like A B C D. Right, A, B, C, D, F, right? I'm like, okay, great. Yeah, unfortunate, but I mean, it happens, right? And so um, yeah, and so at any given moment, I can really just ask myself, what would I qualify my marriage right now? And like I can give an answer to that, you know, it's a it's a qualitative metric, but I can immediately come up with an answer, whether, you know, and a lot of times, um, you know, there's a lot of feedback that goes into that, right? Are we um speaking? Are we spending time together? Am I serving my husband? Is he, you know, like so many things. And so, but it is something that I track because my marriage is very important to me. So um, so yeah, that's one of the things I do. And how has that served you in your marriage by tracking this? So back to my other point is it wasn't just um tracking the inputs. So I understand my husband, um, like his, you know, love language, his main love language is acts of service. And so I know that. And so I didn't know that for a long time though, but I did learn that over the years. And so I've noticed, okay, well, when I'm cooking more, when uh he's asking me, you know, like to give him a back rub at night when I'm so tired and don't want to do that, or when he's asking me, can you get up at like 10 o'clock and get me a guss of water? You know, like little, little tiny things every day that, you know, um come up. I uh I think to myself at that point, like, okay, like this is like a, this is like a like I'm checking, you know, like I'm I'm adding to this. So it's almost like, am I serving him daily? Because that's actually the way he feels loved. Sure. So as long as I'm pouring into him the way that he wants me to, then I know, well, that's what I can control, right? I can't control what he does back to me, but I can control what I input into the relationship.

Jennifer Johnson:

Right. So now I'm I'm gonna ask you it more on the personal continuum, but you know, and I'm sure that that our list, the the listeners right now can probably relate to this. There's so many things that we can track on a daily, daily basis now. We've got the the little ring thing that you can put on that tracks your everything from your sleep to your breath to your heart rate. We've got the watches. We have all of these things, these tools that help us track absolutely everything. Um, you know, maybe it's our weight, maybe it's even our productivity. Like, what am I doing with my time? But is there a certain point at which it becomes obsessive or causes you to have anxiety? You know, how do you deal with that? How do you navigate that so that you're not constantly? I know I have this app on my watch that tells me my heart rate, and I'll look at it and go, my gosh, I'm having a heart attack. Yeah. And then then I, you know, it it escalates. So how do you deal with that? That's so funny you brought that up, which is an um just a side note.

Maritza Davila:

I went to the doctor and they asked me, Are you nervous? And I was like, no, I'm not nervous because like in my brain, I was not nervous. Like I didn't have, you know. And then they took my pulse and they're like, you're 104. Normal 60 to 100, you know, pulse. So I was like, oh, I guess I am nervous. My body is telling me something else, you know, but my brain was telling me, so that's just it was just funny to me. But I think um the way that you separate, you know, the healthy obsession to when metrics is actually beneficial for us is when you track the things that matter the most to you. So, you know, I brought up my marriage, so that's very important to me, right? So my business is very important, so I track that. Um depending on how I'm feeling about my health, I may or may not be tracking my weight, right? Right right now, I'm pretty comfortable where I'm at. So I'm not tracking my weight. However, when I want to make a change, sure, I might add that back in, right? So I think it's really just adjusting to making sure you're not having all of this overreporting in your life over things that don't even matter to you or that are just gonna bring so much chaos into your brain more. It's just let's focus on the top three things that are most important and just focus on that, right? Like those are what's priority, and we don't need to focus on everything else, you know.

Jennifer Johnson:

That's really good advice. The top three things that are important to you, because my top three may be different than your top three. And, you know, I you can get down that rabbit hole of listening to all these experts talk about these are all the things that you need to track, and then all of a sudden, that is your full-time job. Right. That's great advice to to say, you know, track your top three. Now we're gonna shift gears a little bit to the business world because metrics in business can really make or break a business, right? Um and I I imagine the the things that we've kind of been talking about already apply to business as well. But somehow the stakes feel a little bit different, you know, when we're talking about, you know, the metrics of our weight versus the metrics of our business. And uh really knowing what what are the biggest mistakes that that companies make or organizations make when it's when they when they need to choose what they're going to actually measure so that they're measuring the right things.

Maritza Davila:

Well, what I see most often in business owners is that they don't track anything week over week. And they are only waiting until what their bookkeeper or accountant tells them how they did. So that's the number one I think I see most common in small business owners, or you know, in a small business is anyone under like with under like 500 employees. So it's the vast majority, but um that they don't track anything. So that'd be number one. And then number two would be what we spoke about before. They're always tracking the results or the outputs or lagging indicators, however you want to. They're all the same thing. They're always trying to lagging indicator. You're calling a lagging indicator uh an output. An output, yes. Yeah, so it just depends on uh they're they're the same thing, though. It's you know, inputs to me it'd be a leading indicator, and input is is the same thing. A leap lagging indicator would be like an output or a result. And so most business owners will track sales and you know how much cash is in the bank account and what the net profit would be for the end of the year when their you know accountant tells them. Those are the typical things that they're tracking, but they aren't tracking what actually causes the revenue, right? And then what you know, so those are the inputs. So I thought that's the other common mistake I see is they're not they're not tracking that.

Jennifer Johnson:

And that's based on the business and what what things drive that business is how they decide what they're going to track?

Maritza Davila:

100%. So every business is a little different, right? So we customize it. And so, for example, right, you own true fashionistas. I am a client of true fashionistas, by the way. So, yes, so I do go there. And so, you know, the I I guess like the top three things I would say for for that business would be well, I would track what's my foot traffic for, you know, just as a general business metric, how much foot traffic am I getting uh every week or, you know, every day, whatever, you know, and then from there, my second thing I would track, well, what's my conversion ratio? How many of these people that are coming into the store become clients? Same for a realtor, right? So a realtor may make cold call or may have outgoing calls. So I would want to be tracking what is the revenue generating activity, right? For every business, for that retail store, I would say foot traffic for a realtor might be calling, right? How many people did you talk to that week that want to sell or buy a house in this market? And then what is my conversion ratio? How many of them actually bought something at the store, and how many of them actually want to buy and want to buy with me, right? They want to buy with me. And so, and then the third thing I would probably say for general business metrics to track um for true fashionistas, it would probably be what is the average transaction value? So how, you know, on average, how much do people spend in the store per, you know, per per week? And then for the um realtor, which is more service-based, would be, you know, what is the average lifetime value of that customer? Because typically, if you do a good job, people will come back to you if they're still living in the same city. And people buy houses every five to seven years. So, you know, you do have a lifetime value. It's it's not as recurring, but it does come back. And so is that client worth 10 grand to you, 20 grand, you know. So those are the the things I would track depending on the business that customizes to each one though.

Jennifer Johnson:

So, how would you suggest someone track that? What's the most effective way to actually do the tracking of it?

Maritza Davila:

So it really depends on the size of the business. Because since I often see many people don't track anything, it's it's I'm almost like my hurdle is like, please, like, let's track, you know? Just do it. Do the thing. I promise you that when you do it, it's going like you're going to have so much clarity. That's the that's the thing, is once you start implementing it, you start to see, okay, all right. I'm seeing, you know, true fashionists. Okay, great. Okay, I'm seeing I'm getting, you know, 500 people came in this week. Okay, great. Um, we converted 20% of them, right? So we're at 100, how many, how many people have actually spent? Okay, they're spending $500, $100. I don't know what it is, right? Okay, so then you have this now. And if you say, well, my my goal for the year is this, you can you can know on August 20th, where am I in relation to my goal? And I don't have to wait for someone else to tell me how well my business is doing, as often business owners do. I don't have to wait for the accountant or the bookkeeper. I know myself. And so I can course correct week over week. Maybe I need to let more people know about my business, however, however, that may be. There's a million different ways to do that. But you can you start to see, okay, well, this this week I did not go as well. Maybe I need to double down next week. But it's not until you start implementing it. Um, it's like health, right? Everyone knows you just have to eat well and you have to work out to be healthy. But how many people actually do it?

Jennifer Johnson:

Right. And and you don't know unless you actually track it. Because how many times have we said, Oh, I don't eat any sugar? Right. And then you start tracking, you're like, wow, I really didn't think I ate that much sugar. Yeah. And in the juice. Right. It's in everything, right? But so I guess I'm really curious about how you balance the short term metrics that you need to look at versus the the long term things to make sure that you're you're being sustainable in what you're doing. Because there's nothing worse to, you know, out of the gate, you're like, oh my. Gosh, I'm gonna do this. And and then you start doing it, and then you you trail off because it's just too much, or you don't really see the results, or you don't really see the why behind your why you're doing this. So, how do you kind of balance that to make sure that what you're doing is actually sustainable for short term and long term?

Maritza Davila:

Yeah, so all the metrics that the the two types of metrics that I like to implement with my clients is one general business metrics. So, what we spoke about a little bit prior. Um, right. That is very related to their goal of you know growth. And everyone's just gonna be different. Everyone will be different. Yeah. And then the second one would be relating to their bottleneck. So what is the bottleneck of the business? So there are a million and one problems in every business. So let's prioritize the bottleneck because there's only one bottleneck, there's only one constraint that affects your growth, right? Of what your capacity is. So I have I I want to measure both of those things. And the I the way I look at it is we always have a long-term goal. So depending on every business, at least like one year, right? Where it's a one-year goal. And we we break that up into weekly metrics. So it is a short-term metric of junk pieces. Right. It's in pieces, right? So it's digestible. So you can say, you know, I want to make a million dollars, five million dollars, 10, whatever the number is. Great. Let's split, let's now, how many, and then I, you know, we talk about the business and we I find that information to come up with this number of great. So this is what your weekly number needs to be, and not just for the owner, right? This is for the team, sure, right? Because everyone needs to have ownership of how are we growing this business, right? Everyone needs to have the buy-in. So your responsibility.

Jennifer Johnson:

I'm glad you mentioned that. Yes. I'm glad you mentioned that because you know, the whole there's no I in team. If you if you don't share with other people, they have no idea what your roadmap looks like. 100%.

Maritza Davila:

And often as owners, we tend to keep to ourselves all these things, right? We're constantly thinking about the business, right? We're up at two in the morning and we're thinking, oh, that, you know, all these things, but our team does not, right? So they're not typically like that. So we need to communicate these things. So they need to know. And so that's one of the things I do is we get all the at least the leadership staff on board, and everyone in the company should know what is the goal for this for this year, and what are you gonna do to pitch in your part so that you feel like you're you're a part of this, you're a part of this, right? You're in right. There is this buy-in, there is this ownership of I'm accountable for this metric, me, you know, little me, that I'm like, what whatever it is, right? Because yes, you do, because whether or not you believe it, uh you start to see it. When you look, when you're looking at this scorecard um every week and you see, oh, I did this, and okay, great. And we're getting there slowly but surely. And everyone, the buy-in, everyone's has ownership over this growth goal.

Jennifer Johnson:

So yeah, that's I attest to that because we started a dashboard. That's what we call it. So it's something that you share with management or whoever it is that you feel that you need to share it with, and then they be then they're able to see it because otherwise it's this pie in the sky, it's this number on a on a whiteboard that they're looking at and they're like, oh, it went up. They're more inclined to work towards it if they see it. 100%.

Maritza Davila:

And, you know, bringing it in. Um, the other part with metrics is there's got to be accountability over these metrics. So we can't just have this big audacious goal, but no idea of how we're gonna reach that. And so that's why we have to do this weekly metrics so that everyone understands and what's my part in this goal, but also you're accountable for the goal. So the owner is not accountable. I mean, obviously they're accountable for everything, but I mean, at the end of the day, right, you're accountable for everything, but you have a team for a reason. So you are delegating responsibilities and delegating metrics so that they have to report on the number and they have to say, you know, whether or not they hit it. And they're gonna, it's gonna be as clear as day whether they're underperforming, uh, they're performing where they should be, or they're a high performer. It will be as clear as day.

Jennifer Johnson:

Right, to everyone. Right. And that that sometimes creates that I've got to step up my game kind of thing. You know, have you ever seen where you've heard the term analysis paralysis, but have you ever seen where this uh, you know, tracking metrics and someone really getting into tracking the metrics kind of took it a little too far, or I don't want to say took the eye out their eye off the ball, but kind of focused on the numbers and the metrics so much that they missed the bigger picture out there, the story, because everything has a story. There's a story behind everything. Right. But so much so that they missed that that big thing, the elephant in the room. Have you ever had that?

Maritza Davila:

This is very common in corporate settings where they over-report and exactly what you said happened. So there's analysis paralysis, and there's this famous story of Amazon in their early days where they were talking about they were the data was reporting that their customer wait time was less than a minute. But they were getting constant customer complaints saying they had to wait to get to talk to customer service rep. So, what did Jeff Bezos do in the leadership meeting? He called the number and it took more than 10 minutes to get someone. One, these people were before he called, they were defending it. They were saying, no, it's less than a minute. So, number one is when you get over reporting and there's too much data, we have to make sure it's accurate because you know, there's obviously things in the back end, there's technology, all these things. And so, one, it might not be accurate. And then two, like you were saying, there's so much data that we don't know what to do with it. So, data is only beneficial if it leads you to making a decision. And so often what happens, or what I've seen in corporate settings, is they report in silos. So, for example, in Comcast, if you are a technician that goes out and fixes, you know, your TV, it's not working, they have their own metrics and they know how much rework they have to do, which is how many, like if they have to go back out to the same place that they've already gone to, they know, you know, how much gas they've spent that week, things like that. The supervisor will know how many accidents have happened that week on their team. They'll know how much inventory do they have, they know how much gas all of them have been putting, how many miles on the they know things that they need to know in silos of what they can actually control. So we don't want all of this information where I am like the receptionist and I can't do anything. I'll cover them through. Right, exactly. So it's using the the reporting and making it in silos to what actually you control uh rather than everything.

Jennifer Johnson:

That makes sense. So as we as we start to wrap up, I want to make sure that our listeners have some concrete takeaways from this. And so if someone's listening right now and and they're thinking, you know, I really this is something I'm interested in, and I really want to get better at tracking my metrics of my business or my life, where would you suggest is step number one? Clarify what your vision or your goal is, is number one. Okay. Now, if you personally could track just one metric in your life, whether it's personal or it's business, what would it be? Sorry, I I I it's I'm not sorry, but I'm curious.

Maritza Davila:

I'm like the the most important metric to me is uh very simple. And really it's how much how much time am I spending with the Holy Spirit? That is my most important metric because when I don't, it everything is off about my life, and that is what's most important to me. So that is the most, you know, and it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm like spending hours or anything like that, because you know, life, but as long as it's a continual daily uh that I'm able to spend time with him, then that's that's really the most important metric in my life.

Jennifer Johnson:

I love that. I really do love that. I do. And it's gonna be again different for everyone. Different for everyone, yeah. So um I have at the very end of all of my podcasts, we do the final four. Are you ready? Are you ready for the final four?

Maritza Davila:

Born ready.

Jennifer Johnson:

It's four questions that I ask everyone because I am so curious as to how everyone answers these questions. So the first one, what's your favorite book that you've read recently? And why, what was it that it made it stick with you? So my favorite book recently, not of all time.

Maritza Davila:

It can be all time. Okay. Um my well, I'm gonna give you the most recent one because it's the most uh I re I know what book it is. That's my favorite book, but I can't uh like it's a business book, but I can't remember. That's okay. But um, but recently it would be it's called Never Play It Safe. I love just the title of it because it's it reinforces something in me about what I believe. And but he he said something in that book about failure, which I don't know about everyone else, but I have had. So um I was very interested in what he had to say about failure. And he basically said that this person that was is known for climbing Mount Everest, or you know, um she re-worded failure and she said, uh, I'm afraid to fail. And she reworded it and said, I'm afraid to live. And that stuck with me because she was making goals that were really like she could die climbing this mountain. Um it wasn't, you know, a matter of, oh, am I gonna quit my job? Like you're not gonna die if you quit your job. But she, her goals were life or death. And she said, Well, you know, I'm afraid to fail. No, I'm afraid to live. And so now when I think about failure, I think about that because I said, Well, you know, what if this all what if this fails? Well, okay, well, I'm I'm I'm I'm afraid to live right now, you know? And so I think the point of life is to live it boldly. So that's that's what I that's recently my favorite book.

Jennifer Johnson:

Awesome. Which leads me into my next question. Do you have a favorite quote or piece of advice that someone has given you that has stuck with you?

Maritza Davila:

Yeah, that'd be my mom. I always come back to this. Uh, she was scolding me when I was a young girl because I uh didn't like cleaning, um, as most teenagers don't. She was she she um I didn't clean the bathroom that well, I guess, one time. And she came and she told me, if you're gonna do something, do it well or don't do it at all. And something about the way she said that to me, like really just stuck with me. And so I really try to apply that in every area of my life. So if we're gonna do it, we're gonna do it well, or we're just not gonna do it at all.

Jennifer Johnson:

And you can hear her voice every day, every time, right?

Maritza Davila:

Yeah, yeah, 100%. It sticks with me for sure.

Jennifer Johnson:

Absolutely. And what is one habit or practice that has really changed your life? Prayer, worshiping. That's like the one thing, yeah. Okay. And if you could have dinner with anyone who is living or not living, who would it be and why would you choose that person?

Maritza Davila:

So I don't know if this applies as well, but this is who came to mind. I would really love to have dinner with my 30-year-old kids. My I don't have kids. Yes, because I don't have kids yet. So, but I would really love to have dinner with them once they're adults and you know they've already made up their minds about what they truly think and how they live their life. And I would ask them, what did I teach them or like what stuck with them?

Jennifer Johnson:

Love that answer. I've never heard that answer. And I think that's that's really, really cool. I have thoroughly enjoyed our time together today. Me too. And Maritza, if if if any of our listeners want to get in touch with you, how can they do so?

Maritza Davila:

Very simply, they can go to www.businessclarity.co and they can schedule a call with me if they're interested in learning more. Um, or just follow me on social media. You know, it's Maritza DeVilla or underscore maritza devilla and anywhere I am.

Jennifer Johnson:

Fabulous. And thank you so much for being on today. And thank you again to all of our listeners. Thank you, Jennifer.

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