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Your business problem may not be a business problem.
The Estherpreneur Podcast examines what most business conversations miss: the condition of the builder behind the business.
Hosted by Edna Harding, Christ-Centered Business Architect and CEO of Favor & Wealth, this show helps founders identify what is actually limiting growth—strategy, structure, sales, leadership, capacity, identity, stewardship, or spiritual misalignment.
We question business advice that produces growth without wisdom, visibility without capacity, revenue without stewardship, and success at the expense of the person carrying it.
Expect biblical truth, practical business strategy, uncomfortable questions, and conversations about sales, money, leadership, spiritual warfare, emotional maturity, and building in obedience to God.
Because sometimes you don't need another strategy.
You need to identify what is actually out of order.
“By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established.” — Proverbs 24:3
Estherpreneur.com | FavorandWealth.com | EsthersOil.org
Edna Harding [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Estherpreneur, a podcast for entrepreneurs and leaders doing business and life God's way. Each week we discuss biblical and practical tips to improve your mind, business, spirit, relationships, and finances. Listen along as I speak with special guests on how to thrive in all aspects of life. Hi, I'm Edna. Like many of you, I wear many hats. I'm a military wife, mother, author, certified John Maxwell business and executive coach, trainer, and founder of Favor and Wealth, where we help the good guys win. So tune in as we bring on the light. Well, hello everyone.
Edna Harding [00:00:47]:
Thank you for tuning in for another episode of the Esther Pena Podcast. My name is Edna Harding and nothing but a messenger of hope, life, and truth in the marketplace. And this podcast, we talk about all things business and life God's way. And so if you are new here, welcome, welcome, welcome. We talk about timeless wisdoms and timely methods. And so if this is something that you enjoy learning about, you're in the right place. And for those of you guys who have been with me all this time, just welcome back, my friends. Today's episode, we're going to talk about the 7 metrics every kingdom CEO should track, because what I found is most entrepreneurs track the wrong things.
Edna Harding [00:01:32]:
For example, they track the number of followers, they track the number of likes, maybe the website visits, even the vanity metrics. But according to God's word, we need to track signals that reveal stewardship and growth. And so we're going to give you real-life examples, 7 metrics that can give you a clear picture of the health of your business. All right, so the first metric you want to focus on is leads generated. Okay. So this particular one, a lot of people don't even think about it, right? They just keep going, going, going, going, and they don't realize, okay, how did I do last week? Right? And so you want to be able to measure how many new potential clients enter your ecosystems. Okay. And this could be your email subscribers.
Edna Harding [00:02:27]:
This could be discovery calls booked. This could be applications. This could be inquiries. And the reason why I say this is because if leads are slow, sales will eventually be low, right? And so instead of focusing on the sales, focus on generating the leads. Now let me tell you what a lead is. A lead is someone who's actually interested in learning more about you. These are not people that you are spamming in, you know, LinkedIn or spamming via cold call. These are people that wants to get to know you, wants to know what your service is.
Edna Harding [00:03:04]:
That's what I consider a lead is, okay? Because you didn't force yourself on them. They subscribe to your mailing list. They booked a discovery call. They applied to be part of your program. Those are the type of things that I'm talking about, okay? So your question you need to ask yourself is how many new potential leads or how many new potential clients discovered my business this week, right? The second KPI you want to focus on is a conversion rate. This tells you how many leads become paying clients. And how you calculate this is it's a number of conversions divided by leads. And that is your conversion rate.
Edna Harding [00:03:46]:
So for example, if you have 100 leads and you are, you close 10 clients, that means your conversion rate is 10%. Now, the reason why you want to identify what your conversion rate is, is you want to identify what could be causing that low conversion. Sometimes it's unclear messaging, sometimes it's a wrong audience, right? So you're targeting the wrong people. Sometimes it's a weak offer, like you don't really have a good offer that sticks. And so I want you guys to really focus on that, is that, okay, if I'm not converting, What could it be, right? And so for me specifically, I had to pivot from targeting the startups to targeting those who have been in business for a little bit and are struggling versus starting who, who just has an idea, right? Because what I found is they just can't afford me. And so I had to pivot my messaging and pivot my efforts towards people who already have existing business and have already generated some sort of income, consistent income for their business. All right. The third KPI you want to focus on is revenue per offer.
Edna Harding [00:05:01]:
This particular thing tells you which offer actually drives income. Because what I found is a lot of entrepreneurs assume that their favorite offer is the most profitable, but in reality, it's not. Um, that the offer that produces the most revenue is typically something that requires you not that much time from you. And it's a higher ticket, um, and maybe it's a one-off thing, right? Um, or even a long-term thing, right? The thing that the most profitable typically for me are those that doesn't require a lot of time, right? And so an example of this, my Business Unlimited program, even though I love doing it, I love working with the group mentoring, and it is a small— it is a smaller ticket is not the most profitable, right? The most profitable for me is those half days where you charge a higher ticket for a half day. That to me is more profitable because it's only 4 hours versus, you know, um, like meeting with somebody on a week by like, well, I guess 3 times a month for a few hours, right, each time, and it's a lower ticket. However, the reason the way I made the way I structured it is if you have multiple people in the same group, it still, it still generates income, obviously, because you have a group of people paying for the same time. However, it's not really a high margin just because, again, it's a lower ticket. Does that make sense? So identify what the revenue per offer is.
Edna Harding [00:06:41]:
Anything that doesn't generate revenue, you want to get rid of that. Alright, the fourth thing you want to talk about is client retention. These are the things that measure how long clients stay in your ecosystem. So you want to ask yourself, do the clients renew? Do they buy additional services? Do they stay connected? Right? These means that, um, you're, you're, you're giving strong results. You have strong relationship and most importantly, your systems are working. All right. Okay. And then the fifth metric that I always suggest clients to focus on is client results, right? These are transformations, not just transactions.
Edna Harding [00:07:26]:
So ask yourself, are clients getting results? If not, what's the reason? So for me personally, what I found, the people that are— that don't get results are the ones that when life happens, Most of the time, the people, the folks that are, you know, they're starting something like they're starting to work with me and something happens in their life and then they kind of just can't handle the punches, right? And they end up quitting just because of life stuff. I'm not talking about little stuff. I'm talking about big stuff. But what I found, the people that kept going in spite of the opposition, those are the people that got the results, right? Those are the people, those who didn't quit are the ones who started seeing the fruits of their labor. Right? And so you need to identify what that is. The people who didn't get results, what was the reason why? Right? And just be honest. If it's you, then it's you, right? If it's, if it's not you, then it's not you. But you want to be very clear.
Edna Harding [00:08:26]:
And I always also just also for me, when I end something with a client, I always ask, okay, what what could I have done better? Or what would have, what could I have done to, you know, just to, just to improve, like anything, any type of feedback they can give me. So for example, when I closed one of my higher ticket clients, um, a couple months ago, more than a month ago, I asked him, I was like, okay, so what was it? Like, what was it? He's like, no, you've done everything I said you were gonna do. I just didn't have the bandwidth. Then I realized, okay, he didn't have the bandwidth to be able to execute the strategy, so he needs help executing the strategy. And that's why I offered, okay, here's what I can do. I will do it for you. We will do it for you since you don't have the bandwidth, but obviously I have to charge for that. So the point is, when you understand who's getting results, who's not getting results, and you ask those questions, you could then utilize that content or that that, that insight to create something new for that same client, right? And even charge them more, right? Another question you want to ask yourself is, are they implementing what they're learning, right? You could, especially if you're a consultant, like, or a coach, you want to see, okay, I'm spending all my time teaching all these things, but if they're not implementing it, it's not going to work, right? Are their lives or businesses improving? Right? So for me, what I found is you have people who their, their personal life, their spiritual life is improving, their business not so much.
Edna Harding [00:10:06]:
And then you have people who the business improving, but their personal life is still struggling. So it's like a little bit of both. And, and eventually the goal is to have both of them thriving, right? But they're always, what I found is when you're building something, especially if you're building God's vision, there's always going to be hiccups. Okay. And, and the goal is to stand in strength stand firm, stay in faith, um, keep being grateful for the little things, and trust God to get you through the hard things. Things will get better, right? It doesn't happen overnight. I wish it did, but it will get better. And from day to day and glory to glory, you are going to see fruits, you're going to see wins.
Edna Harding [00:10:48]:
And I truly believe that God is a covenant-keeping God, and eventually, you know, you are going to see the fruits for your labor. It's just a matter of time. As long as you don't quit, as long as you don't give up and you learn from your experiences and you adapt, right? So you, if something's not working, fix it, right? Change it, find a new offer, find a new model, change the price, change who you're targeting. Like learn from it. Don't just sit there and wallow in your pain. Like you actually have to pivot. right? Pivot your offer, pivot your audience, pivot your marketing, pivot your messaging, pivot yourself, right? Whatever it is, just don't give up. Don't quit.
Edna Harding [00:11:29]:
Because what happens is when you do this, the results produce testimonials, right? The results produce referrals, and most importantly, the results produce reputation. Okay. All right. And then number 6, the 6th metric you want to cover is the cost of client acquisition. This measures how much it costs to gain one client. Okay. So examples of this cost could be advertising. It could be events.
Edna Harding [00:11:56]:
It could be travel. It could be marketing tools. It could be time that you invested, right? These are things you want to keep track of because you want to measure, okay, like the, the return on investment. If you're investing all these different things, this time, advertising, travel, events, and you're not getting clients from it, it's probably not worth doing, right? So you want to ask yourself, how much did it cost me to acquire this client? So an example, right, and return on investment, right? So for example, with the chamber, I invested money to join the Chamber of Commerce last year, and last year my clients paid for the price to join the chamber, right? So there was a return on investment for the price to join a chamber. So I renewed my membership with the chamber, and then again, my new client covered the price of the, of the joining the chamber, the renewal, right, to be a member. So my point is, that's what you want to see. If you're paying for client acquisition, some sort of price tag, and you're not getting ROI on that particular price tag, whether it's benefiting yourself or increasing, like, as far as you're learning or increasing your revenue, then that is something you want to get rid of. Because when you understand this portion, it'll prevent you— I hope I'm recording.
Edna Harding [00:13:27]:
Yeah, I think I am. It'll prevent you— it prevents profitable revenue from becoming unprofitable growth. All right. Okay. All right. So now the 7th, um, the 7th, uh, metric that you want to go over is cash flow. This is where you measure how much money is coming in and how much money is coming out of the business, which is why you need to have some sort of accounting software. I use Zoho Books.
Edna Harding [00:13:59]:
It keeps track of all my expenses, all of the income coming in, and it helps me look at, you know, like what expenses I need to get rid of, right? That's not returning and returning. Um, um, it's not worth it for me. Right. And so for me personally, I canceled, um, Favicon and SayWhat from last year, even though it was good for an extent from a social media standpoint, because it helps you keep track of, you know, the, the metrics for your post on like LinkedIn. Me personally, mine is on LinkedIn to see what post is working, what's resonating, you know, things of that sort. And then look at other people's posts that went viral and what they talked about. Just to me, it just wasn't, it wasn't beneficial. It wasn't worth that price tag just because a lot of my clients that I got from last year were not from LinkedIn.
Edna Harding [00:15:00]:
Well, I did actually, I did get some from there, but a lot of them were from in-person events. So now, because knowing this, understanding where the money is coming in, where's the money going out, instead of focusing that my money on like, uh, software that helps with LinkedIn, I'm going to focus my money on networking events. Does that make sense? As in-person events, because that's where the bigger ticket clients come from, is from the in-person networking versus the online, online space, right? Just because there's so much noise online and you've got to deal with the algorithms. Now, the problem with that obviously is that, you know, we move a lot. And so I have to constantly meet new people, start over, but that's completely fine. That's the nature of my business right now. And that's okay. But that is what I need to focus my efforts on in-person networking, building those relationships in person and keeping the cost to the minimal when it comes to digital networking, just because of, you know, I'm seeing— I'm looking at the fruits, and the highest profitable packages where I'm generating the most income that are easy are those that I meet people in person.
Edna Harding [00:16:19]:
Okay, so I want you to ask yourself, okay, oh, let me just ask this question. Okay, so What money is coming in? What expenses are leaving? And then what reserves do you have, right? What is, what do you have left after all is said and done, right? And so I want you to ask yourself, like, which of these 7 metrics do you currently track? A lot of them, I know people I know maybe track 1 or 2, but if you track all 7, this is really going to set your business up for success. Okay. I know there's a scripture in Luke 16:10. It says, whoever is faithful with very little will also be faithful with much. And when you track your business metrics, you look at the health of your business and you really see, like, am I operating in a way that is beneficial to me for one and beneficial to my clients for two and beneficial, you know, obviously for for your business as a whole, then you'll be able to, um, to make the right choices, to make the right decisions so that you can prevent risk from happening, as well as focus on your, your efforts on the things that you should focus on because you're getting a tangible return. All right, remember, my friends, that Entrepreneurs who believe in God should not ignore numbers. We have to pay attention to those numbers.
Edna Harding [00:17:55]:
We need to interpret them with wisdom, um, because when you start paying attention to numbers and you start using discernment, um, with the help of the Holy Spirit, you can then lead your business with clarity. You can then pivot and navigate through different decisions on what's worth pursuing, what's worth going to, what's not worth bringing on. And then you will also simplify your life because now you have systems that are operating for the benefit of your business versus just putting a bandaid on a pig, right? Like basically not really seeing the good, the bad, and the ugly of your business and really measuring what's working, what's not working. And then so you could really like get rid of stuff that's just a time waster. You don't want to waste any of your time. Our most valuable asset is time. And if you're spending your time on things that does not work, then you're, you're just, you're not being a good steward. And the Lord wants you to steward your time well, right? Because if you could steward the little that you have, if, if time is all you have, you need to steward it well so that he can increase your finances, right? If finances is all you have and you don't have much time, well, you steward those finances to get increased more time, right? Ideally, what you want to have is have a lot of time and have a lot of finances.
Edna Harding [00:19:16]:
And then that was when everything, I think, it's going to be absolutely beautiful. That is the goal of every entrepreneur is to have a lot of time for themselves and also have a lot of money, right? So anyway, hope this blessed you, my friends. I hope this encouraged you to start measuring your data, start identifying things to, to report to yourself, you know, and start looking at the, the health of your business as a whole in a way of like through God's lens of like, okay, I'm stewarding this and I would— I want to steward it well. All right, well, God bless you guys. Hope this blessed you and I'll talk to y'all soon. Take care. See you guys in the next one. Bye-bye.
Edna Harding [00:20:07]:
Thanks for joining us this week on Estrepreneur. Make sure to visit our website favorandwealth.com for more information on our services. While you're at it, if you found value in this show, we'd appreciate a rating on iTunes, or if you simply tell a friend about the show, that would help me out too. Also check out my book, The Ugly Side of Sales, available on Amazon, where I share 7 of my secrets on how to win and grow business the right way. Until next time, keep shining.