Ep117 Key metrics in your online business with Bec & Joe Winston

This week on the Her Empire Builder Podcast, I am lucky enough to speak to the wonderful Bec & Joe Winston from “Need a System”.

Bec & Joe have spent the last decade learning about the importance of systemising your business. They help business-building couples with kids create and implement systems to achieve their ideal work-life balance. They love diving into the data to gain clarity, and leaning into your zones of genius to gain momentum.

In this episode, you will learn: 

  • The importance of understanding your business key metrics 
  • How to implement reviewing your key metrics in to your daily/weekly/monthly process
  • Serving your customers based on your key metrics

 

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Show Notes:

Connect with Bec & Joe here: [email protected]

Follow on instagram: @needasystem 

Follow on facebook: facebook.com/needasystem

Visit website: http://needasystem.com/

Resources:

This awesome thing we spoke about: Bec & Joe's pre-recorded webinar just for you! https://www.needasystem.com/tina

 

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Show Transcription: 

 

Tina

Hey, friends, welcome to Episode 117. So I will tell you, one of my favourite things about podcasting is getting to talk to so many interesting and entertaining people. I mean, if you've ever thought about starting your own podcast, you don't have one yet. I think that is one of the biggest benefits is you know, you get to just open up and speak to such cool people and invite them onto your show. And today, I have amazing guests for you Bec and Joe Winston from Need A System. And it was such an interesting conversation, which I absolutely love. I mean, you if you're a regular listener of the show, you know, I'm a systems gal. I love me a system. I love me a process. And I love the numbers and the story that they can tell. And so today, we have Bec and Joe, who have bucket loads of experience in business and full systems, numbers, people. And so they're sharing with us well, I asked them a whole heap of stuff all about their business journey, because it is superduper. Interesting. And then we get right into key metrics so that we can look at what key metrics are going to move the levers in your business, and how can you manipulate them? And how can you track them? And what is the point of tracking them as well. So you'll get all of that in today's episode. All right, so I can tell you about them. Rebecca, and Joe Winston from Need a system has spent the last decade learning about the importance of systems in business,

oh, who started off selling sheet music on eBay, to lugging a 200 kilogramme photo booth around parties to then launching a seven figure digital publishing business. And it all became clear that it doesn't matter what business you run, you need a system. And so now what they do is help business, business building couples with kids create and implement systems to achieve their ideal work life balance. And they love diving into the data to gain clarity and learning into your zones of genius to gain momentum. And you will get I mean, this conversation is pretty pretty darn interesting. And there's also some really cool practical stuff that you can put into your business. To know that you should be tracking your key metrics each and every month at a minimum. But you may be listening and going or what numbers should I even be tracking? Are they the right ones? You're going to find all of that and we're going to make it for online course creators. You're gonna love it. All right. Luckily, enjoy. Bec & Joe welcome to the podcast.

 

I was so excited when I first spoke to you guys, because you talk all systems and I am obsessed with systems. I'm looking forward to it freedom, right, and you're all about freedom. And so it totally makes sense. That's it. That's it. Now can you give me a little bit of background when I read your like journey through business I go, I love how twisting to any twisting any of it. So let me know kind of how that progression in an overview kind of thing happened in terms of getting you into metrics?

 

Bec & Joe

Right, great question. And you know, as you would have experienced in your business journey, and I think everyone listening would feel the same way. Each step kind of reveals this new part of yourself and, and retrospectively you go, you know what I didn't have in that past step that would be really useful for the next step. And so it's always evolving. And so the story was Joe and I, Joe and I met when I was 13. And Joe was 12.

 

Tina

That's the cutest

 

Bec

and we were in a school band together to go to school. He was at the boys school, but the band was together. Yeah. And and so we were great friends through high school. Joe kind of says that I was the one that he would talk to about girls, which really beat him in the bum later. We got together I'd be like, Is this like the time wave? And then, so we got to get I think we got together and we were married about 10 years ago.

10 years this year. Yeah.

along that way before we got married? Um, yeah, I guess that we've always just had a bit of a brain of trying new things and the life that's a bit unconventional.

So one night, I had this thought, also, it's your background in your family, like so Bec is one of seven, the youngest of seven kids in their five businesses amongst the seven siblings, so

and I grew up in a family business, and the seven of us, five of us have our own business. See, that's not coincidental.

 

Tina

What do you think your parents did when you were growing up that made five out of seven of you want to go into business ownership.

 

Bec

That is a great question.

I’m the youngest, so mom and dad mom passed away a couple of years ago, and mom and dad had been married for 56 years. And then and then,

and then Parenthood, like, started 20 years before I was born. So they had seven children over 20 years. And dad would work. So when I was born, the siblings were 20,18, 16 14, 11, and six. So even like the slim, so they like gapped them. Like you just had a child go off to high school, right? Yeah. And then like having another five children.

 

Tina

I cannot imagine. Like, my life is back.

 

Bec

And you and I are the same age. So my mom would have had another two children after this age. So and she already had five, so much. So they were dad was a builder. And so we grew up in a building business. And I don't, I wouldn't be able to put it down to this is why this is why we've all kind of ended up doing this. Not all one's a teacher, who has built real estate and done lots of real estate and the other reason of being, you know, multinational, kind of, you know, high in a corporation. Um, so, you know, I don't know, I don't know how we've all ended up here. But we have. And so it's interesting when I listen to other people's podcasts, and they talk about, you know, on, no one really understands, or, you know, none of me, my family and friends, it's almost the answer that we are surrounded by it. So, so maybe it's not crazy that one night, I just thought to myself, you know what, Joe? Mom, Dad, I have got up, I don't know, maybe 15 to 20 boxes of sheet music under their house. Because as part of my brother's business years before they repossessed a music store. We could sell it on eBay, because it's a fire hazard.

Literally just on a whim one night and so you know, at the time, so this is over a decade ago, turned it into an eBay sheet music until it was all gone, made a few grand went on a holiday and Okay, first foray. So the other thing about me is that I'm a qualified osteopath. So I'm a registered osteopath. And at the time I was practising, I still am. And one of my patients was getting married and having a photo booth at her wedding. And I've gone, a photo booth, hoto of her because she was going to Victoria to get married. I was like, Are there any photo booths in Queensland? And so that's how we met, we created party machines, which was a photo booth, plus a slushie machine plus a jukebox, and nothing is gonna teach you about business systems more than lugging a 200 kilogramme photo. We learned a lot about that.

 

Tina

Is that the business that went big?

 

Jo

No. That kind of, I was at uni. So it's kind of like my uni job. When we did that, and it was funny, because we went to, like, this is kind of kind of defined, not defined there as we've been it's been a thread in our relationship. Like we listen to Tony Robbins and you know, say and that's how we kind of got on the business building like we wanted to start our own business. So we were at a some kind of achievement, national event he was he was 10 years he was gonna propose, and we had the engagement party at the launch for the Photo Booth so we could claim it back.

 

Tina

I love it

 

Bec

And so what we learned about going through that business, and so that business paid for itself, we went in, like, just totally different to what we do now. Which is, right, let's get a business loan to buy the machines and a vehicle loan for the car. And of course, we're going to get a new car and website and design and watering where we go as the newbies going, we need the good design, we need that. And you know, what, such a good learning experience and yeah, totally different direction from experience. So nothing bad happened, you know, Joe was at uni, it paid for itself, but it didn't end. And at the end, we sold off the equipment and, you know, paid off our car.

 

Tina

You know, like it's all, you know, yeah, it could be much, much

less than I think that we have to learn and going well, not only that, but times have changed as well. Like I go to businesses that I run now you can start for $5,000. And that's if you go like heavy on investment of the goods, where I started my first business when I was 20. And that opened the doors was 85,000. And I go, like, it went so quick that we we learn more efficient ways of doing it. And what like you said, with the designer, I have people coming to me with their first time business, they've just spent like $6,000 getting their brand guide.

And I'm like, I probably could have used that money for something else.

 

Jo

Like a lead generation.

 

Bec

And even um, you know, we've got so many stories around that business, we won't go through them all. But a really interesting thing like because now we are quite data and metrics driven. We love the numbers, the why behind the numbers. And we have even done like Google search history of are people looking for photobooth like, we just look at things so differently now. And so what we decided for our next business is that we wanted something that didn't have any weight

anyway.

 

Jo

No kilogrammes.

 

Bec

So no 200 kilogrammes.

 

Tina

I can understand why

 

Bec

Yeah, so what we decided was to do a digital magazine. So before we went in a totally different direction. So this was a Thermomix recipe. So we created a brand called the full blades, we'd started a podcast, and with the podcast, we connected with other people in the feminist industry. And we ended up connecting with our business partner, Peter from the road to loving my Thermomixer.  And, you know, she had posted on Facebook and was like, I'm really sad about, you know, maternity leave ending her child was one at the time. And I said to her, you know, maybe I should reach out to her and see if she wants to do a magazine with me. And she did. So what kind of happened, I'm going to really summarise it down is that we released 50 issues of this magazine. So that's one issue a month of 40 plus tried and tested recipes on a particular theme. We delivered it via the we've delivered via an app. So people either had a subscription via Apple, or they had a subscription via Google. Yeah, and like Google Play. We Yes, so we did that. And over the time, we got get, an issue out every month on the first of the month. Now, obviously, there's so many stories to tell over that four years in business. It also taught us a lot about systems.

 

Jo

And that is effectively a cookbook that we promise to deliver on the first of every month.

 

Tina

Which is massive as a Thermomix lover I can I it was so popular.

 

Bec

So you know, it was you know, we sold hundreds of 1000s of copies. And we you know, it was, you know, in terms of in revenue, like over the time had brought in or well over a million in revenue. And we had a team of like 70 recipe testers around the world like a volunteer recipe testers, we had a team of paid photographers. And this was two mums, building it and the website and branding initially was like a Fiverr.

 

Jo

we built it following Pat Flynn's like YouTube video.

 

Bec

I took a photo of Gretchen Reubens, the happiness project and sent it to the guy on Fiverr. I was like I really like these colours. And that turned into the brand colours. You know, and that was that. So we just did it a totally different way to build down to like how did this come into metrics? So selling things on the App Store is like Oh, and I can't speak for it now because I'm talking back in 2018 things may have changed I think suspect and you might be able to do it in a more clever way. But initially, we built it using off the shelf software. And what this meant is we were not able to track who our subscribers, I could not tell you. So, Tina, if you had said to me, oh, I subscribed between whenever and whenever, I would have no clue about that, because there's like an Iron Curtain.

 

Jo

Apple will own the data. And there's nothing you can do about that.

 

Bec

That's right. So then, um, you know, there's so many stories around that. And we did create a new platform and migrated it migrated people over and a lot of our customers were kind of like, you know, we gave them all these new features by moving them to like a WordPress version of it, while maintaining the app, which was a lot of double handling. But we were very customer focused. And we just, yeah, we were just a lot of customers. Like, you know, I've been a subscriber for four years now, like, how do you how do you not know that as well? I'm really sorry. But you know, unless you opt in and give us your email address and what have you. We can't and we can't see if you drop off one month.

 

Tina

That would drive me crazy.

 

Bec

So the thing with that business, so. So there's a lot of kind of things around the end of that business. But basically, if I'm sorry, the 50th issue lined up with the end of that year, December, and each, we had been on the hamster wheel now i'm sure like, Tina, as you can, you've had a number of different businesses and you You're the people that you work with. I think everyone listening to this can probably relate to a moment of being on the hamster wheel. And if you think about getting a full cookbook out every month, like we had our systems dialled in. Now in the early days, it was frantic, getting it out on the first of every month. Later, as we dialled in more systems, it wasn't as frantic, but still took it like the content was so, like consuming and not having that data of who our subscribers were, we really focused all of our attention on retaining our subscribers, even though we didn't know who they were. And any, it really started to I guess, as we started to value work life balance more having a second child, both of our children were born during the the reign of the magazine was that we were like, Look, this is a huge part of our lives. And I think this is time 50 issues is time to wrap this up. And yeah really, from a value of work life balance.

 

Tina

how come you didn't sell it?

 

Jo

Great question, I really wanted to

 

Bec

our business partner had always said from the beginning, she felt really strongly about not selling it. So and that was fine. I respected that.

 

Jo

it was also good in that. So the other the other part of it is that we it's still running, and it's now a really great vehicle for us to test things out on so now we use it to test systems on so it's instead of magazines, we've got 50 ebooks, you know, and so it's a great product based business that doesn't, that doesn't have that pressure of always publishing, you know, you know, so we can, it's it is in it. So even though I was very keen to sell, it has been really cool for us to you know, try out different funnels, try out different systems, right, you know, what's working, what's not what it like, even email marketing and all that sort of stuff, it's still really good to have that business there that we can use so that we know what works and what doesn’t.

 

Bec

Yeah, so it is now it kind of just looks after itself. We have someone who does all the customer service. And it's pretty hands off or you know, so I do the finances and and like so recently we tested a new funnel, like does the style of thing work. And we've still got a mailing like a large mailing list and we've got a 10,000 person Facebook group and so we have things that even though we're not selling on a monthly basis, we kind of can see we still have a community there.

 

Tinam

Yeah, beautiful. And so then when you stepped back from that was that then when the current business idea kind of started germinating.

 

Bec

I would set so you know, there was amazing universal timing. So that kind of September was when I kind of got this vision of all December issue 50 this is actually it for us like that's when it like literally just one day I got this. Oh my goodness like realisation and then.

 

Tina

You did pretty well to two months later, step it around. I know a lot of people that stay in businesses for a long time before they go, you know what, this isn't right for me anymore before they can pull the pin. So that's really good.

 

Bec

And I think just a numbers person. So seeing the alignment of the end of the year with a with a round number, like 50 was like, Oh my gosh, but in the universal timing of that, Tina, my mom had a terminal diagnosis in November, and she passed away on January the seventh. So for the first time, I'm not even kidding you. Because usually up on New Year's Eve for the previous four years, I was like putting the finishing touches on a magazine, on even if there was a party going on at my house, I was just had to do a few things. For the first time, in five years, I was totally present with my family, I didn't need to end and it was this amazing experience of my mom passing, you know, like, so it just it was meant to be, you know, as difficult as difficult as it was in a lot of ways. That was just the time of it. And so really, truthfully, Jo was also in the middle of a massive Salesforce implementation at the time for his work. And it was all consuming. It was also a lesson in work life balance and burnout. It was all consuming to do this, you know, this particular project. So 2019, I just by that I still had a child who was on the one and a four year old, so I just left. And so Jo focused on finishing that project, I worked as an osteopath, because we are currently in mind, I'm talking to you today from my home office. So I have a clinic where patients come. I did a little bit of that. And I did a tonne of training in 2019 like to go to like, you know, the Arc method sales funnels stuff, like just looking at just the things that interests me a lot of personal stuff. So I worked, I did some coaching.

 

Tina

Where did you find the time to be an osteo a parent to toddlers, and do all of that learning. Like I know, I've got a stack of online courses parked that I'm supposed to be going. And I was like, I don't have the time nor the brain space to do that. Right.

 

Bec

I think that that was just the two I think. I don't think that I could ever articulate the brain space that the magazine took up. Yeah, really truthfully. So it was like I had a vacuum.

I rested a lot and and i would say, you know, I totally feel you on that. And I Previous to that had bought a lot of courses that I wouldn't have finished that year, my completion rate was love it. Because I was just genuinely I was doing it from a place of I don't need to implement this right now. I'm just so interested in this material. And then I'm all kind of started wondering what our next thing would be. And in about April last year, I need a system kind of popped into my brain. And again, I'm a numbers person. So it popped into my brain at 4:44am on the fourth of the fourth. I'm not even kidding.

 

Tina

Do you know my obsession with Fours?

 

Bec

So I like if you're a numbers person, I will just also share like out a second daughter was born at 1234. And on the leader. As soon as I started thinking about the end of the magazine, I saw 1234 everywhere, even on like a YouTube video in the background or like it was everywhere. So I love it. So yes, in the middle of the night, I've got like, I'm like, Oh, what is this? Like, I'm writing all this down, and I grabbed my phone. And it's 4:44am. And then I shared it with my friend, Tracy Harris, and was like, oh, Tracy, this came through to me. And she's like, Do you realise it's the fourth of the fourth today? And I was like, oh my gosh. So anyway, that's how it'll start. And it's still evolving. But really the key things and the way that you and I you know that we connected with you is that at the moment we are so surrounded by numbers like you can log into Google Analytics, you can log into Kajabi dashboard, you can look in the back end, but what are those numbers mean? They can be overwhelming. And where they come from, where do they come out of it? What is it actually showing you you know? Like, it's got to kind of have a name. But what does it mean? Like, where is that data coming from? in it? I think there's a real missing piece around that. And also, why are we measuring the ones that they give us? Like, then they might might not be the ones that matter, What are you trying to achieve? And let's find a measure for that, you know, again, and you know, what work from there.

 

So, yeah. And like Tina, you would probably have women in your community, right, that maybe start off working with you and kind of go, I want to have a million dollar business. But they don't. They don't have that, like, what does that mean? And and what is the profit margin of that? And what is that time commitment for you? And is that you? Don't I mean, like I am, you're on our page with that. Yeah, everything we've seen of you that it's like, getting clear of going, what does that mean to you? Because I just think, you know, growing up in business, being in business, you could work 24 hours a day, and you could still find new things. You could go, Oh, I'm going to become a clubhouse expert. I shouldn't be on LinkedIn, I'm going to go and do the extra training, you could literally, you could do all of those things. Yeah. So what we are really, we see such benefit in is having a scoreboard for your own business. So a scoreboard that is super actionable. And where you can say, this is what I have done. And I'm happy with that. And I'm celebrating that. And I'm okay with exactly where I am right now, rather than this constant entrepreneurial, but that person's at this level, and that was I didn't hit that or or, like, for example, I would we would run a challenge. And I'd be like, okay, let's hope 5000 people sign up and 5000 people would sign up, and I'd be like, okay, let's get 10,000 like, I changed.

 

Tina

The goalposts constantly move.

 

Bec

And so there's almost and then if we got 9500, I'd be like, Ah, yes, for many times when we set ourselves up for feeling less than, and we're so not into that.

 

Tina

Yeah. So do you find with online businesses, is there a set of key metrics that you're like, you know, what, this is what every business should be tracking? Or do you think it's different depending on what people's goals are? How do you go about finding what those scorecards should be?

 

Jo

Well, it's, I think it's, there are some universal ones, you know, and and not even universal, like, it's universal for memberships, you know, or universal for product based business. There's, there's a handful, but when we talk about a compelling scoreboard, there's really two. And so there's a book called The four Disciplines of Execution. And one of the authors is actually Stephen Coveyson and you know, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective yet one of the others is him. And they talk about building a compelling school. And there's a story in the book. As big football game in the US, it was a college football game, I think, but it was just after Hurricane Katrina, and the score board had been knocked down. So this huge game, and then in the crowd was it was packed like it was a capacity crowd. But nobody was cheering and nobody like it. And at any point, you could just hear the, like, soft murmur of conversation, because nobody knew what the score was. Nobody knew you know, how much time was left, you know, so we had a scoreboard, the game doesn't matter at all. And there's sort of an analogy. Yeah. And it's really, and it makes so much sense, right? And if you've got if you're in business, and especially if you've got a team going, you know, can you guys tell that there's a game going? Like, it just feels like nobody's motivated? It's because they don't have a compelling scoreboard. And, and there's a real difference between the scoreboard that your team has, and and so if you're, you know, we just watched Ted Lasso, Apple, Oh, my gosh, isn't that the best show?

 

Tina

I actually watched it with my kids, which I know it has some big names, but the messages and the

 

Jo

What a legend. So like, I sort of think about, you know, there's countless, countless is real motivational guy, right? And that's kind of your job as a leader, then there's coach beard, who's got all of the data, like, he knows everything, right? And then there's the players that just need to know if they're winning or losing, you know, and they need a compelling scoreboard. And so, when I when I think about that, there is there's two kinds of indicators, which I'm sure you're like a lot of people are across, which is, you know, lead indicators and lagging indicators. And we hear that all the time. But what that really means is, so when we talk about these goals that people have, like I want to million dollar business, or you know, I want to increase sales, they're all out lag indicators. So, a way to think about lead and lag Oh, cool. Oh crap, you know? So lagging indicators are either you go Oh, cool oh crap. I like it's too late to do anything about it. Yeah, whereas lead indicators you can you can affect them before you get the lag the lag indicator so what's gonna lead to more sales what's gonna lead to an AI we like to think so we live really passionate about family businesses and architecting the work life balance that really matters Do you want because work life balance is different for everybody, right? So what instead of a goal of a million dollars, why not have a goal of I want to take Friday's off, you know, I want to have every Friday off and I want to go for a coffee in the morning, I want to have a massage. I don't want to have lunch with a friend or pick up the kids I don't want you know, Friday nights to be you know, out we're going to we're going to have Friday afternoons financing can be family time, we're going to do some some really cool stuff. Okay, so that's you got that's an outcome, right? And that's a really compelling goal. So how do we get to that? What's gonna lead us to that day? So, okay, what's the day going to cost us maybe, you know, coffee, massage lunch, you know, maybe it's 200 bucks, you know, to so I need an extra 200 bucks, and I just listened to your podcast with Melissa Brown, you know, so that $200 isn't $200. So if you're looking at her model, it's either two to one or three to one, like, if you're gonna spend one, save one and get one, right. So at 200 bucks is I need to make $600. Okay, so I've got a $100 product, I need to sell six more of those every week to have my and then I can have my Friday's off. Plus some other things, you know what goes wrong with, you know, what happens if I'm not in the business? And that's around boundary setting? You know, I know from your book, you're a big fan of Rene Brown. And she does like if nobody can talk about boundary setting better than Brene. So, but what what can we control them? So what's going to lead to those six extra sales? So that's where we start looking at the metrics, you know, like, so how many, you know, how many leads you have to have for a sale? And how much traffic? Does that mean for a sale? And how many? How much traffic? Do you get per Instagram post? Or, you know, what's your SEO like, and all those sorts of things, and then you can kind of find what's working for you. Because every business has its strengths, and every person has their strengths. You know, like, I've heard you say, like, some, some people are really scared of doing Facebook Lives, but they're beautiful writers, you know, so like, what content Can you can you make that's going to compel people that's going to, that's easy for you that's in your zone of genius, like, let's, let's boost that up. And rather than trying to be something and not or turn your business into something, it's not, let's focus on what's already working, and really expand that, let's plug all the leaks, let's find out where you're wasting time, energy and money. And, and we'll plug those because a lot of the time, that's, that will be enough. So like the the, I think we're going to link to a call I did on on kajabi metrics, I really focus a lot around retention, because if you can tighten up your retention, it just solves so many problems, you know, and this is like in every much cheaper, so much cheaper, so much cheaper, and it takes because if you retain a member, you don't have to sell as much, which means you don't have to market as much, which means you don't have to, you know, create as much content. So that trickle down effect of retention is so powerful. And so one of the metrics I look at is in that video is critical dates. So finding your key drop off points. So maybe you know, at three months, you have a lot of drop off. So maybe start sending better emails around that. Let's get your email sequence at that time, maybe show up in your Facebook group more and start helping people. And when they're at that three month mark, maybe pick up the phone and call you people that are that that or do you know that are coming up to three months? So those sorts of things are the kind of they're the scoreboards that we're talking about. So you can quantify quantifiably, say, on any day, whether you had a good good or a bad day. And yeah, make it really easy on yourself and you know, not so you're not trying to do everything, you know, these three things are the things that I need to do to quantify to quantifiably say that I've had a great day today. And I should celebrate that.

 

Tina

Yeah. So when the biggest objection that I get from people so in I run a mastermind that's filled with course creators that are kick ass. And one of the things that we do at the end of every month is review the metrics of the month that has been, but it's something that I know that the bulk of people always have the best of intentions to do. But they're so busy doing the busy work in their businesses that they don't get around to actually looking at it. Have you got a recommendation for people to make that easier in terms of should you be looking daily at your scoreboard? Should you be looking weekly, you should be looking at monthly should be looking at quarterly all of the above to make those adjustments.

 

Jo

I think a cadence of accountability is really important on that. And so I think there are, I think for you, you players scoreboard, it's got to be looking at it every day, you know and then and that's it. The whole process is making it really easy. You don't want to have to spend four hours getting the data to say, to get it, it's just gonna be. And it's, and it's cool now, because there are ways if you if you're stuck,

 

Tina

It's the current software available in the world, it's just the most amazing thing. You cannot

ascertain or like what, you know, in that monthly check in what would you What do you recommend people to look at as the course.

So depends on what key metrics are in the business. But the things that we look at is things like the easy things in terms of monthly recurring revenue, retention rates, percentage of wages as revenue, we look at, like marketing things, your email list, open rate, the click rate, all of those sorts of basic stuff.

 

Bec

Yeah. And I think that's a great, you know, it's a great place to start. And, and going again, cool. And then from an from a, you know, the leading indicators, scoreboard, you'd like to action. So they're the things you're looking at on a daily basis. So even breaking it down, like, I'm going to do, if, for example, you knew Instagram was your platform, I'm going to do one post a day, or I'm aiming for three posts a week. And once I've done that, I can feel good. I've done that. Yeah, rather than I should be posting every day, but I'm not. And you know, and because then you've got all these mental loops open in your head that are just energy suckers. And it's very hard. But if you even if you are taking Friday's off, you're not actually going to enjoy it. Yet, so it's kind of different. I think it's great to do a monthly check in and I've heard you speak about before the power of the 90 day, I'm looking at what's happened. And I love setting up experiments because nothing needs to be I have to do this. It's like what would happen if if we curious and kind of what would it be like because very rarely is it going to be do or die? Very rarely is it going to be at a complete annihilation for you to go. I'm only going to post twice a week on Instagram, for example, very rarely is that going to ruin unless you are an Instagram person, you know? What I mean? Like, even if you did, the best you could go on with that didn't have a good outcome, we're going to end what Joe means by cadence of accountability is what are you checking points on it. So whenever you send a scoreboard, whether it be Hey, team, we know that this is the kind of this is how many people are going to our website, every time we post looking at our Instagram insights. Every time we post we've got this many people clicking through to the website, or you know, if you're using UTM tracking, we can see, oh, this many people have come from this platform. So for this month, we're gonna do an experiment. And our scoreboard this month is we are doing x y Zed. Yeah. Oh, and we're all together as a team. And this is our scoreboard. And let's see how that goes in at the end of the month. Let's see what the numbers were. And did it work? Is it going? You know, do we try it again for another month? And see, because it's kind of like we're not sure yet? Or was it a definite sale?

 

Tina

Yeah. And I think that that's so valuable to go live for people listening to put it into a really practical sense from the example that you just gave there was looking at those Instagram metrics, we like knowing which numbers to look at. So there's a lot of posts that we look at all of our metrics every week. And when we started experimenting last year with different types of posts and going, the pictures of me are always highly liked. There are liked ones, but they don't do click throughs to the website, whereas the more educational posts of the things like here's five things you can do today to get more sales, not many likes, massive amounts of saves, and click throughs to the website. So it's being able to look at all your different numbers and go Alright, what ones are going to make the biggest difference and move the levers that I want to move? And how can we increase that?

 

Bec

Oh, Tina, Iove that so much. And you've just like touched on one of our favourite things in brief in business, which is actually just going, like just dropping the ego and going, Oh, didn't get as many likes, you know, and it can be that like, for a lot of people, that knee jerk wasn't popular. It wasn't it wasn't a popular choice, because they're not actually looking at the flow on effect. So I was so excited that you do that.

 

Tina

And always with everything.

 

Jo

And the other part as well. I think that's there's a couple of things that is, if you like it, I think it's really powerful to be part of a mastermind and if you're going to be being one that looks at metrics, that's it that is keeping you accountable and so that you can track over time, what's happening in your business, you know, like and what's working and what's not. And that's I think it's super powerful to have a group or someone that isn't you that isn't in your business that you check in with. And the second one is also on process got so much A lot of like, so there's absolutely all the business metrics are super important. But I also believe that you need to have energy, you need to have the energy to do it, you need to have the headspace to do it. So like, what else can you be tracking? What else is your personal scoreboard. So that's got a process goal at the moment, as well to, you know, help with that sort of stuff, too. Yeah.

 

 

Bec

So about, probably seven years ago, we started sending Christmas tree goals. So we would write three things, put them in an envelope, pack them away with our Christmas tree. And then when we get the Christmas tree out on the first of December, we see we open up that door, we have an M now that we've got a child who's in school, she started doing it as well. And, and it's just this really interesting, like what has happened over the years. And so I took a different path this year. Now, I set a goal, one of my Christmas tree goals was to walk 260 times go for a walk 260 times this year. So really, that just means I'm exercising five times a week. But it also means that I get to choose on a daily basis, it's not an everyday thing, because often, if people are too black and white with their goals, I didn't especially if you're a perfectionist, Oh, I didn't I like I missed a date. Oh, well, it's the fourth of the month, I'll try again next month, and right off the month, rather than so I wanted my purpose of choosing a little room for error. 260 for the year also means I'm having a longer term goal to my health. So let's play with what that looks like. And my cadence of accountability that I posted on my stories. And if you like, for example, looked at this morning, which was I said walk number 17. And I showed like what looks like outside, I was like walk number 17 has been brought to you by yoga. Because this morning I woke up was pouring with rain. We live in a really hilly area, it would have been really slippery, but like the purpose like let's not let's not get stuck in the minutiae. The purpose is for me to be active. So I did yoga in front of YouTube instead. And I'm counting it, because the purpose is for me to move.

 

Tina

I love it. And when you do things like that, are you using software to track them and mark them off? Or are you how are you keeping track of everything?

 

Jo

And this is a bunch of it as it as we've said, like now that it's that this is the other cool thing, though, right? Like, it doesn't have to be difficult. So some one of the things and when we look at lead indicators, it's a bet, right? We are betting that this is going to lead to this outcome. And so you're not always going to get it right. But so one of the things that I did with the genetic Betts brothers, he owns a company called Delta gymnastics. And we were making a bet on retention, again, that if we if the coaches communicated with parents more, that we would retain more, and we didn't have a way to do it. So we just built a bunch of Google Forms, and got them to, you know, take how many conversations they've had, with with parents, we've now built it into the software. But to begin with, we just got them to like any other piece of padding that tally marks, you know what I mean? Like, it doesn't have to be beautiful software straightaway, just find a way to make it to mark it off. And, you know, sometimes with your team, you just need to trust that they're going to do the right thing. If they're not, they're probably the wrong person. You know, and it'll manifest in different ways. So and if it works, build it into your software, do it then, you know, like that's,

 

Tina

you know, most of my clients are all on kajabi. Have you seen cool software that you can use to track all your metrics as cost creators for your job? Because the job is pretty limited to what does

that mean? It's pretty limited.

 

Bec

So we all it's probably like a story for another time. But we actually totally built out a new dashboard for kajabi users. And it's kind of like, we've still got it there. Because it is limited. And Joe has actually went and like we'll link to it in the show notes. And like a recorded webinar for anyone. Because there's some interesting things that anyone using kajabi should know, for example, in their subscription metrics, the monthly recurring revenue is not how much money is going to be put into your your account every month. So if you're looking at it and going, oh, I've got a $10,000 monthly recurring revenue. That is including all of your annual subscriptions that have already been paid. So if you're expecting 10 grand next month, probably should be aware of and they're just think there are little things around that. So there's nothing there's no particular but I would say look, obviously, anyone who's listening to this that goes I'm a kajabi user, I've always wanted to know what my true drop off like I've always wanted to know when my members are dropping off. So we have built it out as a manual process and it's not like we don't promote it. It's not but if you're listening to it, you can always reach out

to us via dm.

 

Jo

So the way that it all can be automated and what you By everything being in the cloud, so cool, because if you can download it. So to get super tech, I've got a data team in India, that helps me with this stuff. So you can write Python scripts to, you know, automatically download it, and then that goes into BigQuery, which funds all the numbers and then you can spit it down on to onto a dashboard, you know what I mean? So, there are ways to absolutely automate this stuff that are manual processes as well.

 

Tina

So the moment we feed from we get kajabi, we get stripe, we get Google Analytics, we get hot jar, we get all the social media stuff, then we track our member life on monday.com boards. And then we feed it all into Google Sheets. It's a process, but it gives us a big, a beautiful picture of how,

yeah.

 

 

Bec

You know, there is often a manual thing. I think what Joe was, you know, the story that Joe was telling about the gymnastics coaches is that if you've got a team, you can start with a Google form or piece of paper and say, Hey, team, this month, your scoreboard or journey, the game that we're playing is how many? How many parents? Can you have a meaningful conversation with, you know, in the hours that you've got this week? So for example, okay, cool. You did three on Monday and five, and then showing them, does that make a difference? And so they actually built it into an automated way. So rather than going, I've decided this is going to work, I'm going to spend all this money on building out the software. I'm going to test this out first, how does that feel as a team? Is it keeping people on track? Yes, awesome. Let's find a way to win. I love that.

 

Tina

Like sometimes we do need to see the data to do it. I've got one client who runs like a really serious, really good quality business. And she was like, I am not doing Instagram reels, I am not gonna sit there pointing at stuff dancing to a song, it's just not gonna be for me. Like, you can do it without doing it. Anyway, it took me ages to sell her on Instagram, real estate even attempt it. I'm like, let's just look at the data. And then all of the click throughs. And the views of it. And now she's like every second day putting out one of those reels. It’s cause and effect.

 

Bec

And it's again, this is you know, I think one of the coolest things like we've already talked about is it's not gonna kill you to experiment with something, you know, whether that be dropping something or starting something.

Yes. And it's also empowerment as well as like so when we talk about how does that make you feel like you know, your kids now like the kids that you're coaching in their parents it then along the way you find out what the friction points on that is. So john did a lot of training on how to talk to parents, because the 16 year old coaches, yeah, yes. Hey, find out a parent's name, you ask them exactly how you ask a parent, what their name is, you say Hi, my name is Joe, what's your name?

And then feel good about it. And then and now they've got some extra skills as well. So they feel better about it. They've got that forever, you know, so it's, it is empowering to know what the like and sometimes the problem is so ridiculous and so easy to fix that, you know, you just got one we do this one, but you never gonna find it if you're not measuring in the first place, you know, so because people will just not do it. I love it. It's one of the most overused sayings but it's that you know what is tracked and measured gross.

Yeah, big time. And and also like Mike McCallawitz. You know, he says, I build the scoreboard, and the game will become apparent. Yeah. Yeah, that's like building out a school and go, Well, what what could matter for us? Like, what things could we be trying? Or what are we already doing that we just want to put some numbers around? Cool. We know consistently, we are doing X number of, yes, Ram post or email marketing or getting on the phone and just saying, How are you enjoying it? Or a direct message to our members and seeing how you enjoying it? Is there anything going on for you this month that you want us to cover? Because people like it's funny, right? Because we are about systems. And we're about automation, and we are about metrics. But the reason we are about those things is we so value connection. So if you can automate the things that don't need you so that you can be sending your members a video message or, you know, or doing something that he's that only you can do, amen, or

gives you that gives you the insights going, you know, these customers need a handhold right? You know, like, rather than just trying to hold everybody's, if the data allows you to really narrow in and go now. Now speak to this person now speak to this person rather than trying to speak to everybody. Yeah, yeah,

I love it. That's awesome. Guys, you have given so much practical insights for people to be able to action for everyone. Listening, all of your contact details are down the bottom, I would highly recommend as well, the webinar that you did on kajabi metrics that's linked to in the bottom is there anything else that you want to leave everybody with?

Um, I suppose that when this comes out, we will have just released our, our podcast, which is called the work life scoreboard, your work life scoreboard, which is looking at as business owners, what we measure, but also how that impacts our life, because we're here to enjoy life. So we can get very tunnel vision in our business. But really, so many of us come into business, for freedom. And so you get trapped. And it's about, it's about living a full life where we can grow our business, but also grow our connection. As a family.

Tina

Yeah, I love it.

All right. We'll link to that in there as well. So that that to find jack and Joe, you're awesome.

 

Bec & Jo

Thank you so much. Thank you.

It's just been great.

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