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The Numbers Every CEO Should Know (Before It's Too Late) · The Boujee Multipreneur

• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode of the Bougie Multipreneur.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hilary Hushauer, the entrepreneur, chiropractor, consultant, and someone who loves helping business owners create businesses that actually support the life they want to live.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Last episode, we talked about making the transition from operator to CEO.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Today, I want to talk about what CEOs actually do.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the biggest differences between operators and CEOs is this.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Operators stay busy.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: CEOs measure progress.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that for a second.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Being busy doesn't necessarily mean your business is healthy.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have you seen this?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can work 60 hours a week, see hundreds of customers, answer emails all night long, and still be headed in the wrong direction because activity and progress aren't the same thing.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: So years ago, I used to judge my business by how I felt.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: If the office felt busy, I assumed we were doing well.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or if my schedule was packed, I assumed things were going well.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: If the phone rang all day, I thought everything must be fine.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Then one day I started looking at the numbers.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, they told a completely different story.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Some weeks that felt amazing weren't actually profitable.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And some weeks that felt slow were incredibly productive.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: That was a huge lesson for me.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, feelings matter, but numbers tell the truth.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And even to this day, I'll look at numbers and I'll say, I felt like we did better that week, but we didn't.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't always go on your gut instinct of how you felt.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that a lot of entrepreneurs make that mistake where they it's they're confusing the revenue with success.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And revenue is exciting, but revenue alone doesn't tell whether your business is healthy.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you bring in more money, but your expenses are growing even faster, then you're not really growing.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're just getting busier.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I always encourage business owners and my clients to understand not always what you're bringing in, but what they're actually keeping.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because profit isn't what's left over by accident.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's something you intentionally plan for the profit and how much percentage of profit every month.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So let's look at the first number that a CEO should know, right?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: New customers, or for me, it's new patients every single week.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know how many new people walk through our doors, not because I care about vanity metrics of how big my office is, because new patients for me at my chiropractor offices represent the future growth.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: If new patients begin to trend downward, I'm not gonna wait six months to react.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I ask why?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Did our marketing change?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Did referrals slow down?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Did our messaging become unclear?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Did we stop asking for reviews and asking for referrals?
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: One number leads to better questions.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: The second number I care about is the retention.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Getting someone in the door is only the beginning, right?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: The real question is: do they come back?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Retention tells whether people believe in the experience that you're creating at your office and business.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: If people aren't returning, it usually isn't become of like one big thing.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's sometimes a lot of like little things.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the communication or the convenience factor, the follow-up, the education, right?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the consistency.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Great businesses aren't built by constantly replacing customers, right?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're built by keeping them.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I even think of some of the big box stores like Apple or just the same things we go back to over and over again because they've communicated with us about it.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's convenient, they follow up, they they they teach us through education about things, and their consistency of their marketing brand shows up over and over again.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we go back for more and more, don't we?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Another thing that I watch as far as numbers is the referrals.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: So referrals, probably just like you listening, are one of my favorite metrics because they reflect that trust, right?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: When someone tells their family or friends or coworker, like, you have to go here.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's something advertising and a print ad just can't buy, right?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: But if referrals slow down, I'm not gonna immediately increase my marketing budget.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, I might say, have we given people something worth talking about lately?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, think about that.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do on that a little bit.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: But in that fact, let's let's talk about marketing.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is where I see a lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners waste money.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: They rent paper ads and ads and magazines, or they boost posts on certain social media sites, they sponsor events.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm sorry, but like sponsoring a hole for a golf tournament isn't the best use of money.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: They print flyers and then they don't look at the results.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, where are the results coming from?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Marketing isn't an expense, it's an investment, yes.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And every investment deserves a return.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure you know how that ROI, if you will, that return on your investment.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to know every technical detail, but you need to know what's working, which campaign brought in the new client?
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Are you asking that?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Which social media platform is performing the best?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Luckily, you can look at the analytics and literally see it.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Which email actually got opened?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Are you looking at the open rates and the click rates on your emails?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And if so, how often?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is it once in a while when you realize you don't have enough people coming in?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you have a plan that you're doing this after every email?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And how long do you wait after every email to check?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: I know personally I don't check that enough on the emails as far as like the open rates, and sometimes I'll look back and I'll think, wow, I can't believe we had 60 some percent open rate on that.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't even think that was a great email.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes those titles and it just blows my mind the subject line sometimes.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: But where should you invest more?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Where should you stop spending?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the answers are in the numbers.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I did at one of my chiropractic offices is a postcard campaign through a company, and it had worked before, so I switched it up and spent a lot of money on this, right?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking thousands, and the ROI is not there.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: So am I gonna keep doing it?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Heck no.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna send thousands for nothing.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: We got to figure out what it is, like where are these patients coming from?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's all referrals, then again, are we giving our patients and clients something to talk about?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite business quotes is what gets measured gets improved.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Think about your own self, right?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you wanted to lose weight, you would step on a scale occasionally.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you're training for a race, you would probably track your pace.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And business isn't any different.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You improve what you pay attention to, right?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Here's something that surprised me over the years.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: The best CEOs I know don't obsess over like hundreds of reports, they focus on like a handful of meaningful numbers.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're simple, they're consistent, they're actionable, and they don't need 50 spreadsheets and graphs and colored charts.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: You just need some clarity.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what's so easy nowadays is to plug this stuff into an AI system.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to spend hours like looking through it all, just plug it all in and ask AI to find some statistics for you.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, ask AI to give suggestions.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it's so much easier nowadays.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't have to calculate by hand.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So here would be a challenge, if I could give you one, would be to create your own CEO scoreboard, if you will.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like every Monday morning, you're doing this before you're checking your emails, before you're jumping into meetings, you would spend 15 minutes reviewing your numbers and then ask yourself, did we grow?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where are we slipping and what's improving?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, because we have to be positive, right, about the good stuff.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes personally, I only look at the negatives, what went wrong, right?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I do try to remind myself and my team, okay, but what did we do good though?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like what is improving?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but what's one decision I need to make this week?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a decision where we need to stop something, start something, improve on something?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: But those 15 minutes might be your most profitable part of the week because remember, you're gonna be in a CEO mindset now.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're not just an operator, you are the CEO.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then here's another uh mindset shift for you.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: So don't use the numbers to beat yourself up, use them to be curious, where curiosity would create better business, if you will.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of saying, Oh, we had a bad month, ask what is this trying to teach us?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the growth begins.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: I use that for life.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: When something negative or quote bad happens, I'm not like, oh, whoa was neat.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think what's the universe or God trying to teach me right now?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Pay attention to this stuff.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes things happen for a reason.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Are you slow because you needed to spend more time at home with your family?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the universe said, boom, I'll make it so you get to be home.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are you slower because you've been overwhelmed and stressed and your body needs a break and the universe is giving it to you?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So step back and think about it.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's when growth happens.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So as I wrap up today, think about um that your numbers don't like replace your intuition about how your office and business is doing, it more like strengthens it, if you will.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's the passion that we have for our business, that's what matters.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And your relationships matter, your vision matters, but a great leader and CEO combines that heart with all that passion with the data.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: You have to look at the numbers, they just don't lie.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because businesses that last over and over, years after years, decades, and maybe you know, generation after generation, they don't run on intentional, like, or they don't run on like what I'm gonna say, like hope, like hope this does this.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's more intentional decisions that that CEO makes that makes it such a great business that lasts over and over.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this week I would say, you know, stop asking, how busy am I?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or I should be busier.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Start asking, but what are my numbers telling me?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: Do the 15 minutes, think about it, be the CEO this week and next week and the week after.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's how our businesses are gonna grow.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I'm working on as well.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much for listening.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: If today's episode gave you a new perspective, share it with someone that might need it, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Leave me a review, subscribe.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would love some subscribers.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And remember that success isn't about doing more, it's about becoming more intentional.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'll chat with you next time on the Bougie Multipreneur.