The Create Your Day Podcast

104. Beyond the Numbers: Making Decisions That Move the Needle

• Jenn Cody • Season 1 • Episode 104

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Tired of tracking numbers that never translate to action? Frustrated by repeating the same mistakes in your business month after month? It's time to transform how you approach your monthly business review.

A powerful monthly review isn't about creating pretty charts or judging your performance—it's about building a business intelligence system that reveals patterns and informs smarter decisions. Many entrepreneurs fall into two traps: meticulously tracking everything but acting on nothing, or avoiding numbers altogether while wondering why they keep hitting the same walls.

In this value-packed episode, we dive into the four questions that will revolutionize your monthly review process: What's working (and why)? What's genuinely not working? What has changed in your business or market? And based on these insights, what should you focus on next? Through real-world examples, we explore how understanding the complete picture—not just isolated metrics—leads to sustainable growth. Like the business owner who mistakenly doubled down on social content when it was actually her email follow-up driving sales, missing the why behind our successes can lead us astray.

We also break down which metrics truly matter for service-based entrepreneurs. From leading indicators that predict future performance to operational metrics revealing your business's efficiency, you'll learn to focus on the vital few measurements that actually move the needle. And don't forget the personal metrics—because what's the point of growing a business that leaves you burnt out and miserable?

The monthly review process I outline takes just 90 uninterrupted minutes but yields incredible clarity. You'll discover how to translate numbers into actionable insights by examining your calendar, client feedback, and personal energy levels. Most importantly, you'll learn to implement changes through a simple framework: one thing to start, one thing to stop, and one thing to do differently.

Remember, every minute you continue in a direction that isn't working costs you money, time, and peace of mind. Success follows speed, and as a small business owner, you control that speed. Ready to build a business that works for your life instead of running it? Start with a monthly review that actually matters.

Thanks for listening!

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Speaker 1:

Hi there, welcome back to the Create your Day podcast. I'm your host, jen Cody. Thank you so much for being here for episode 104. I want to talk to you guys today about decision making, which is something we cover a lot on here, and making decisions as a business owner is daunting, is important, because one wrong decision can really have serious consequences on us and our businesses. So I want to speak to you about something that seems to happen a lot. You know, the end of the month kind of comes, and maybe you're looking at your numbers. Maybe you feel good about them, you feel bad about them. Either way, you make a mental note to yourself that, oh, I'm going to do better next month, or oh, I did a little better than I thought, and then you dive right back into whatever chaos is normally your daily routine, right, and some of us operate in a very different way. We create elaborate spreadsheets, we are tracking everything. Maybe we're even spending a good amount of time analyzing the data, but then we don't actually change anything based on what it is that we've learned. So what I want to do today is talk to you about how to do a monthly review that will improve your business, and I'm not talking about just tracking numbers, but how do you use those numbers to make smarter decisions going forward? And I'm going to start with just talking about what a lot of people get wrong when it comes to this type of a review. Maybe you are tracking everything and acting on nothing, or you're tracking on nothing and wondering why you keep making the same mistakes. And the point of a monthly review is not to judge yourself, it's not to create charts, it's not to check off a box. It's actually to identify the patterns that can inform the decisions that you need to be making in a better way. So I want you to think of it as your business intelligence system, not your report card. It's not something that tells you where you've been. It's something that's going to tell you where you're going.

Speaker 1:

So I'm going to give you four questions. These are four questions that matter, so go ahead and write them down. The first one is what's working? And I want you to be really intentional when you answer this question, because we're not just talking about what made money, but what about? What is generating results? What should be continued? What should we double down on? What do we need to expand? Is it that your email newsletter had the best engagement that you've ever seen. Is it that clients from a particular referral are consistently the ones that you love working with? And maybe you launched a new service and that seems to be booking really really well?

Speaker 1:

The key here is not to identify just what worked, but why did it work? Was it the timing? Was it the messaging? Was it the audience that you reached? Because what worked without understanding the why behind it isn't going to help you actually repeat that behavior.

Speaker 1:

I worked with someone who had a really really high revenue month and she noticed that it coincided with launching specific type of content on her social media. But when she tried to repeat it the next month, nothing actually happened. So what we found? When we looked back and did a little audit on the situation, it turned out that the content wasn't really the factor. What really was working was that she had been more consistent with her emails that month and following up to people. The social media content got attention, but the emails is where that converted to sales. So when she didn't understand the complete system, she was optimizing just one part of that engine, right, so she was doubling down on the social media content, thinking this is the answer. This is what made all the difference last month. But since she didn't also double down on that email follow up, everything fell flat and she really wasted a lot of time and energy. So when you ask yourself what's working, be sure to see that through to its natural conclusion, which is the why is it working?

Speaker 1:

The next question is what's not working, and I mean really not working. What is consuming all of your resources and not generating results? This is not about getting things perfect. It's about making sure your resources are allocated correctly. A lot of us are spending a lot of time on a social media platform, and maybe what happens if that is sending zero traffic to your website. Maybe you're offering a new service and that attracts people that are just kind of testing it out instead of being serious buyers. Right, we call that kind of like the Groupon syndrome. Maybe you're networking at events, but those events are not really serving up your ideal clients to you. So I want you to get honest about what's not working, because when you think about sunk costs, that fallacy is real. Just because you've invested time or money into something does not mean you should keep investing more time and more money. We have to figure out if that time and money is actually converting to dollars in our business.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the third question what has changed? And here's the question that a lot of people skip, because it's often the most important one, but we're not thinking about this. What assumptions did you have that have maybe been proven to not be right? They're incorrect. What are some new opportunities that maybe emerged? What shifted in your market? What shifted in your business that maybe requires a different approach? We want to look at all of these things, because sometimes it's easy to assume that our clients need a particular solution because we believe in that solution, but if you are consistently hearing requests for something else, you're marketing the wrong thing. If you are working with a particular marketing channel, like a Facebook ad or a Google ad, or now Reddit ads are really big too Maybe that marketing channel worked six months ago, but now the results are different, and you know what. Let's go in the positive too. Maybe you've developed capabilities and honed in on some new skills, learned some new things, and that opens up new responsibilities.

Speaker 1:

This question is so important because change is not always obvious. Sometimes change is gradual. Sometimes it's hiding in the customer feedback, it's hiding in the patterns that you haven't been paying attention to. So it's really important that we don't skip this question. I'm telling you, it is very often the most important question you can ask about your business. Okay, fourth question what's next, based on what you've learned going through those first three questions, what should you be focusing on in the next 90 days? Not everything, but what are the most important things that are going to move your business forward? This is where a lot of people go wrong, because they're identifying 15 things that need their attention and they try to tackle all of them at once. I'm here to tell you, sustainable progress comes from focusing on the few key things, the few areas, and making real progress there, rather than spreading ourselves really thin and trying to put our attention across everything at one time. Okay, so you have your four questions.

Speaker 1:

Now I want to talk about what are you actually going to track? Because you don't need to measure everything. It's really difficult when we're talking about metrics, as a business owner, to look at a metric in our business and actually voice out loud that we don't think it's important because we don't want to negate anything right? We're so focused on our business doing well and our success and the success of our clients, that we want to measure everything, but we don't need to. What you do need to do is measure the right things. So these are just going to be a vital few things three to five metrics that are going to tell you whether your business is healthy and whether your business is growing. So, if you're a service-based entrepreneur, you these are going to include things like the metrics that actually predict your future performance. How many leads do you have? Are those leads qualified? What are the conversations that you're having with those leads? Are you growing your email list? What's the engagement like on your content? These are the things that are going to tell you what's coming before you actually see the result in your revenue. So that would be like a leading indicator, not an actual metric of revenue, because revenue metrics they're not just total revenue, but we want to look at revenue per client, revenue per service line, monthly recurring revenue, if that's something that's applicable in your business. This is what's going to tell you about the health and sustainability of the business model that you're working with, because if your revenue metrics are tanking, there's some work to be done. Right, we need to audit, evaluate and pivot when necessary.

Speaker 1:

Now let's talk about operations, because operational metrics can be a little bit confusing. We sometimes don't know where we're supposed to focus, and I'm going to tell you right now. The ones that you don't want to let go are client satisfaction scores. What are your reviews like? Are you even asking for reviews? Reviews on everything? Reviews on your services, reviews on your communication? If you're working with a team, even what is their review of your leadership? But let's talk first about just client satisfaction. Then we want to talk about length of time right to complete a project. How long is it taking you to get from point A to fulfillment, to the full circle, in the project that you're working on? And then, what are your profit margins like All of these things? Client satisfaction, how long it takes for you to complete a project and what your profit margin is these are going to tell you about the efficiency and scalability of your business and your operations in that business. If your operations are not scalable and they are not efficient, you are dead in the water. You're never going to grow.

Speaker 1:

Now I want you to look at personal metrics, because this is all about not losing ourselves while we're building these businesses, right? So how many hours are you working per week. What's your stress level at? On a 1 to 10 or 0 to 10? How's your work-life balance satisfaction? What is the point of any of this if you are growing a business that makes you miserable? So when you are looking at the metrics in your business, do not negate the personal metrics, because how would it feel if you looked at your revenue and it was just growing month after month after month? And then you looked at your revenue and it was just growing month after month after month? And then you looked at your personal metrics and saw that your stress was through the roof. You had no work-life balance and you're working 85 hours a week. Is that truly a successful business? Not in my book. That's not a business I want to run.

Speaker 1:

So I want you to track these monthly and you're going to look for trends. You don't want to just look at the end of the month and see where you are, like a snapshot. You actually want to look at trends. One month of lower revenue is totally fine, normal fluctuation, but if there's three months of lowering revenue or three months of declining engagement, that's a pattern and that requires your attention. So now you know what you're going to be reviewing the questions you need to ask yourself.

Speaker 1:

But let's talk about the actual review process. What I want you to do is take 90 minutes at the end of each month. Do not try to squeeze this into the gaps between other work you're doing. This requires focus time. It's strategic work. It requires all of your attention. Block 90 minutes and it has to be 90 minutes that you know you are going to be uninterrupted, totally uninterrupted. If that means you need to warn your family, you need to go somewhere else, you need to sit in your car, somewhere where you know nobody's going to bother. You make sure you do whatever it takes to get this 90 minutes uninterrupted focus time. And you'll start with your numbers. But you're not going to stop there. The numbers are going to tell you what happened, but they don't tell you why it happened and they don't tell you what to do about it. So they do tell a story, but we want to know what to do with that story.

Speaker 1:

So look at your calendar from the past month. What did you actually spend time on? How does that compare with what you really wanted to be spending your time on, and where did any time go that you didn't expect that got taken up. So really audit the time that you put into everything. Then look at your client interactions. Do you notice any patterns there? What's the feedback that you're constantly receiving from the clients? Are you getting, like I said earlier? Are you getting, good reviews? Are you getting mixed reviews? What are the problems that clients are asking you to solve that you're not solving?

Speaker 1:

Here's something this is a place that a lot of people get hung up, because we all think that we know what our clients want, because it's what we would want, but as you grow and as you scale and you grow your audience, they are going to be looking for other things. So what are the problems that they're asking you to solve that you're not solving? Is it time to pivot and offer something new? Now check in with your energy. Right, this is the personal audit. Check in your energy levels. What is the work you did that really energized you? What is the work that you did that totally drained you and what would you do more of? Is there anything you would eliminate completely if you could? And sometimes there is, but we can't right, and that has to be okay also.

Speaker 1:

Okay now, most important part you're going to make changes, the first step in making changes is deciding that you're going to make changes. So that's the first part of this process Decide, yes, I am going to pivot and make the changes. Which changes am I going to make? Okay, well, based on your review, identify three things what's one thing you can start doing, one thing you can stop doing, and one thing you're going to do differently. One thing to start doing, one thing to stop doing, one thing to do differently. Okay, so let's talk about what you're going to start doing.

Speaker 1:

Maybe you discovered that people who find you through a specific referral right, those are the best fits. So how can you implement a systemic referral process with that person Systematic, not systemic? How can you do that? Right, like, you need to be able to double down on that process. If I have another business that always is sending me people and referring people to me, and every single one of them is a home run and we just vibe and connect and I'm able to help them and we really connect in a meaningful way, I want to know how I can get more of that. How can me and this other business double down on that? Okay, what are you going to stop doing?

Speaker 1:

Let's go back to the networking events that we spoke about earlier. Maybe you realize that the networking events you're going to, maybe they're consuming three, four, five hours a month, but none of them have given you a single qualified lead in I don't know six months. Well, why would you continue to do that? Right, we need to do things that are actually going to send people our way. And then what would you do differently? What's your follow-up process? If it is working but it could be more efficient, how do you do that? Can you create some templates? Can you automate some parts of it, delegate some parts of it? Three changes start, stop and do differently. That's it. Implementation beats analysis, every single time, I promise, because the entrepreneurs who are going to grow, it's not the ones with the biggest spreadsheets, they're not the ones tracking the most metrics, they don't have fancy dashboards. They are just asking the right questions. They're honestly assessing the answers that they come up with and then they're changing their behavior based on what they've learned.

Speaker 1:

Your business it is talking to you every single day. It is constantly giving you information. The monthly review is how you're going to listen to that information, hear what it's telling you and respond intelligently. There are so many business owners that are really, really busy working in their business and they just never step back to work on their business. Right, there's a big difference between working in your business and working on your business. The monthly review is your opportunity to be strategic and not reactive. This is really important work and not everybody takes the time to make it happen, so I hope that you are able to carve out the time that you need. That's really what this is about, because when you think about, well, I don't have the time to do this, what is the cost of not doing this work? I just hung up with a coaching call not even a half hour ago, and the person that I was coaching not even a half hour ago, and the person that I was coaching was speaking about not really making changes when things aren't working in her business. So we had a whole conversation about what is the cost of that happening.

Speaker 1:

We think that it means that there may be something wrong with us if we switch direction and we constantly tell ourselves I don't want to reinvent the wheel. I don't want to reinvent the wheel. I don't want to look like I can't make up my mind. I don't want to keep shifting direction. Yes, I understand. And successful businesses pivot. Successful businesses have speed behind them. When something is not working, they switch direction and they see what is going to work.

Speaker 1:

Because every minute that you allow yourself and your business to continue going in a direction that is not working, it is costing you money, it is costing you revenue, it's costing you sleep time. Right, you're waking up in the middle of the night in a sweat because your business is not making money and you can't figure out what it is, because you're just waiting for the systems that you do have in place or for the you know, the referrals that you have. Whatever it is, you're not listening to the information that that is telling you, that your business is telling you about that. You think you're just waiting for it to catch on. You think that if it's a social media thing, you're just waiting for it to catch on. You're just waiting for that one post that's going to go viral. No, you need to focus on the things that are actually bringing revenue into your business.

Speaker 1:

I have a social media account. It doesn't have a ton of people on it. It doesn't get a ton of engagement. I enjoy it. I enjoy putting my message out there. I certainly can't rely on it to bring me clients. So that is not where I focus.

Speaker 1:

I focus on the relationships that I have that do bring more business into my world, because that is what is going to sustain my business. And that's what gives me joy is working with people and helping people and helping them reach their next revenue level, helping them go from struggling business owner to really successful entrepreneurs and the CEOs that they are born to be. But I couldn't do that if I didn't listen to the fact that, oh, my Instagram gets a couple of likes and a couple of shares. That's not where I need to be focused. It's so important to be honest with ourselves about stuff like that.

Speaker 1:

So if you're sitting there right now listening to this and thinking, oh wow, jen, you might be in my head because I keep waiting for this new program to just take off, or I keep waiting for this new program to just take off, or I keep waiting for these new referrals to just click with me. That is not going to work. It's just not how it happens. Success follows speed and, as a small business owner, you're in charge of the speed of your business. It's not going to just pick up and make these changes on its own. So I encourage you to really take this seriously and do this monthly review okay.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I hope that this was valuable for you. Take this information. Go out there, create your day in the best way possible. Build the business that you know is going to work for your life and not run your life. It is so worth it and I can't wait to see your success. Until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and I will see you next week. Thanks again.