Okay, online business owner.
I see you, obsessed with checking your instagram engagement numbers but not really knowing what they mean.
I see you, ignoring your bank statements out of fear and confusion.
I see you, feeling overwhelmed with all of the things you already do in your business without even thinking about data.
There are a lot of freaking numbers out there. A lot of pieces of data, things you’re supposed to somehow know in your business.
Things like:
- Finances
- Cash on hand
- Taxes
- Instagram followers
- Engagement rates
- Open rates
- Contractor payments
- Google Analytics
- Ad performance
It may seem that not only are you supposed to access and understand them, but you’re also supposed to know how to chart, analyze and respond to them.
If you’re a VA or OBM, maybe you’re responsible for collecting this data for your clients’ businesses.
With all of those numbers spinning around, we can get lost, overwhelmed, or extremely fixated on a few apps or reports.
Or we can put our heads in the sand and just ignore everything. We can very easily lose sight of what is required on a day-to-day basis to move a business forward.
So instead of getting overwhelmed or fixating on things, I love creating a business report card.
Call it a scorecard, a report card, a reflection exercise, a temperature check, call it whatever makes you feel good and excited to review it.
This report card gets filled out and reviewed each month so you can review data, celebrate the wins, and then plan out how you will use resources in the next month to affect change and growth in the business.
Follow these steps to set up the data points for your report card. You can use this for your business, or for your client’s business.
- Input your success markers. How do you know when things are going well in the business? What is considered a win?
- If you have a team, what are the success markers for their outcomes? How do you know they’re happy, healthy, and striving?
- If you only had to look at a few numbers or pieces of data in order to feel totally confident and empowered to make decisions, what would you need to know?
- How do you want to feel emotionally about your business? Is there a way for you to quantify or check in on that feeling?
(Scroll to the bottom of this post for some ideas on data points you may want to track or to get the creative juices flowing.)
Now that you have your data points, you can drop them into a spreadsheet, an AirTable, or anything else that can act as the single source of truth for your data points.
In the first column of your spreadsheet, list out all of your data points.
Across the top, list all of the months of the year.
Set a calendar appointment for yourself or the member of your team assigned to the review
Then test it out.
Could you easily find all the data you wanted? Are there any data points that can be cut? Are there better metrics to measure?
Don’t overdo it here.
I personally try to keep it to around 20 pieces of data because that’s what I know I need to keep my finger on the pulse. I can use these 20 points to do a temperature check on my business each month without going too far into the weeds or into a rabbit hole of irrelevant
If you’re happy, make it a permanent document and share it with relevant team members.
Commit to filling it out before your monthly team planning sessions.
Brainstorm options or ideas to keep trends moving in the direction you want to see.
Celebrate your progress!
Check out the list below for some of the data markers you can consider adding to your Monthly Report Card:
Financial
- New Business Booked
- Cash Collected
- Total Expenses
- Profit & Loss
- Number of Sales Calls
- Number of Deals Won
- Monthly Closing Percentage
- Number of Referrals
- Number of Refunds
Marketing
- Mailing List Contacts
- Text list Contacts
- Number of Emails Sent
- Average Open Rate
- Average Click Rate
- Average Unsubscribe Rate
- Instagram Followers
- Number of New Opt-Ins via Lead Magnet
- Number of People in Free Facebook Group
- Funnel Performance or traffic
Clients
- Total Clients by Program
- New Clients Added
- Clients Lost
- Clients Renewed
- Number of Clients per Team Member
- Number of Product Sales
- Number of Course Sales
- Number of Applications Received
Team
- Total Number of Team Members
- Team Members Added
- Team Members Lost
Visibility
- Speaking Engagements
- Podcast Interviews
- Live Interviews/Appearances
- Book Sales
- Podcast Downloads
Personal
- Number of Vacation Days
- Overall Satisfaction Score (scale of 1-5)
- Hours Spent on Personal or Leadership Development
Totally overwhelmed by this?
Grab one of my VIP Days and we will co-create your report card, determine how you will use the data, and get it DONE.
