The Real Reason You’re Not Hitting Your Revenue Goals

Unlocking the Power of Data-Driven Decision

In this episode of The Reality of Winning Podcast, we sit down with Joe, Chief Operating Officer and self-proclaimed data maniac. Joe’s journey from a tower climber to a top executive offers invaluable insights into the world of data-driven decision-making and operational excellence. If you’ve ever wondered how to leverage numbers to optimize your business, this episode is a must-listen.

What You’ll Learn:

•Data-Driven Success: Discover how Joe uses data to troubleshoot and enhance business operations.

•Operational Excellence: Learn the importance of KPIs and how they can guide your business decisions.

•Scaling Smart: Understand why optimizing processes is crucial before scaling your business.

•Team Dynamics: Get insights into building a high-performing team and fostering a data-centric culture.

•Leadership Strategies: Hear Joe’s advice on leading with intention and leveraging expert knowledge.

Key Takeaways:

1.The Importance of Historical Data: How to use past data to predict and achieve future success.

2.Identifying Patterns: Learn the techniques Joe uses to identify and solve operational issues.

3.Effective KPIs: The top KPIs every business should track to ensure continuous growth.

4.Building a Supportive Team: Strategies for creating a team that thrives on collaboration and data analysis.

5.Avoiding Common Pitfalls: Why scaling without optimization can be detrimental and how to avoid it.

Join us as Joe shares his wealth of knowledge on transforming data into actionable insights, ensuring your business not only survives but thrives. Whether you’re a solopreneur or managing a growing team, this episode is packed with actionable tips to take your business to the next level.

Don’t miss out on future episodes packed with expert advice and strategies. Subscribe to The Reality of Winning Podcast today and stay ahead in the game of business success!

Connect with Joe on LinkedIn for more insights on data-driven operations and leadership.

Hi, I'm your host Natalie Nadeau.
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Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome back to the reality of winning podcasts. Today I'm with Joe Galius. And he is a chief operating officer and he is a ops obsess data maniac as he describes themselves. And if you follow him on LinkedIn, I feel like you just always have the most angle hitting posts and content on. Like, I just never know what you're gonna post every single day. It's always something new and exciting. And I think if you guys aren't already following him, you have to go and check out his content. So if you can, why don't you just kind of introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about who you are. And what got you into the numbers game.
I've been in operations for going on probably 17 years now. And I started on the frontline, I used to be a, I used to be a tower climber. I used to climb cell towers. As a field engineer for sprint, one of the things that fascinated me, fascinates me about being a technician is being able to troubleshoot issues, right? I love troubleshooting. I love brainstorming, I love trying to come up with solutions and see, you know how moving components of a certain system and seeing if that issue follows, right, that's just part of the troubleshooting brain. And being a field engineer for sprint, you know, we were always required to look at these reports, these aggregation reports and these handoff reports. And it was during that period where I fell in love with the idea that numbers would actually tell me what was wrong and what I could do to implement a solution. And so working with these software engineers, and radiofrequency engineers, they would always share with me these reports that just had loads and loads and loads of data. And, you know, so there I am, you know, like a kid, just, you know, playing around with all these numbers, you know, moving things around and seeing how it would you how would, you know manipulate the system by just switching certain parts of the space stations? And seeing that data follow? I've always been a firm believer that the numbers don't lie right now. The thing about data for me is that it'll tell me where to look, it's not going to necessarily always give me the answer right there off the bat. And then sometimes you'll get your you'll get that lucky. But for me, it's always been about kind of going on a hunt with a subtenant. Right? That's what data is for me, right? It tells me where to look. And then once I know what is there, when then it's up to me to start diving into the data to really find, you know, the patterns and the correlations and you know, the trends to really help me understand what's really going on with whatever it is that I'm that I'm analyzing, that's how I became obsessed with numbers and data. As far as the opposite obsessed portion of it. Something about myself, as you know, I get really, really bored when variety is not on the menu, right? Like if I don't have multiple things to do, or if I don't get to pivot on a near daily basis to do something different, every other day or even every other hour. Like I just get really bored, right? That could be a gift and a curse, right? How will you want to look at it. But with operations, it's always something different. Right. And that's what I love about operations is that one day, I could be working on data analysis, another day, I could be working on customer escalations, you know, after escalations, I could be working on, you know, contract provisions, I could be working on inventory control measures, like it's just, there's just constantly something else to be working on whether you're implementing a new a new solution, or launching a new initiative, or something comes to your attention in the form of an escalation. But it's always something different. And that's what I strive for. Right, always having something different to do. So that's what the office obsessed part comes in, and be in the data maniac where it's just, you know, I, I got to look at the numbers I read, very rarely do I make a decision, a business related decision without looking at the data? First,
I think it's really interesting too, because a lot of people, they're really good at numbers, but they're you can only like, zoom in on one area of the numbers, but you seem to kind of be like, I love looking at all of them no matter where they come from. So I really like that. Now, you kind of mentioned once something pops up for you, you go on a hunt, right? And you kind of search for that. So what is it normally that would kind of trigger you to kind of recognize is it the fact that there's something standing out within pattern recognition? Or what are you kind of looking for that allows you to have that thing come present?
Sometimes, you know, the patterns are just right there. They're arbitrary. And it's up to me to identify, you know, what's causing those patterns or why you know why they're happening. And in other instances, I'm actually looking for the pattern, right? There's something happening. And, you know, you know that something is triggering this recurrence, right? This recurring theme, right, and it's up to me to identify what that pattern is. So by looking at the data, it's how you identified what other data point correlates with this issue that you're trying to solve, right? So you're either presented with the pattern and you're looking for the root source of that pattern, or you identify an issue and you're looking for what is or what the pattern is in that issue
that's happening for somebody who let's say is As a sole solopreneur, or entrepreneur, consultant, coach, any one of those type of things, and they want to start being able to dial into their operations a little bit further, right? What kind of advice would you give somebody? And because it's hard for a lot of these people to be analyzing their own behavior, right? So what kind of number of holes? I would say inside of someone's cup? Could we kind of look into to see and basically pinpoint and try and look for that pattern? Or what would you say to that person?
The thing about data is, it's not always going to present you with the answer, right? The answer is within the data. But more often than not, the data is going to tell you where to look for that answer. Right. So it's just going to come with practice. But what I would do, you know, if depending on the size of your team is, this is why we rely on our subject matter experts. This is why we rely on people that we surround ourselves with, right, they are going to have a wealth of knowledge. So you know, as a solopreneur, as a leader, as a manager of a department or just a manager of operations, you know, you gotta lean on these individuals, they'll tell you what they're, you know, what the patterns are, that they're experiencing, they'll tell you where the sources may be, they may not necessarily know themselves, also how to acquire how to get that answer. But they will be able to lead you in the direction of where you can acquire that information.
Right. So ultimately, don't lean on your own understanding, but gain a team and gain other experts to kind of help you identify what those patterns are.
That is why we build teams, right? Because of the diverse aspect of it, right? Because we build teams that come to the to the group with a strength to complement a weakness, right, or we have these weaknesses within the organization. And we're looking for, you know, individuals that have that strength. So I mean, that's the whole point of having a team. So if you're going to have this diverse group of individuals with these varying skill sets and strengths, I mean, why not lean on them for that information, and, you know, use them to identify where you can find that information. There's
a lot of people who feel like they can save money by not investing in growing their team. And so they kind of stay stuck in this little, little mini position. What would you say to that person who is maybe afraid to hire and have all of those different operating data metrics and KPIs starting to be analyzed within their company? How would you, as a leader, get them to open up to that possibility and see it as something that provides growth versus like risk?
I've seen this on many occasions, there's this theme of this trend as of late, but being lean right? lean operations, and you know, being a lean team and getting more done with a lean team. But here's, here's the, here's the truth, right? If you go from being a 10, person, team, to a five person team, you've obviously taken on additional responsibilities, you've delegated additional responsibilities to other members of the team, where now they're at full capacity, and they're never 100% invested in their core scope. Right? What they were initially, you know, brought on the team to do, there is redundancy within organizations, right. So I do believe in trimming the fat, but I've never been a fan of just, you know, for cost savings initiatives, you know, to go lean, because you run the risk of other things not having a set of eyes on, you know, there's oversight, and that comes at a cost, right? There's, you know, there's the time it takes now to recover from some of those oversights that would have otherwise been prevented. Had you had those dedicated individuals, especially when it comes to, you know, to looking at data. And you listen, KPIs, right, I'm a huge fan of KPIs, I don't understand how any business can run without having a minimum of five to 10 KPIs, right, we're talking about things that you look at, when you wake up in the morning to just, you know, to just see, it's like a health check for your business. Right, you know, you want an annual physical? And those are these are, you know, these are the, these are your results. And you know, it's we need to work on. And this is where you're doing very well, you need that on a daily to weekly basis for your business as well. You know, so who's so who's handling those KPIs for you? Who's, who's collecting that data? Who's putting that data together? who's presenting that in a dashboard format? Is it you? Is it you with the solopreneur? Who is also trying to run the business? Or is it a dedicated individual, that that's what you brought them on board to do to let you know, this is where we are suffering. And the data says that if we don't do something today, or if we don't do X today, this is what we're going to look at down the road. And it's not a very pretty look.
Yeah. And it's so powerful to have that little like, awareness every single day and to be able to know, okay, we have to fix this, or else this will happen, right? Because if you're a solopreneur, you don't necessarily look at such a long term mindset with it the same way that you would if you had other people around you actually helping to serve that growth. Right. So you talked about maybe I think you said 1510, to 15 KPIs that you should look at every morning. Let's not go through all 10 or 15, but What are the top three to five that you would recommend that the solopreneurs start looking at today as they look to expand and grow their team, so that they can have those kind of key metrics in spot as they're ready to scale up here
are the key ones that I looked at right is lead generation, obviously, right? And not just lead generation, but the book rate, you know, and then from your book rate to what your show rate is, and what your conversion rate is, that will contribute to the health and wealth of your funnel, right, you know, your top line funnel. Now, the reason why I look at those is because I've had conversations with customers, where, you know, if I'm consulting with them, and you know, helping them understand why they might not meeting certain monthly financial objectives, you know, the inexperienced mind, or the assumption is, well, I need to book more calls, or I just need more leads, and don't always need more leads, right? Because if you're not nurturing your current pool of leads, and your book rate is low, and your show rate is low, then there's your problem, right? How do you know how do you know what is a low book Great, and a low show? Great. I'll tell you exactly how you take your historical data over the last six months to nine months to a year. And you know, if you have a shitload of data, then maybe even collect over 24 months of data. And now you have a baseline. And now you know that when you fall below that threshold, that that's a dangerous All right. So but again, you don't know you don't know. Right? You can't instantly assume well, I need to book more calls. Well, maybe you're booking maybe your KPI threshold for book for book calls is, let's say, put a percentage or KPI and you're booking at a rate of 60%. Okay, well, that's not your problem. But you're not generating the monthly revenue target, because of another because of another issue that's going on your organization. And maybe it's the show rate, or maybe it's the conversion rate. Right. And as we dive into that, we find out what is holding you back, let's say it's the show rate. Okay, well, now we've talked about nurture. Well, that's why it's your rate is low, because you're not nurturing those prospects from the time that you booked up to the time that you're hosting the call. So you haven't created enough anticipation. That's how you identify what's going on in your business by looking at your KPIs and finding out exactly where, what part of your business, you're falling short for that main objective, which is top line revenue. Yeah,
I think it's really powerful when you can zoom out on everything, and really being able to have that bird's eye view perspective of what is it that actually isn't moving the needle, because you can do a lot of daily activities that are super busy work. And people tend to automatically think that very first name, like, oh, I need more leads, right? And then they never actually fixed the problem. And so you keep banging your head against the wall, trying to do the exact same thing expecting a different outcome, which is absolutely crazy. The last time we spoke, you talked about sometimes you get a you get a feeling. And then you go and you check out the numbers. And I really, really loved that. So I would love if you could kind of expand on that a little bit for everyone listening right now or watching and just kind of dive into how could somebody get a feeling and then go look for the numbers to kind of prove and provide evidence to support it, let's
say, you know, we're not meeting, we're not meeting our fulfillment objective, right? Where, you know, we're converting, but then our onboarding is showing that at the time of onboarding, some of the customers are changing their mind. And they're like, you know, I don't want to go with the package. Okay, well, something, something is off there, right, something from the point where we converted them where they were locked in, they were like, Sign me up. And then on the onboarding process. So that's where I'm going to then dive into what's going on during the onboarding process. There's something broken there. I don't know what it is. I just know that there's something broken. And so that's where I would look at the data. And, again, the data might not give me the answer right there. And then, but it might point me in the direction, it could be that there's something broken in technology, right. Or it could be something that maybe it's a personnel issue, maybe by you know, by the time that they're on board and the enthusiasm or the excitement has worn off. And the person that's onboarding, this individual has just completely flatlined. And that could be you know, so that's a personnel issue, right? Again, so this is where, you know, if you have a gut feeling about something, that feeling is going to come, you're not just going to wake up and be like, Oh, I have a feeling that something's broken. In my business, no, something is going to spark that feeling. And at least you'll have an idea of where to start looking at. So
if somebody's on their own. And then we'll kind of dive into more team stuff after this. But if somebody is on their own in their business, and they have that feeling, they look at it and they realize, okay, this is it's an let's go with your last example and onboarding issue. How what actions can somebody take to improve those numbers and start getting the results that they're looking for? What kind of pivot has to happen for them? In order to make the change? There are
two things I do whenever I first joined an organization, right first, like free NMAP right? It tells me exactly every step that takes place from how we generate a lead to how we convert them to how we onboard them into how we successfully you know, call this project or this service delivered a complete that's the kind customer journey, right? So as a solopreneur, or even as a manager of any department, I would strongly advise that you walk that customer journey. So you can experience what the customers experience. And then you're going to find out a few things, you're going to find out what's working really well. And you're going to be like, Oh, shit, I didn't realize this has taken place in my business. And this is not good. But you have to walk in those shoes, the only way that you can walk in those shoes are in two ways. First, you have to visually see, because you might identify the bottleneck right off the bat just by looking at the map. And if not, then you have to walk it. And I've done this intentionally, I will sign up for my company's own product or services, to see what the emails, say. And I have found some typos. And they've been pretty embarrassing, but the only way to capture them is by inserting yourself into that experience, all the way from how I was onboard, and how I was welcomed, how the onboarding was, was scheduled, and then attending the onboarding, to kind of just see what the what information is being shared, what that excitement level is, you have to be willing to walk in the customer shoes to identify those issues and make those fixes. So that would be my that's my advice, I
would probably recommend to the solopreneurs to get a test group in there, get somebody that you know, and get them to be brutally honest with you, and put them through your process so that you can kind of see if you are by yourself, and you lack the team resources to go in and do that, right. So for those people who are listening to this, my audience would probably have a team closer to like five to 10 people, so smaller organization. And basically from there, if they currently have, let's say, different department heads, right? So there's somebody who's managing their marketing, there is maybe somebody managing their email their copy, and we really have a ghostwriter on their team, and there's like a few different people, but they don't currently have senior leadership in there. And they have, they're ready to kind of maybe take on that next step. But they haven't achieved that. So what would you probably look at when there's multiple people who are maybe even consultants within that organization, and they're also managing their own businesses and other clients within that, what are some of the things that people can kind of put into place when it comes to managing their operations, and should they have three to five KPIs within every single department that they've hired for or what will be the best way for them to kind of start building and mapping that out
100% They should definitely have, you know, anywhere from three to five KPIs per department, but they have to tie into each other right, the KPIs from the marketing department have to feed the KPIs for the sales department, the KPIs for the sales department have to feed the KPIs that you've established for your fulfillment. And all of those collectively have to tie into your primary business financial KPIs, like your top line, your operational cost, your cost of goods, you know, your net profit all that I've never been a fan of having of being overloaded with consultants to run a business because when you don't have skin in the game, you miss out on a on a level of accountability. Now, that's not to say that these consultants are going to have pride in their work and make sure that the delivering at, you know, optimum level of service, but you're not the only business that they're servicing, I would caution, you know, the solopreneurs to overload on these consultants, having a few of them is definitely is definitely helpful, because you're bringing an experienced set of eyes and hands that are going to tell you and advise you on the best course of action. But for certain parts of the business, you need to have skin in the game, you need to have people that that's what they owned. That's, you know, that's their primary role. And it's only under your umbrella.
I would agree with you on that. And I think most people take outside consultants because it's easier when you're kind of going through that growth process. But as you kind of expand within your leadership, as you get used to having those people in there, I would definitely probably recommend to start switching those consultants over into full time employees. And I know, one of the things that you can do is even pay your consultants to systemize and give you exactly the step by step process, so that you can then train your employees to take over that as well. Right?
I mean, that's ultimately the objective of any consultant you bring in, right? I mean, it's not to be tough to be a full time consultant for the next three to five years. It's to identify the weaknesses within your organization, let you know what's working, what's not working and help you put together a plan to put you know, processes and systems in place that are going to help you scale and then and then take off and let you take it from there. That
makes perfect sense as well. But I do think there's a lot of people who transition into that solopreneur stage because it's so big right now right? They go into as a first time business owner they they get comfortable in it this is safe right now this is working. I don't have to maybe set up payroll and like do other things. Right. Um, you talked about some of these KPIs kind of overlapping with one another between department can you kind of expand on that just for those who are new to this some of the sales
keep UI that you would have is obviously revenue generated, right? And then your your close rate, your conversion rate, sometimes there's first call close KPIs, right? Like how many, how many of these conversions were closed on the first attempt versus the second, third, fourth, fifth attempt, right. But again, you're not going to get any, you're not going to meet any of those KPIs. You're not going to, you know, collect any of the data for those KPIs. If you haven't, you know, established the KPIs to even generate those leads, right to begin with. And then what, and then what's the source of those leads, right, you also have to have a KPI. Do you know, what's your expectation to invest 60% of your budget in Google ads and 40% of your budget in Facebook ads? Or is it your objective to invest 80% of your budget in Google ads, and 20%? In some other, you know, third party platform, right? And then once you've done that, are you meeting those objectives? Are the leads that are the leads that the sales team? Is booking and closing, coming from 80% of your investment? Or is it coming from the 20% of your investment? Right? That's what that's what I'm talking about how one KPI feeds the other, and how you're able to, you know, scale your business based on what where the where the information is coming from, the data is going to point to where you're successful. And if 80% of your budget is producing the least amount of leads and revenue, and there's nothing wrong, but
if there's something wrong, would you fix it? Or would you take that money and put it into the 20%? That's generating the ad? Well, I
wouldn't act that fast. I first identify why is that the case? Like I need to know why before I decide to make any changes, if I've invested 80% of my marketing budget into this platform, and it's only producing 15% of my leads, that you know, what if the issue is your copy? What if the issue is your content? What if your issue is the message, then all you're doing is now switching problems, you're just taking off? So this is why you have to look at the data because, you know, find out what's working on one side versus the other and then make the tweaks from there. So I wouldn't, I wouldn't be so drastic with my action until I've identified why that's the case. And if it even warrants drastic action, it might just warrant a tweak. And your or maybe the time that you're delivering disinformation,
I think that's really important, because a lot of people would possibly just say, like, alright, this isn't working, let's scrap it and start something different, and then end up with that same copy problem, or that same time problem, or whatever it is, right. So you mentioned, sometimes it could be the people, right? And I think when you're in leadership, and you're the one who's overlooking all of these numbers, and let's say you notice, like Tommy over here has been late to work a couple of times, he's got some stuff happening with his family, there's, you know, different problems that are occurring with this person in your organization, and you're aware of that is that like a key indicator that someone is kind of maybe going through something or they're not showing up as their full self every single day that you would want to you should always kind of have your eye on these numbers anyways. But is that when you would want to kind of dive in deeper and make sure that these numbers aren't fluctuating? And that the patterns are like staying consistent? Or they're actually growing? Or what would you recommend to someone,
this is where true leadership comes into play. Because you know, you need to recognize when someone's not performing, like their true selves, right, and not instantly assume that they're just slacking off, or they've just lost that touch. Right? You might have to allow them time away, right? So that they can recharge and regenerate, regenerate and take their work and their workload and either consume some of that or delegate it to other individuals, right. Because at the end of the day, you want to make sure that your numbers are remaining in alignment with your trend with your KPIs.
So your action would be to basically delegate those activities, give that person some time to recharge, so that those KPIs stay performing the way we want them, if that's what
they require, right? I mean, I'm, if you're, if you're, if you're good enough leader, right, sometimes just recognizing and acknowledging that somebody's going through something, you know, just, you know, it reduces that weight, right? Because now they feel like they have an ally. Now they have they have, they feel like they have some sort of support system at work, even though they're going through some, you know, some personal turmoil, you know, at home. So if that's what's required, right, sometimes they want to stay busy at work, right. But again, at the end of the day, if it's affecting their performance, you know, as a leader, you need to identify Well, what's going to help you, you know, stay in alignment, right, you know, do you need a break? Or do you not? Or is it just a matter of knowing that you have a support system here at work and you're able to know function a lot better as
a leader, what are some key ways somebody can kind of stay on top of that and to be zoomed in on our team and kind of being able to recognize some of those, like, I call them check engine lights of before something is an actual problem, and we have to take those extra steps?
Well, that's why you have KPIs right? The KPIs are going to tell you when the check engine light comes on. Right. And that's, that's when you want to take action before it becomes an issue right before the car stops. Right. But what I'm saying But that also, again, great leadership is going to provide that leader with the opportunity for his staff to come to him or her in advance of you know, those issues because they're going to be letting them know, you know, hey, this is what I got going on, right. But if you don't, if you don't have that connection with your team, you're not going to have those conversations, they're not going to feel safe enough to be able to share this information with you. Right. So that's why it's also critical to have you know, we've talked about it, you know, having, you know, a high EQ as a leader, right, because, you know, there's ways to mitigate and prevent issues or issues from occurring within your business, just by having these strong connections and bonds with your teammates, being
able to foster a culture in your workplace that everybody is kind of in alignment. And, you know, that's why I think culture is probably one of the most important things within an organization. And right, if you can build that, and you can keep it really, really solid, then I think that's where feelings almost come before the numbers, in a sense, right. And then you double check the numbers to see if that's an alignment. But I like what you said about that's why we have KPIs in the first place to do it. If we miss something, then we have the numbers to kind of provide that feedback for us. Right? Yeah. It
always baffles me. When I talk to some of our customers, and they don't have KPIs. Right. So then my question is, well, how do you know, if you're on track, you know, and it's usually well, at the end of the month, you know, but then it's too late. It's too late, because you already, you've already in that 29 days past 29 or 30 days past, where you could have taken some action, you've could have pivot, you know, your strategy, you could have, you know, added fuel to the fire, if something was working and capitalized on that one thing, you know, to compensate for the other two or three, that won't work, you know, but again, that's why that's what data does your business, I always
say you can't reach a target that you don't set, right. Like, it's just, there's so much power and like, what 24 hours can do. And if you only look at those numbers on a monthly basis, you are setting yourself up for so much room for failure, because if you're like, oh, we need to, you know, hit this in the next five days, well, there's a lot of power available within five days. But more often than not, that comes with fear, stress, anxiety, and all these other negative emotions that set on, which don't allow you to actually really focus on revenue generating activities, and they usually end up with busy work and scatterbrain. And you're rushing things, and it just doesn't lead to the outcome that you actually want. So what how you said we should be checking certain KPIs every single day, right? That's what you said in the beginning. Yeah, there
are some but then there are others that you know, don't work, a daily checking, you know, like, if you have a quarterly if you have a quarterly gold, and you know, looking at that KPI, every single day isn't gonna do anything for you, then it's like looking at the stock market where you know, looks down, but then it's up tomorrow, then it's back down the next day, if you have a weekly KPI that you know is feeding into your monthly or quarterly objective, then it's then it's okay to look at your that specific KPI on a weekly basis, you don't need to look at that daily. But if you have a weekly objective, like, you know, you need to achieve X amount of leads to generate X amount of dollars by the end of the month, then yeah, you're going to want to look at that daily, because you don't want to wait until the end of the week to say, oh, shit, you know, 30 leads short off my goal. And I was already 30 leads short the week prior. So now I'm 60 leads short.
So for companies who are listening to this, or solopreneurs, or a small business owners, and they're like, Man, I need some data points put in place. What would you recommend for somebody to start looking at? Should they start with their customer journey and just start mapping out all of the possible data points for each step inside of that system? Is that kind of like where they should go for ground zero and work their way into implementing this? Or is there a better place for them to start,
so that's not going to help you identify what KPIs need to establish right? Or what data look like that's going to help you understand how your business operates. Because there's going to be times where you need to know where to look within your business. But again, you know, where do you you know, how do you know where to look? If you don't have a map? Right? So that's, its, that's like a component that's like a tool in the toolbox. Right? It's having that happen that journey, what I would suggest, and what I would advise to anybody that's listening is if you're a KPI your driver is I want to generate, you know, $10,000 a month, right? Let's say that's your driver is what are the numbers that are going to get you to that? Right? You know, how many leads do you need to generate to get there? You know, how many calls do you need to make? How many calls do you need to book? How much do you need to invest in advertisement to get there, but again, you need historical data to establish these baselines. At some point, if you're not tracking your data, then I would suggest you start tracking it yesterday. You know, for example, if I asked you, Natalie, what did you make last year for revenue in your business? And you said, you know, I made 20,000, you know, 20,000 last year? The question I'm going to ask you then is Oh, wow, that's amazing. So how many calls did you book all year to get to that point? Then what did you have to invest in marketing to get to that point? And, you know, how many leads Did you generate in total to get to that point? And you don't know? Well, then how do you know how to get to 300,000 this year, if you don't know how you got the 200,000. That's why historical data is so critical, it tells you how you got here. And that's going to help you understand what you need to do to get there to the next level.
Yeah, I think that's really powerful. And it makes a lot of sense, because if you can't duplicate what got you here, you're definitely not able to get to the next level. Right. So that makes perfect sense to me. And I feel like when you say you should start yesterday, we could probably look at just even one week of data points and going back and then building off of that for the next week. And then week after that, for somebody who's like, I don't know what I did last year. And I've had
a lot of these conversations with customers where they're like, Well, Joe, I don't have any historical data, I'm like, that's fine. Let's start now, because we need at least my rule of thumb is we need at least 90 days worth of data that's going to at least, you know, showcase any patterns or trends, and it's going to give us enough to establish a baseline a week of data, you know, week one could be completely different from week three, which can be completely different week 10. But collectively, it tells me a story, then what I would do with that information, I would say okay, let's now take this 90 days of data, and let's explode it into 12 months worth, which means we now just multiply it by four. And now we have a year's worth of data. And then I say, Okay, now that we have this, you know, assumed, you know, baseline of a year's worth of data. Now, let's map out what your year needs to look like to get to X amount of dollars for the year
fascinating. So you can also take that data and be able to understand that you could potentially hire one more person, double your output and invest in that and you'll achieve X, Y and Z as well. Right data
will tell you what actions to take. Now, you know, to the inexperienced guy, you might say, Oh yeah, I just I don't know, the salesperson, I'll double my income. No, not not one salesperson isn't even performing at a decent at a decent baseline. Maybe that person needs some more training, right? Maybe you need to do some mentoring, maybe you need to listen to that individual's calls and see what you know what's not working in him or her. Or maybe it's just not the right fit, maybe it's an energy thing, right. And so adding another person does nothing, but maybe replacing that person does something significantly. So I wouldn't be so quick to assume that adding more is going to produce more. There's this theory that I have that I always you know, and I talked to my to any CEOs that I work with. I said, until you've optimized your systems and your processes, it doesn't make sense to scale because then you're just scaling mediocrity, fix what you have in place, and then scale it don't scale what you have without fixing what's wrong with the business first real problem with people that want to scale scale scale, without, you know, ensuring first that what they're scaling is at is performing at
optimum level. No, it makes perfect sense. And I love cuz I feel like this is the second time now where I go and jump ahead and you're like, No, you have to check X, Y and Z first to write. So I think it's powerful. And I appreciate the awareness of going back and saying well, before you do that, you also have to check these things, right? Because it doesn't make sense. You can't you can't scale something that isn't actually scalable yet, and you need to optimize everything within that. So I think that makes perfect sense to me, you know, you hear it a lot that if you want, you should always have your foot on the gas. And if things are going well, you should not take your foot off the gas and just you know, keep going on it and continuously scale and grow and not nearly right. But you do hear a lot of you know, people who have made $10 million who are like, Don't stop, keep going don't take your foot off the gas, always push forward, keep scaling. Like those are things that are getting poured into a lot of people,
it almost makes sense, right? Like, okay, if I if I generated 3 million in one year, and then five, the next and then eight, the next like, why wouldn't I just keep you know, why wouldn't I just keep my foot on the gas? Right? It almost makes sense. But here's the danger of that of that level of growth, right? Without taking a pause. When you're winning. Nobody's looking for what's wrong. Nobody's looking for what's not working, because you're winning. But are you winning at the level that you could be winning? If you had just pause to take a look at what is working in your system that has you getting there and what's not working because here's what happens one bad year, and it explodes because now all your weaknesses are exposed? Right? While you were winning all those weaknesses, and all those faults and all those flaws were covered by winning because they said winning cures everything but it also hides a lot of shit too. Now, I'm not saying completely take your foot off the gas and just you know, stop, you know, stop stop running a business.
I do an oil change and
I have a plan that I presented my team. I'm like, Please poke holes in this please come to me with at least 10 faults that you found because that's what you need to do, especially when you're out I'm like, Okay, that's great. We made $5 million this year. But what what's what's wrong that we need to fix? Now? That's going to continue this, that's gonna continue the cycle.
Yeah, I feel like I'm taking you're on a What's wrong with it energy and like, how many holes can I poke at this thing energy, what's
gonna happen is when you stop producing, or let's just say, and this has happened, I've seen this happen, you lose that you lose that Rockstar salesperson, or you lose that Rockstar sales director or you lose that Rockstar marketer, right? That was running the show for you, you lose that person. And now, so many holes are exposed. And while you were winning, you weren't looking for what's wrong. But now that you don't have that person in that position that's producing for you, you know, now, now things are out there in the open. So I always suggest and advise that, you know, it is when you're winning, that is that the most dangerous happening right under your nose, because you don't see it and you're not looking forward
for that person who loses that superstar player. If they weren't managing those weekly numbers and monthly numbers and quarterly reports, and looking at the whole picture, then it wouldn't be so much of a shock when you lose that team player like you should always be able to take anybody out of the company and replace them at any given time. And everything runs the exact same, right.
And this is why you hire CEOs like this is why buyer operations, you know mastermind, because that, like you said, I mean, it's an operations objective to make sure that the processes are in place, and the systems are in place where you can just insert another individual and they may not perform to the same level as the one that you're replacing right off the bat. But they will be able to get the job done. Because you have the systems or processes in place. Now, when you don't have those systems or processes in place, then you're allowing that individual to operate in their own method in their own way. Not the business, you know, template, they're operating off their own template, and that only works for so that will only take you so far.
I always ask people I feel like there's always like two or three things that you feel like you've say on repeat. So people it's like, everybody, you know, the best piece of advice you could give to them would be
what my advice would be to know your numbers and rely on your experts. You see me talk about that, you know a lot in my post is, you know, relying on the people that you surround yourself with, you know, there's a reason why you bring people in, there's a reason why you welcome them into your circle, I would hope it's to gain insight or perspective and to learn and not to avoid and ignore the information that you have at your disposal.
So this is one question that I asked every single person and what does the reality of winning mean to you, Joe?
The reality of winning? To me? That's a really good question. I love to see people within my within my team or within my department succeeding at things that they were not succeeding, you know, prior just from being able to share an experience or being able to give a piece of advice or being able to offer some guidance and then seeing them succeed at that. I mean that that brings me immense joy. Well,
so I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your data maniac genius with us today. I know I got a lot out of this and all of my listeners and audience will too. So thank you so much for being with us. And for everyone who wants to keep learning with Joe. I have his LinkedIn profile in the comments below. Like I told you guys earlier Joe's always got the best angles on every single one of his posts. So go and follow him in the description below. And thanks again for being with us. Joe