Mosaic Minute – 12/15/21
As growth consultants in the B2B software space, we’ve learned a thing or two about what it takes to scale a high-growth company, so we are sharing what we’ve learned about driving fast, efficient growth through a series of short, easily digestible reads.
Every client we work with understands the need for accurate reporting and most have some level of reporting already in place, but virtually none of them have reporting that is adequate (or even good enough) to support a rapidly growing business. This may have been fine for the business previously but, at some point in the post-investment future, the board will demand an accurate and detailed view of performance and procrastinating it today will only make the inevitable more painful when that time comes.
Our advice – don’t wait. Developing meaningful, accurate reporting from day one to avoid the time and productivity wasted on endless debates about where the data comes from and what or frantically preparing for the next board meeting. Not to mention the inefficiencies and lost revenue that result from a lack of performance visibility.
Here is a quick way to see if your reporting is ready to scale with your business…go ask your CMO, CTO, Director of Sales and demand gen manager the following questions:
- How many inbound opportunities did we have last month?
- How many organic search leads have we generated this month?
- How many direct traffic visitors did we have this month last year?
- What is our goal for paid search deals next month?
- How big is our pipeline?
If they come back within 10 minutes with the same answer (without consulting each other) then your basic reporting infrastructure is strong enough to support your business as it scales. If not, you need to nip this in the bud.
TL;DR
While leaders understand the need for good performance reporting, the post-investment excitement, long to-do lists, and pressure to demonstrate early wins often results in deprioritizing reporting (the classic “we’ll get to it later”). It’s true, your company will grow and move forward in the absence of good reporting, but we guarantee it won’t grow as fast, as profitably, or as efficiently. Take the time upfront to develop meaningful reporting that is:
- Accurate – The data passes a reality-check and is consistent across various reports
- Accepted – All stakeholders agree on data definitions and sources and accept the metrics being reported as an accurate reflection of performance
- Accessible – Every stakeholder should have direct and easy access to the same core reports (without requiring someone to build them or pull them).
- All-Encompassing – Your reporting should be forward and backward-looking, reflecting improvement over past performance as well as the progress toward agreed-upon goals
Recent Comments