Choosing Your Feedback Loops

For more than two decades I’ve had an old car, a 1986 Volvo 740. It’s got 224,000 on the odometer, and it keeps running. Neither my wife Holly nor I ever cared about getting a new car.

Now that we’ve moved to the country, we need a second car, so that both of us can be mobile at the same time. During a painful two week period I learned more about kinds of cars and models than I ever really wanted to know, but we finally decided. We bought a used Toyota Prius, and I’m pretty happy with it.

Something I’m really happy about is that it has a display screen that shows you not only your current estimated miles-per-gallon, but it also shows the averages over the last 30 minutes of driving, 5 minute increments.

This past weekend, my birthday, we drove out to another town an hour away to explore upstate New York, and I could see how we were driving. We averaged about 45 miles-per-gallon the entire trip.

Okay, Mark, you’re not Click or Clack, please don’t veer off into auto land.

Don’t worry, I’m not. I’m so glad to not have to pay attention to cars any more.

But what I am fascinated with is feedback loops. In our Volvo, the only real-time feedback loop I had was how empty the tank was, how fast I was driving, or how soon I got somewhere. And occasionally an engine light. 🙂

Consequently, I couldn’t, and didn’t, drive to use less gas. Which actually is a much bigger deal in the Volvo than in the Toyota.

And is a really big deal in your business.

Your Business’ Feedback Loops

Most times, when you do something in your business, you’re not getting timely feedback on what you really want to know. You don’t know if you should do more of something or less of something else.

For instance many business owners measure “Revenue” the money coming in, and not “Profit” the money you get to keep. Shifting from measuring revenue to profit is especially important as your business enters more advanced stages of development, or if you have high monthly costs. To measure profit requires really solid accounting, something else many business owners avoid.

From there, choices abound. You might choose to measure how long clients stay with you. Since profit is in repeat business, it would be good feedback to measure how many of your clients in a given month are new versus repeat clients? How many clients have been around for more than 3, 6, or 12 months?

This kind of feedback can be really important. You might notice that if most of your clients are new, you may need to work on retention, helping clients stick around for longer. On the other hand, if most of your clients have been around for a year or more, you may be at risk, since some of them may complete. Where are your new clients going to come from?

These are just two examples. What other feedback loops do you actually use, or are there others you realize you want to use, but aren’t yet?

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Heart of Business Community Update

As a community member, here’s quick access to resources and conversation!

Steve Mattus, our Director of Education and Community Manager just posted a new Business Q&A video.  It’s a really thought provoking video about Leadership vs. Abandonment that comes up very often in working with clients.  Curious what this video bring up for you.

Check out the new Business Q&A Video.

In our secret Facebook group yet?

It’s our private, secret group only for Community members- no one else can see it. Here are some discussions happening right now:

• Do you ask yourself how best to serve ‘real’ clients but want to pursue ‘new possibilities’ instead? What comes up for you?
• As your self-image shifts, your ability to attract new clients as well as increasing client retention manifests. How can you easily accept the changes?

These are just 2 of the many discussions happening every day in our active, compassionate group! Don’t yet have access? Click here. 
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Next Steps: Register by the end of August, starts September 7

Ready to get your business really moving?

The first Monday of September our two core programs start the next round.

Foundations1: Clients and Money covers crafting and pricing offers, and then selling them (among many other things.) It’s for people in start-up, or with very low income, who just need to get clients and money in the door.

Click here for info and to register for Foundations1: Clients & Money.

Foundations2: Expand Your Reach is for those whose income is at times okay, but inconsistent, and you knew if you reached more people, you would have a full, consistent business. It covers website strategy and networking (including networking for introverts!).

Click here for info and to register for Foundations2: Expand Your Reach.

Or… Don’t know what you need?

Take our Readiness Assessment. We can help you learn where your business is developmentally and what you need to help it grow.

Click here for a Readiness Assessment.