Your six pack

Plane cockpits are extremely complicated, but there are just six essential dials.

Altitude, attitude (angle to the ground), turn indicator, heading, and airspeed are known as the “six pack”

With these dials, the pilot knows key information at a glance.

This enables rapid decision-making in an emergency, and easy peace of mind when all is well.

I like having a similar set of key metrics for agencies for the same reasons.

Over and above the detailed spreadsheets the FD produces monthly, this is a weekly dashboard the management team can glance at.

The metrics I like are:

• Cash runway (how many months of operational costs we had in reserves, invoiced, )

• Average real income per head (forecast annual sales minus passthrough, divided by average forecast headcount for year)

• Income allocation (What % of our billings are used for people costs, business ops, reinvestment (marketing/learning/innovation), and profit)

• Gap between our targets and current forecast (either way!)

• 90-day weighted pipeline (value of new business we expect to convert based on deal stage, in next 90 days)

• Monthly qualified leads

Having these to chat through with the management team every Monday is so valuable.

It directs attention quickly to where work is needed — or gives you peace of mind about operations, enabling you to focus at a higher altitude in the agency.

What would your six pack look like?