Business Strategy Metrics

Financial literacy wasn't taught to me. As a girl from a small town, money conversations happened behind closed doors. "Girls don't need to understand finances," they said. This happens even today. But the fact is, founders who don't understand how money flows, likely to fail. I learnt the hard way. The founder who understands how money flows can build any business, survive any crisis, and grow business faster. Because it’s never about the product alone. It’s about cash flow. It’s about timing inflows and outflows. It’s about discipline with money — not just passion with ideas. Lessons I learnt- - Lesson 1: Cash flow is oxygen, profit is food I learned this the hard way in our early days. We were profitable on paper but couldn’t pay salaries on time. Revenue means nothing if it’s stuck in receivables. - Lesson 2: Your personal credit score affects business funding Banks judge female entrepreneurs differently. They’ll ask about your husband’s income, family plans, even your “commitment.” Build your personal financial credibility like your life depends on it. - Lesson 3: Understand your numbers deeply, don’t just delegate You can’t lead what you can’t measure. Know your unit economics, burn rate, runway, and CAC. Don’t just nod when your CFO talks—ask until you fully understand. - Lesson 4: Emergency fund isn’t optional, it’s survival Maintain 6–12 months of operating expenses. COVID taught us business can stop overnight. This cushion saved us and helped support our team when others were laying off. - Lesson 5: The right investors bring more than money Networks, mentorship, and credibility matter. Cheap money from the wrong partner is expensive. Choose investors who add value beyond capital. The reality? Financial literacy as a female entrepreneur means fighting biases, questioning assumptions, and protecting your business like a lioness protects her cubs. We're not just building businesses - we're building generational wealth and breaking cycles. To every woman reading this: Your money, your rules, your empire. Learn the language of money. Speak it fluently. Use it strategically. Because financial independence isn't just personal freedom - it's the foundation of everything else you want to build. What's one financial lesson you wish you'd learned earlier? #finance #moneymatters #business #growth

🔎 ICYMI: We talk about #trust all the time. But do we really understand it? And more importantly, can we measure it? 👉 Trust provides a license to operate for institutions. It drives participation, compliance, and collective problem-solving. Yet for too long, trust has remained an abstract ideal — hard to define, harder to act on. We partnered with the NYC Civic Engagement Commission to change that. 📘 Our new report offers a practical framework for making trust measurable and actionable. Instead of vague notions, we focus on: ✔️ Observable manifestations — how trust shows up in emotions and behaviors (like confidence, belonging, or civic engagement) ✔️ Drivers of trust — the direct experiences and institutional interventions that shape it ✔️ A 3-phase approach — to baseline, analyze, and strengthen trust through targeted, measurable interventions 🚸 We apply this framework to real-world settings — from participatory budgeting to parks departments — showing how public institutions can measure, earn and sustain trust. 👉 Read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/eg4iV_hV (new URL!) (✍️co-authored with Andrew Zahuranec and Oscar Romero) #CivicTrust #PublicSectorInnovation #DataForGood #TrustMetrics #GovLab #NYC #CivicEngagement #MeasurementMatters

Measurement obsession is creating significant gaps in our marketing understanding. I recently observed a company significantly reduce their paid social budget after their last-click attribution model suggested Google search was driving all meaningful conversions. The pipeline showed a marked decline as a result. The reason was straightforward: social had been priming their audience before they searched, but this connection wasn't visible in their outdated attribution model. This pattern is more common than typically acknowledged: • 64% of marketing leaders express scepticism about their tracking data reliability • 42% of the buying decision process occurs before tracking systems detect intent • The average B2B buying committee consists of 5.4 stakeholders • Only 5% of your addressable market is actively purchasing at any given time Most prospect journeys happen in unmeasurable channels: private WhatsApp conversations, Slack communities, LinkedIn DMs, and professional networks where buyers exchange perspectives. This measurement gap is particularly evident in mature B2B categories with higher annual contract values. As sale complexity increases, attribution systems capture proportionally less of the complete journey. Practical approaches to address this: • Develop content that stimulates genuine conversation, reaching your ideal customer profile before active purchase intent • Implement intent-based and behavioural signals to help your sales team prioritise meaningfully engaged prospects • Utilise brand tracking metrics such as share of voice to better understand your brand's presence prior to measurable touchpoints • Account for what you can measure while acknowledging the limitations Marketing strategies that focus exclusively on immediate, attributable ROI often miss critical engagement points. Your brand exists in unmeasured spaces—in professional conversations and prospect consideration—long before formal engagement. Balance short-term metrics with long-term brand development. This isn't about abandoning measurement but rather complementing it with a more complete view of market engagement.

For years, we believed the lie that better attribution meant better marketing. It was only after wasting £000's that we realised our mistake. As we were building ContentCal, we analysed every metric to within an inch of its life. But from a marketing perspective, we were measuring everything except what actually mattered. It was only when we were doing an end-of-quarter report that we discovered the uncomfortable truth Les Binet's research has been telling us all along: "If 95% of B2B buyers aren't in-market right now, why are we obsessing over the 5% who clicked?" The customer journey isn't a funnel. It's a mess. A prospect heard about us on a podcast six months ago. Got a WhatsApp from a colleague last week. Saw our customer's LinkedIn post yesterday. Then Googled us today. Our attribution software credited Google. Reality credited everything else. So we ignored what simple last-touch attribution was telling us (which basically that everything came from Google Search) and reinvested into... 1️⃣ Creating content people actually care about. Most specifically webinars with respected industry leaders. 2️⃣ Showing up where trust already exists Podcasts, communities, creator partnerships. Places our £50K software couldn't track. 3️⃣ Empowering our team to build their own voices, because people trust people, not logos. The results after 12 months: Sales cycles shortened by 40% → CAC dropped by 60% The irony? We can't tell you exactly why. And that's precisely the point. When you stop forcing buyers into your funnel and start meeting them in their mess, magic happens. The most important touchpoints are the ones you'll never track. So maybe it's time we all stopped pretending we can.

Sharing your f-ck ups online is a skill. Most B2B companies don’t do it right. They think they need to paint this perfect picture online to reel in prospects. Well, guess what - your prospects aren't stupid. They don't trust perfect. They trust real. It’s like Amazon putting negative reviews next to positive ones.  They don’t hide them because it builds credibility.  And it actually boosts their sales. In B2B, you need to do the same—just in a smarter way.  Here’s how: 1. Don’t share in real-time If you’re still in the middle of the mess, don’t talk about it yet.   Nobody wants to hear about a disaster you’re still figuring out. Wait until it’s fixed. Then share what happened—and how you solved it. 2. Focus on the solution, not the drama The mistake isn’t the main story. The solution is. - How fast did you pivot?   - How did you communicate?   - What did you change to make sure it doesn’t happen again? That’s what builds trust. 3. Share the lesson Every mistake should teach you something.   Don’t just share what went wrong, share what you learned and how it made your business better. - What process did you fix?   - How did your team improve?   - Did it make you more efficient? Look, mistakes happen. But transparency in B2B is rare. Building in public is your advantage. I'm not saying dump every problem on LinkedIn but use transparency strategically to build trust with your prospects. Show how you bounce back. Share what you learned. That’s what prospects care about.

In the early stages of a startup, it's easy to get caught up in vanity metrics, like website traffic or social media followers, but these don't always reflect real progress. For startups aiming for growth, focus on metrics that truly matter: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): How much does it cost to acquire a new customer? Reducing CAC while increasing revenue is a key sign of efficiency. Lifetime Value (LTV): What’s the total revenue you can expect from a customer over their lifetime? A high LTV to CAC ratio shows long-term sustainability. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): For SaaS or subscription-based models, MRR provides a clear view of consistent revenue growth. Churn Rate: Are your customers sticking around? High churn is a red flag that you need to refine your product or retention strategy. Customer Retention Rate: The flip side of churn, this metric shows how well you're keeping your customers engaged and satisfied. Growth Rate: Ultimately, how fast is your business expanding? A steady growth rate indicates that you're on the right path to scaling. These metrics give investors and founders a better sense of real performance and sustainable growth. The key? Tracking them early and adjusting course before it's too late. What metrics do you focus on in your startup? #startups #growthmetrics #businessstrategy #scaling #entrepreneurship #venturecapital #privateequity

We asked enterprise executives if they listen to customers... then we asked their customers the same question. The results were brutal. 86% of companies believe they provide seamless customer experiences. Only 40% of customers agree. That's not a small gap. That's a measurement crisis. Companies are celebrating metrics that don't reflect reality. They track conversion rates, revenue, and traffic growth. Meanwhile, customers struggle with basic tasks on their websites. The disconnect happens because internal teams measure what's easy to count: ↳ Page views ↳ Click-through rates ↳ Time on site But they miss what actually matters to customers: ↳ Confusion at checkout ↳ Difficulty finding products ↳ Frustration with navigation Leadership sees dashboards full of green numbers while customers experience red-flag friction. This explains why companies with impressive analytics often have terrible user experiences. They're measuring the wrong things entirely. The metrics that make executives feel good don't correlate with customer satisfaction. Revenue can grow while customer experience deteriorates. Conversion rates can improve while trust erodes. Companies optimize for numbers that drive quarterly reports. Customers optimize for experiences that solve their problems. Until you measure what customers actually experience, your analytics are just expensive fiction. The most successful companies bridge this gap by tracking customer struggle, not just company success. (Stats from "45 Ecommerce Stats for Accelerated Digital Transformation," Gladly, 2021)

This small shift in our finances helped us scale past $50K/month. We stopped focusing on revenue. And started tracking the right numbers: 1. Gross profit. Because revenue is a vanity metric if your costs are eating all your margins. We focused on delivering our services in the most efficient way possible. 2. Net profit. More revenue without margins is working harder for the same outcome. We got obsessive about efficiency: Cutting unnecessary software costs Negotiating better deals And streamlining operations To increase what we actually add to the bank every month. 3. Churn rate. It’s easy to celebrate new sales. But if customers are leaving just as fast, you're running on a treadmill. We optimized retention before acquisition. 4. LTV. Scaling without understanding customer lifetime value is a dangerous game. Once we figured out exactly how much a client was worth over time, we knew how much we could afford to acquire them. 5. LTV to Acquisition Cost Ratio. The simplest way to tell if your business is scalable. If you're paying more to acquire customers than they’re worth over time, you're in trouble. We optimized this ratio to make sure every dollar spent on growth actually paid off. You usually want to have a ratio of 3:1 of LTV/CAC. These five numbers moved us from "How much did we make this month?" to "How much will this business be worth in three years?" Most founders don’t track these. Don’t make that mistake. Track the right numbers. Make better decisions. Your growth depends on it. What’s the one metric you obsess over in your business? 👇 PS: Fuelfinance has been the best partner to help with our finances.

🕸️ Your Referral Strategy Isn’t Linear—It’s Organic Hospice liaisons aren’t just “doing sales.” They’re building trust ecosystems—one quiet endorsement, one connection, one belief transfer at a time. But here’s where we go wrong: We track calls and visits like they’re fuel. (They are.) But we forget to ask—how far did the car actually go? 📉 “How many calls?” 📉 “How many drop-ins?” 📉 “How many referrals?” These matter. But they only tell part of the story. Because in hospice, access isn’t just activity—it’s: ⚡ Trust velocity 🌐 Network depth 💬 How fast belief spreads—and how deep it roots. Let me show you: 🔗 Referral Chaining → Wellness Director → NP → Palliative MD → Case Manager → Weekly Referrals Each door opens the next. Because trust travels. 🌱 Network Seeding → Weekly in-services or grief groups at ALFs → You support staff—no pitch, just wt. clinics → You’re already trusted when decline comes Because you were already there. 🔄 Trust Cascade Prospecting → SNF night nurse → weekend charge → DON → IDT invite This isn’t cold access. It’s trust-based acceleration. 🕸️ Web Expansion via Nodes → MA + NP + office manager → “Who do you know across the street?” → MA group texts dialysis center Your reputation hops facilities. That’s lateral growth through shared credibility. 📣 Access Through Advocacy → You guide a daughter through crisis → She introduces you to her mom’s PCP → That physician becomes a referrer You didn’t pitch. You earned it. 📏 How Do You Measure This? ✅ Still track: calls, drop-ins, referrals, conversions. But layer in the metrics that map trust flow: 🔄 Trust Velocity (TV) 📊 • # of unsolicited intros/week • Time: first contact → 2nd-degree intro • % of referrals from downstream staff (e.g., MA → NP) 🌐 Network Depth (ND) 📊 • Avg. # of distinct roles per source • # of departments touched (SW, MD, CM, DON) • Tier 1 = 4+ nodes | Tier 2 = 2–3 | Tier 3 = shallow access 📈 Tie to Conversions • Which roles convert most consistently? • Which access points have highest ROI? • Where does trust depth = sustainable admissions? 🎯 What Does This Mean? If you’re a liaison: You’re not chasing referrals. You’re cultivating networks. You’re planting trust that blooms when the time is right. If you’re a sales leader: 📌 Stop tracking surface metrics alone. 📌 Start measuring influence density and credibility transfer. Your territory map shouldn’t look like a funnel. It should look like a living mycelial network—rooted, expanding, and nourished by relationships. Because in hospice: We don’t sell services. We transfer belief. And belief spreads faster than any script ever could. #Hospice #LiaisonLeadership #TrustBasedOutreach #ReferralChaining #NetworkSeeding #SalesPsychology #AccessThroughAdvocacy #CompassionateSales #HospiceGrowth #PolarisSupportGlobal