How to Measure What Matters with Carlyn Bushman
Apr 07, 2023I have the pleasure of speaking with Carlyn Bushman, founder of Carlyn Bushman Consulting, a consulting group that helps female entrepreneurs accelerate their businesses to create reliable, sustainable revenue streams. We discuss the critical pillars of building a successful business, including financials, sales, marketing, technology, and management.
To succeed, it's crucial to understand your business's behavior and analyze alternative metrics beyond profit margin and subscriber numbers. As entrepreneurs, it's easy to get caught up in day-to-day tasks and lose sight of our long-term goals. She shares the potential negative impacts of not measuring progress and the costs it can have on your business's growth and success.
Throughout the episode, Carlyn's wisdom and experience provided valuable insights for female entrepreneurs looking to build successful businesses. From her first experience with entrepreneurship to her mission of empowering women, her passion for helping others succeed shines through.
In this episode, you will learn the following:
1. What can female entrepreneurs do to increase their chances of success and achieve six figure and half a million dollar incomes?
2. How can entrepreneurs leverage technology to work for them instead of them working for the technology?
3. How to use dashboards, metrics and scorecards to track business progress and make informed decisions?
What you'll hear in this episode:
[3:15] Why Carlyn started her business and focussed on female entrepreneurs.
[6:00] What is Carlyn’s first memory of entrepreneurship in her own life and how has it impacted her career trajectory?
[16:45] How do you start building, identifying, and monitoring your metrics?
[20:40] How do you establish meaning behind these metrics and connect them to the direction of the business?
[22:40] What qualitative, less structured metrics, do you recommend individuals track that may not have hard numbers associated with them?
[29:15] How do you determine the root cause of a change in one of your key metrics?
[31:30] What is the cost of not measuring your key metrics?
[34:30] How do you help business owners overcome the feeling that their self-worth is the success of their business?
Here are some brief snippets from this episode:
[00:03:04]
Carlyn Bushman Consulting serves female entrepreneurs in the product and service based industries. The company focuses on not only starting your business, but really setting you up for success and staying in business for the long term. There's a big need for more of that, especially for female entrepreneurs.
[00:04:52]
Having a really good understanding of your financials is very important. She says it's something that was overlooked for so long in terms of education, especially for women. And to me, it's educating women in the space of their financials is invaluable.
[00:06:12]
What was your first exposure growing up to entrepreneurship and how it kind of affected you?
[00:07:01]
The first time entrepreneurship really stood out in my youth was when I decided to sell pumpkins from our farm to buy my first ten speed bike. She says he learned at a very young age that you get money by working. Now she uses that knowledge to build a better mousetrap business.
[00:13:22]
The four pillars in business are financials, technology, marketing, and management. What we have to think about is that money mindset and that circular economy. It becomes less of negotiating price points and more of serving others to serve yourself.
[00:17:39]
Business owners can get started by identifying and measuring their metrics. Start with sales, email subscription or email your email list. A cash flow forecast is so powerful for clients. You have to understand the business's behavior.
[00:21:14]
Until you measure it, you don't know. Set a baseline. And that's why I encourage business owners to actually fill out the numbers themselves. Be open about asking for help and understanding.
[00:23:07]
Do you recommend tracking any other metrics that are more qualitative or more less structured? What other metrics are there besides profit margin or the number of subscribers? Is there anything else that you're looking at that may be less quantifiable?
[00:25:47]
CEOs should score themselves every week to see how well they balance work and family. Time out of the business is actually absolutely going to impact our top line when we go back into the business. It's almost like life coaching for your business through these different metrics.
[00:29:07]
Part of that process, too, is using feedback and creating awareness around the when you're measuring these dashboards. Let's use the email subscribers again as an example, right? And going, oh, subscribership is going down. It's a different layer of the why.
[00:29:57]
When you get down to the root cause and you see that you've seen the graph go down and decline over time, you have to put some things in place. This is where delegation and creativity and team really starts to rise up right now. And make a decision and pivot on that.
[00:34:51]
The first time you decide to set up your dashboard and start your metrics, that's a milestone. You have to document your milestones and go back to the playbook of these milestones. Big or small, remember the milestones. My whole mission is progress over perfection.
Related episodes:
236: How to Know if Your Overhead is Too Large
245: Staying Small on Purpose with Keila Hill-Trawick
264: 3 Ways Your Business is Leaking Cash
Resources:
Connect with Carlyn:
Connect with Shannon:
Attend The CFO Accelerator Live: https://www.thecfoaccelerator.com/shannon
Find everything you need at www.keepwhatyouearn.com! https://www.keepwhatyouearn.com/
Questions about this episode? Text me!: https://my.community.com/shannonweinsteincpa
Chat about this episode in the Keep What You Earn Community – http://keepwhatyouearn.circle.so
Hire us: https://www.fitnancialsolutions.com/accounting
See how much you can save with an S Corp: https://www.keepwhatyouearn.com/keep-what-you-earn-s-corp-calculator
Find me on IG @shannonkweinstein
Meet me face-to-face on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMlIuZsrllp1Uc_MlhriLvQ
Featured in Yahoo Finance! Read more here: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/10-bookkeepers-accountants-watch-2021-113800161.html
The information contained in this podcast is intended for educational purposes only and is not individual tax advice. Please consult a qualified professional before implementing anything you learn.
