The Metrics That Really Matter in Your Business

Until recently, my nightly routine always looked the same: 

• Scroll through Facebook on my phone
• Lie in bed with my eyes wide open 
• Scroll through Facebook a little bit more
• Fall asleep

And then when my alarm went off in the morning, I would hit snooze as many times as I possibly could. I’d finally drag myself out of bed and into the shower. 

By the time I sat down at my desk, I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. I just wanted to GO BACK TO BED. 

So I tried something different. I began plugging my phone in on the other side of the bedroom, picking up a book, and reading until 11pm, when I would turn off the lights. 

Suddenly, the mornings went from being the bane of my existence to my FAVORITE part of the day. Instead of dragging myself out of bed at 8am, I was suddenly waking up at 6:30am and sitting down ready to begin the day by 7. 

Talk about a 180. 

When I began noticing this change, it made me realize how this type of problem is SO common for entrepreneurs:

PAYING ATTENTION TO THE LAGGING MEASURES RATHER THAN THE LEADING MEASURES. 

There are two types of measures for how your business is performing: leading and lagging indicators. 

1. Leading Indicators: The things that you have DIRECT control over. For example, the daily actions you take to drive traffic and generate leads.
2. Lagging Indicators: The things that you don’t have direct control over. For example, the number of sales conversations you have or amount of revenue you bring in. 

The LEADING indicators directly impact the LAGGING indicators. 

At the end of the day, you don’t have direct control over how much money you make. But you DO have direct control over the actions you need to take in order to influence that revenue.

For example, you want to make $20k every month. If you spend your time worrying about the $$, then you won’t know whether you’ve reached that goal until it’s too late to do anything about it. 

BUT...

You know that in order to make $20k each month, you need to take xyz actions every day. And if you take those actions consistently, you’ll get to the $20k mark. 

It’s the exact same as my nightly routine dilemma: 

• How I felt in the morning was a lagging indicator. By the time I was feeling like a drowned rat, it was too late to go back and do anything about it. I could only change what I did going forward. 
• What I did at night before I went to sleep was a leading indicator. If I took certain actions like reading instead of scrolling through Facebook, it would impact how I felt the following morning.

When you pay focus on the LEADING indicators in your business, several things happen: 

• You know EXACTLY what you need to do to get more clients
• You’re motivated to actually do it consistently

You’re better able to predict how doing (or not doing) certain things has a DIRECT impact on the things you actually care about (like the $$)