Talking About the Numbers vs. Talking About the Business

This is a huge distinction and sadly I think many people miss it.

You go a mid-quarter ops meeting. The CMO shows quarter-to-date MQLs. Someone asks how we define MQL. A 15-minute conversation ensues. The SVP of Alliances talks about influenced ARR. Someone asks how that's defined, but only five minutes are spent on definition. However, a controversy erupts and 20 minutes are spent reconciling different answers from different reports.  The CRO discusses the forecast, using seemingly standard words like best-case and worst-case. But nobody, including the CRO, is clear on what they mean. Twenty minutes is lost in a discussion trying to figure out what the forecast actually is. The SDR manager talks about outbound SALs. The usual attribution skirmish erupts, taking 30 minutes on whether we are accurately and fairly giving credit.

Question:  what's happening in that meeting?  Are you having a discussion about the business?  Or a discussion about the numbers?

Answer: you're having a discussion about the numbers. And those are usually painful. Everyone leaves a little frustrated. Nothing gets resolved. And the best part? You get to do it again in a few weeks, because many companies just can't seem to get beyond having conversations about the numbers.

This is a pretty simple issue.

• The goal is to have discussions about the business,
• And to have those discussions using numbers,
• But not have discussions about the numbers.

There's a big difference between saying, "I see MQLs are on a steady downtrend, what's happening with the major new campaign we're running?" and "how do we (for the 37th time) define MQL?" The first is a conversation about the business. The second is a conversation about the numbers.

Conversations about the business are way more productive.  And fun.

But here's the trick:  you don't get to have a conversation about the business using numbers, until you've done the gruntwork of defining the numbers and making sure everyone in the conversation understands what they mean, where they came from, and how they're defined.

You have to earn that conversation. To do that, you've have pay the ante. And if you don't, guess what happens? Literally endless conversations about the numbers. Painful, slow, unproductive conversations about the numbers. And think of the opportunity cost. All the time you're discussing the numbers, what aren't you discussing? The business.

How do you earn the ability to have the right conversation?  Here's my favorite way:

• Start with a weekly sheet.  Not a bunch of dashboard screenclips, but a shared Google sheet that your ops person populates every Sunday night.
• Decide what you want on it, and where you're pulling that from.  For an e-staff meeting, you'll want the booking forecast (for both new ARR and churn), pipeline coverage, and bookings to date.  Maybe you'll want to see some triangulation forecasts.  Or this/next/all-quarter pipeline.  Maybe you'll want to look at both count and dollars.  Maybe you'll want to separate segments (e.g., corporate vs. enterprise).
• Present it with context.  Whenever you show a number, present context with it.  What was it last quarter?  Last year?  What's this quarter's plan?  This quarter's forecast (if applicable)?  How much is it forecast to grow year-over-year or quarter-over-quarter?
• Revew it each week at the Monday staff meeting.  After a brief welcome, dive into spreadsheet.  See how it works as a tool to drive conversations about the business.  Whenever you hit a conversation about the numbers, realize it, stop, and delegate people to resolve the issue(s) offline. A few times per quarter, ask if you should add or cut any rows.  Talk about how well the tool is helping you have the conversations we want to have.

Over time, you will refine the sheet into near perfection.  Conversations about the business will become the norm.  Newbies will realize that they have to learn the numbers -- all of them -- if they want to contribute to discussions.  And nobody will think that they can stall or evade by questioning the data.

The part that people miss is how long that takes.  I think it's measured in quarters, not weeks or months.  It takes that long to retrain everyone how to think.  And what the numbers mean.  And to decide which numbers you really want.

Every leadership team should strive to have conversations about the business using the numbers.  The only way I know how to do that is to pay the piper first.