How to Build a Simple Business Dashboard (Without Drowning in KPIs)

Five to seven numbers, one spreadsheet and a simple habit of fixing what they show you.

Stage 7 of 73 min read

In 60 seconds

Your CCF tells you what to measure: one number per stage, 5-7 in total.
Someone other than you updates it and it gets reviewed in a regular meeting.
Spot a problem, try a fix, watch the numbers, then update the system when it works.

You've already got the numbers. They're in your accounts, your CRM and your website analytics. Turning them into decisions is the hard part. This is the final stage: Optimise.

A quick warning first. Don't start here. McDonald's took six decades to build its systems. You can't improve what you haven't captured. Get your core systems in place first.

Pick one number per CCF stage

Attention: website visitors (or people through the door)
Enquiry: proposals sent
Sales: sales made
Money: average sale price
Onboarding and delivery: profit margin
Repeat or referral: repeat purchases or referrals

Choose the number that's easiest to collect over the perfect one. Most of them already live in software you use.

Small gains compound. In the book I show how a 10% lift in each of those numbers takes profit from $250,000 to about $442,890. That's close to an 80% jump.

Keep it boring

A spreadsheet is fine: numbers down the side and a column per month across the top. Update it at least monthly.

Don't update it yourself. Hand it to someone else and make it a standing item in a regular meeting.

Turn numbers into fixes

Keep a problems list in your project management tool and have your Systems Champion own it. Then run every problem through four steps:

Spot the problem and add it to the list.
Agree on a fix and try it.
Watch the numbers.
If it worked, update the system and tell the team. If it didn't, go back to step 1.

Step 4 is where most improvements leak away. If the system doesn't change, the fix gets forgotten.

Do this now (30 minutes)

Open your CCF and write one number for each stage. Stop at 7.
Set up the spreadsheet and fill in last month's numbers. That's your baseline.
Decide who updates it, how often and in which meeting it's reviewed.

Grab the free CCF Dashboard template from the book.

Faster in systemHUB: document "Update the dashboard" as a system with an owner and a review date. When a fix works, update the system. Sign-off tracking then shows who has agreed to the new version. Start a 14-day free trial, no card needed.

Real-world example

In my own business, a finance meeting showed some clients were 120 days overdue while we were still doing work for them. Automated reminder emails helped a little. Then someone suggested billing upfront by automatic payment. New clients were told it was required and existing clients were asked to switch. Payments that had been months late started arriving in advance, on time.

That's all 7 stages done. One more lesson to go.