Yesterday’s metrics panel was by far the best of the three that I‘ve moderated over the years. The main reason was the amount of specific information given by the panel members. Key among these was:
Out of the box metrics packages;
How to deal with information overload by tying metrics to decision points;
Using metrics for more than simply measuring your business, and using them to motivate employees and establish morale (beyond free pizza from time-to-time); and
Creating predictive metrics, that allow you to keep customers that might churn away in a downturn, for example offering to maintain a domain name that points to a “former” customer’s free mail account.
While I enjoy talking about how metrics can be used to establish your business’ value for an acquisition, I think this panel was more helpful across the board for companies who are running their business day-to-day and looking for hard ways to evaluate how they’re doing. Indeed, I had one client come up to me after the presentation and tell me that he implemented the metrics recommended in the 2008 panel, and they helped him save his business. High praise indeed for the advice given by the panelists.
