206: Seeing is Believing in Your Design Firm
Michele 00:00
Joining me on the podcast today is Jack Tompkins of Pineapple Consulting. Jack and I met back in 2019. And we shared the love of numbers and metrics instantly. Jack and I began working together early in 2020 to bring visuals to my clients and now we have joined forces to create Metrique Solutions, a software application for creative business owners, and to give you the ability to see your KPIs in a quick visual dashboard. And so today on this show, we are going to talk specifically about the power of seeing your financials in one place and at one time.
Hello, my name is Michele, and you're listening to Profit is a Choice. Every day empowered entrepreneurs are taking ownership of their company financial health and enjoying the rewards of reduced stress and more creativity. With my background as a financial software developer, owner of multiple businesses in the interior design, industry, educator, and speaker, I coach women in the interior design industry to increase their profits, regain ownership of their bottom line, and to have fun again in their business. Welcome to Profit is a Choice.
Michele 00:45
Hey, Jack, welcome to the podcast.
Jack Tompkins 00:48
Thanks, Michele. Happy to be here. Happy to be back.
Michele 00:50
I know. Right? So you were on Episode 136, which I think came out at the beginning of 2021. It came out early this year is maybe the early this year or late in 20. So everybody go back and listen to that episode, if you haven't lots of good information there. But I'm bringing you on because you and I have worked together very closely for well over a year now. Right well over a year in building the dashboard that we wish we had had early on in our businesses. And it's now available in the form of Metrique Solutions, software. And I'm just so thrilled we're so excited. And I wanted to just share a little bit with you and talk about kind of what happened and how it all came to be between the two of us. And then of course bringing other team members on board. But and then I want us to really talk about why a Financial Dashboard, specifically Metrique but why a Financial Dashboard is so important. So you and I, I'm pretty sure that we did the podcast interview, I want to say it was around November of 2020. And I think it came out in January of February of 2021.
Jack Tompkins 02:06
that sounds right. Yeah.
Michele 02:08
When we ended that conversation, I said to you, when I hit like, stop recording, Jack, can I hire you? Immediately, I just Alright, we're done. I want to hire you. Because I had been building spreadsheet after spreadsheet. I've been building them since I think probably 2009 and giving them to my clients. So I even have spreadsheets you're not going to love to hear this on the podcast. But I can have spreadsheets you haven't seen yet. So I've got spreadsheets because that's the way my brain thinks for data. And which is why I think we'd loved our first podcast too much. And, but I have all these spreadsheets. And I was looking for a way to pull them all together to make something available more than just to the client base that I serve. But something that an entire industry or even cross industries could use because its data. And you were so kind to go. Yeah, let's do it. And tell me a little bit what it is that we started right after we it was right before Christmas, because we said we'll start in the beginning of the year. So we kicked off in January of 21. And started working out because we launched it to my clients in one form in March of 21. Yep, that's right. What did you think when I showed you everything that I wanted you to analyze and build out for me?
Jack Tompkins 03:33
Honestly, it was kind of the perfect scenario. Because a lot of the data and the dashboards thing, if it's not something that you've had experience with, or it's not top of mind, there's a lot of those spreadsheet type activities that you do to then finally say, oh, man, I need to pull this all together in a dashboard. So it was really cool for me because you have the mindset, you're very good at it, you're very strategic thinking. And you saw the next step of weed to put all this together. And it in one sort of housing that you can just use as the center point of your business. And it was like the coolest project for me, it was a whole lot of fun. I mean, it's evolved into this whole other company too. So it's it's been a really cool journey from start to finish.
Michele 04:20
You know, what I think was so fun is you certainly work on dashboards and outside of this industry with other people. And I remember you saying, you know, this is really interesting, because you're the only dashboard that's pulling in more than just one type of element. We've got other elements in there that we're measuring, not just financials. And I also know that I probably I don't know I maybe I didn't freak you out because I think you're a forward thinker, you're strategic as well. But when we even started working together, even though we were building an Excel dashboard at the time, I said to you and you're you were thinking the same thing I'm like, I'm already thinking app like I'm thinking application like I've already thought Oh yeah, I didn't just think one step ahead. I'm like 10 steps ahead. And but we needed to do what we would call proof of concept. And make sure that it was usable, make sure that my clients could actually derive value from what we thought they needed. And they have, and they're, I mean, we know they're clamoring for it, and are so excited that it's now available. And that part was just really fun to have somebody who could catch my vision, because you know, we're designing software, we're designing solutions, it's no different than the people that we're serving, that are designing homes and buildings and whatever, when you can find that other person who can come in and catch your vision, and strengthen it and move it forward. That is so exciting. And that's what you did for my vision, because you had the ability to build these killer spreadsheets, like my spreadsheets looked like baby spreadsheets compared to yours. But you had the ability to help me pull all these random pieces together. Let's talk about that for a minute, Jack, because I would submit that many businesses do that we build a piece to solve our problem, a piece to solve the problem. I mean, I hear that even with some of the project management software solutions that are out there, even those that are seriously robust. Oh, but it doesn't do internal project management, or it doesn't do financial management, or it does financial management, great. And project management terribly. It's like, you can't solve everything with one solution. But you don't have to have 5000 solutions to solve the problem. And sometimes that's what we do, we solve it. And then we forget where we solved it. So we go create another one, or we miss this one piece. So we go create the next one. And so the housing of all of those things where you can input data wants and needs. Other areas. That is exciting. I think we talked about it on the last podcast reminds me of when you go to the doctor, and you have to fill out paperwork. And they ask you the same darn questions 45 times and you're like if you would just let me answer it and populate everywhere you need it, we could be done. And that's what this solution does. How did you at the very beginning, think about Metrique Solutions, which is what we now have evolved into went from a Scarlet Thread Financial Dashboard to Metrique Solutions. It's been a busy year.
Jack Tompkins 07:23
But a fun year and a good one. Yeah. So from the beginning, it was it was cool because to your point if not even with our own individual businesses and now Metrique as well, but for the average business owner, even regardless of industry, it's kind of doing one thing at a time. And it's let me build a spreadsheet for this and then I'll sell this one and it's not that people don't have the strategic vision. It's just a time constraint of I need this now and I need this one solution. It's difficult to then bring in all of the different solutions that you've made and combine them into this one thing. So Metrique to me was kind of the culmination of that where there were a bunch of spreadsheets out there, all the ideas were out there. And now we need to put it all together. And it obviously has evolved three, four times past that to its is really robust, awesome, awesome thing. But it was cool to see that actually work in reality, because I talked with plenty of other business owners who have a great solution for one thing, and even a couple that have solutions for multiple, three, four different things in the business. Seeing that done is a rarity. Seeing it done like Metrique just doesn't really exist. So it was kind of a cool, let's take theory and put it into practice. And it's turned out really nice.
Michele 08:39
You know, what was so interesting is when we were talking initially, I remember saying, this would be cool in the app, and you made the same comment. Yeah, I've thought about that. And after we developed it, I remember asking you Okay, Jack, can you learn how to code an app, you know, you're like, No, I don't know how to make the killer spreadsheets you make. And you were like, I don't know how to do that. And so what was so cool was I had the team that I hired, I had not even considered at the time that you and I started and pieces just started falling into place for other team members and people that had a skill set that was outside of mine and outside of yours. But again, a team of people that can come along and catch the vision. And I'm just going to segue one minute and say one of the things that I really tried to do when I started Metrique Solutions, was to build a software company in the way that I wish I had had software when I worked there when I worked in software, and that's the thing we keep talking about. The other thing I've tried to do is really follow my own coaching advice that I give out all the time about putting the right butts in the right seats doing the right job. And so you know this but you'll notice for people that if they were to look inside Metrique everybody is doing a job that they already know how to do for the most part, not that we're not being stretched. But our developer is developing, I hired somebody specifically for QA because they know how to write the test cases. They know how to document, they know how to keep track that I hired a project manager who knows how to project manage, because he does that all the time, I hired somebody to write education release notes, because she works in that area to do education and release notes. I hired you to step into that as a business analyst and a subject matter expert, because you'd already built the prototype. And you're helping us refine that. And then I hired you know, another resource who works in the construction industry, who can help us make sure we're thinking outside of just the interior of interior design, right. And so everybody knows their area, yet, they all can stretch across. And so in other words, I didn't hire people, and then say, now, let me teach you how to write test plans. I hired somebody who was already expert at doing that. And what's been so cool about the team on retreat, not only have they caught the vision, but they keep saying to me, what's so fun is that they're developing from scratch, but they're doing it within their wheelhouse for something that they're good at. And they're getting to create from the ground up. I think that's part of the exciting piece of all of it.
Jack Tompkins 11:27
Oh, it definitely is. Absolutely. It's like we're just talking about with piecemeal spreadsheets, taking it all together. It's piecemeal, employees, team members that have very specific specialties. And at the end of the day, like, we're the outside of Metrique and create a software, we're consultants, and we have specific, we're really good at this. And so we're going to do this minus dashboard, just coaching and for the pieces that we're not experts in, we bring in other experts. And that's just how our business works. And it's really cool to see that we started with, let's do it, right, let's do it the way that we wish it was done. And then we did it with the right experts, the right butts in the right seats, doing the right things.
Michele 12:05
So moving past that a little bit, which, again, for anybody who's all of our listeners here, have, you know, for the majority, they built their own companies. So they understand that excitement in the build. There's stress in the build, there's tension, when do I do it? When do I not do it? Do I put it out here, what's ready, what's not ready, what's most viable, you know, what has to be done. But there's all kinds of decision making that we're all doing all the time. But at the end of the day, the goal is to put out a product that everybody can hold their head high and be very proud of. And I believe that that's exactly what we have done with Metrique. But to your point, we have big plans, we're not done. I think my husband keeps coming, Michele, you have got to quit putting things on the roadmap. And I'm like, but I, I'm telling you these things are important. And so it's going to be fun to watch it continue to evolve. So I know you're we're all excited about
Jack Tompkins 13:06
It is a fun battle between Oh, yeah, creep. Yeah, new ideas, right and money.
Michele 13:14
For free, we know that right? And certainly hiring talent to build software. Not free. But even with that, so let's talk about some of the money aspects of Metrique. Let's talk about why it's so in some of this may overlap, Jack, our last conversation. Totally cool with that. But what is it about visually seeing the data, pulling the pieces together, that makes such an impact in our decision making.
Jack Tompkins 13:43
So it's it's sort of a seeing is believing type situation, I know a lot of our audience is very visually oriented, being designers and kind of creative. And I'm kind of on the opposite end of the spectrum where I'm very data oriented, and, and whatever side of the brain that is, however, when I see something like an income statement, or a QuickBooks file, or whatever it is, I'm happy to kind of parse through it and it's okay, when I actually see it in colors and graphs, it literally comes to life, right, and it kind of points out all these different insights that you don't really see from a black and white income saving in QuickBooks. So the biggest thing was seeing your numbers is you can understand them easier. They jump out to you the big things that you need to focus on. They're in big bold font with a noticeable color, the small things the don't really need to pay attention day to day, they're probably not even on the dashboard. So it kind of gets rid of the clutter. It puts all the relevant, important information in front of you in and very, very digestible way where it's honestly it's looking at a pretty picture and that's what I joke what my dashboards are all the time. Because it's kind of true. It's a pretty way to look at your numbers and therefore understand them really quickly and really easily.
Michele 14:57
You know, I will say this to about a couple that we chose, we didn't just go out and randomly choose colors, I hired a branding company, and talk to them about how we wanted to feel, let's be honest here, looking at numbers and financials can be overwhelming. It can be intimidating, can be scary, it can be stress inducing. And so one of the things that we wanted and to me primary colors, while I like primaries, it's not necessarily the way I want to see my financials, I need something that's a bit more soothing, when I'm looking at numbers that are represented in color. And I say that because we did research and worked with a firm to help us choose colors that were more soft, and soothing, and not in your face kind of colors. So that if there is an element that maybe is not the percentage you want, or the number you want, at least there's not a garish orange screaming in your face, right. And I'm proud of that, because we thought about more than just here's red. Here's green, you know, it was it was a deeper conversation about how we want people to feel when the numbers are good, when the numbers are bad when they're trending up when they're trending down. And as every designer knows, color impacts, how we feel in the space, and it impacts what we see, visually. And so there has been care and attention even in the color selected.
Jack Tompkins 16:35
Oh, totally. And what I love about the audience of this podcast is it's people who understand that right? They design a room in a certain way. And, and we took that same approach when picking colors. And to your point. It's not strong primary in your face colors. It's also not the other end of the spectrum that's almost like muddy, right? It doesn't get to
Michele 16:55
that makes you depressed, even great writers.
Jack Tompkins 16:59
It's a very, very intentional not even color selection, but color placement. And what is next to what Yeah, and it all like this, the way I feel when I look at it, it's almost like looking at your income statement with a huge deep breath of Ah, sure it is I get it. And it's kind of that nice, yeah, to your point soothing, calming feeling,
Michele 17:21
right. Because one of my things with helping, you know, I've been on this journey to help business owners understand their financials, because we can make decisions when we understand them. I have worked with business owners that are in that zero to 100,000, that first six figures of revenue that don't understand their numbers. And I have designers and builders calling me at three, four and 5 million of income, who still don't have a firm grasp of their numbers. And I'm saying that not to shame anybody. But to say it is a challenge across the board, for all of us when that's not something that we do consistently, if we don't know what to look at when to look at it, how to look at it, and how to analyze it. It's too much. And so my goal, and the goal that you agreed with me and helped me kind of bring to life was how do we make it digestible to use your word? How do we take all of the information from a p&l from all these other data sources and put it together in a way that even if you are not financially focused, even if you don't have a business degree, even if you would consider yourself fully and totally a creative, you can come into this, set a couple of small goals and then watch the dashboard as your data is loaded, and see it in a way that you can consume it.
Jack Tompkins 18:49
Yeah, it's looking at a pretty picture. That happens to be a whole lot of really good, valuable decision driving data. That sounds like something that most people, even the folks who love finances and data, it's still stuff that kind of gets put on the backburner. Whatever side of the brain works for you, whatever you like to do a dashboard and specifically Metrique obviously brings it all together in that way that is digestible. And I think it's really well said, Michele.
Michele 19:18
You know what's so interesting about Metrique Solutions, and the solving of the problem that we have done or problems, they're multiples of business problems, is that when you go there, I love and this is what I say all the time. You can slice and dice your data more than one way. So for example, if you're at a football stadium, and there is a game on the field, if I am on one side and you're on the other side, we're both watching the game but our view is completely different. The slice of what we're looking at if I'm in the endzone versus a student section in the middle, my view is very different if I'm sitting down versus standing up, my view is different, but it's the same game being played on the field. So if we were to take that and think about it with regards to our financials, what is on our p&l is on our p&l. And what Metrique Solutions does is it slices and dices that data in a multitude of ways. So that when you go to that dashboard, it is effectively you moving around and watching the game from a different perspective. So that you can use that information to make a decision in a particular area without being bombarded with all of the data from somewhere else. And actually even does the math for you. So if we're trying to go what is the percentage of this this Metrique already has those things. And it's also meant to support your profit first plan. So that when we do percentages, it's quick, and it's fast, and it's in your face. And you know, here's what it's doing. And so that's what I love about it, because I know when I'm looking at p&l switch like you, I'm looking at them all the time. I'm going okay, let's look at the top half of it. What are your revenues? Where do you make the most money? Where do you make the least money? What's happening there? Or I might be looking at their p&l for what is the percentage of cost of goods to total revenues, or we may be looking at it, if less cut your expenses there to higher What was your net profit, you know, all those different types of things that we are looking at, if you will, moving around the stadium of the p&l? The dashboard just does it for you.
Jack Tompkins 21:32
Yeah, it's so one, I'm totally going to use that analogy and absolutely steal it, because that's such a good analogy. It's such a good analogy. And so we've talked about this in the past to have of looking from a different angles matters. And it's important, it's easy to get lost looking at I'll keep using the analogy, if you're looking at the coach talking to players on the sideline, you might be missing the game on the field. If you're looking at the cheerleaders, you're definitely missing the game on the field. Right, right. So when, again, whether you're financially savvy love, financials, hate them, anything like that, when you're looking at an income statement, there's a whole lot going on there. Right? It's easy to kind of get what's called analysis paralysis. And when you're digging through that, it's could be tough to tell what's gold and what's dirt. The beauty of a dashboard, and Metrique in particular, again, is that we take out the gold for you and say, Here it is, this is the important piece, we'll do the math for you. And there's all these sort of like helper metrics and helper areas of the dashboard that get to that next layer deeper that you want to see. Because it's great to see the top level, right, it's great to see the initial play on the field, the first and down are first and 10. It's important to think what's next to and so we kind of cover that whole spectrum, and it's well put together and again, visually appealing, right.
Michele 22:52
And the other thing is, it's built with strategy in mind. And it's built with looking towards the future in mind. You know, there's, let's just stay with the analogy. There's more than one way to play that game. I talk all the time about strategic plans and tactical plans, we make strategic financial decisions that says this is how we're going to charge this is what we're going to do. This is the size company we want to have this is this is how we're going to orchestrate everything. But when we're on the field, we have to do it differently, whether it's a football game or a chess game, you know, I go back to that. Oh, gosh, what was that movie where she sees the chessboard on the ceiling? And do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, gosh, think about it. Anyway, she's strategizing in her mind. So she's laying in bed at night and can see the moves and anticipate this and Netflix. It's really good. I'll find the name put in the show notes. But Queensgate but yes, that's it. That's it Queens gather. And so she's thinking strategically yet you remember there was this one scene in a movie, where she sits down, she goes to play in the person makes a different move, and she loses. And it comes back to her friends and they sit up and help her strategize what her move prior to that should have been to keep that move from being even viable on the board. Right. So there's a strategy but tactically when she was at that table is different. And then towards later towards the end. That same game comes up she rematches she plays, she wins, you know, sorry for the spoilers, everybody. But that's what happens because she reworked her strategy. Well, the same darn thing is true in our business, we can set a strategy and tactically when we get there with that client or we're doing something on paper, it looks differently. And what Metrique also allows you to do is to set up an aggressive budget and a conservative budget, one that says at the baseline, this is what I need to stay sustainable to be in business to cover all my expenses. And then you can have that high reach budget that you're monitoring to so what's so cool about Metrique is Is every month, you can run your numbers, and it will immediately tell you where you are to both budgets without you having to go figure it out. Am I up? Am I down there? Arrows? It shows you. And I think that's important. Because internally with my direct clients that I coach, we tried to set, here's the conservative budget. And here's our aggressive. And Jack this last year in 2021. It has been, I've reached my stretch budget, I've reached my aggressive budget. And I think not only is it because they worked super hard, but I think it's because they identified it, and they tried to reach it. And there is something about setting that type of a goal, whether it's financial or otherwise writing it down having it in front of you and measuring to it.
Jack Tompkins 25:48
Yes, definitely. I was just gonna say that to the best way to achieve a goal is to write it down and look at it with some sort of frequency, right. So every time you upload your new numbers into Metrique, you see that goal again, and you go, Whoa, actually hit it. And whoa, I hit the stretch run or the aggressive one too. And it's to your point it, it kind of does the math for you. And you get to see that trend and see where you are in a budget. And it's very effective in hitting budgets, because setting a budget is one thing. And it's great. There's a whole lot of detail that we dive into for that. Reaching a budget is another thing. Step number one, put it on paper, or in a really cool web app.
Michele 26:25
Yeah, really cool about, let's talk for a second about how long it takes to actually input and do the work in Metrique, because some people could easily go, oh, my gosh, I don't have time for one more application. I don't have time for one more thing. What is this going to take for me to get it set up? And it actually is? Well, to me, I'm going to think it's simple to set up because I've been working in it for a year now. But it really is not super difficult. You set up a company, you can set up roles for your employees, you set up a budget, which you actually can load prior years from QuickBooks, and some other programs that we're working with right now and putting out there, but you can load past years data, use that data to create your new budget, go in and update it. And then every month, it's as simple as loading a p&l. I mean, that's kind of it, take your p&l, download it into a CSV file, load it, and it'll give you all your answers.
Jack Tompkins 27:26
Right? Yeah. So the setup is probably what takes the longest but it doesn't even take that long. The monthly fee, put it in air quotes, the monthly maintenance to actually upload your new data. So I've have a video that times it for a different spreadsheet, a different dashboard, but the process is exactly the same. I think it took me a minute and like 43 seconds or something like that. And granted I'm
Michele 27:49
Was that the download and creating the CSV and uploading it. Yeah, exactly. It's logging into QuickBooks everything. Yeah, I want to say that when I did it, remember, we were doing it to create education. And I was talking through and here's where you go. And here's what you click, and here's what you do. And I want to say me even talking it through was somewhere in three minute range. That doesn't take long at all. I want to say this, that's so interesting. When my accountant saw it, and was working through it, she said to me, Michele, for some people, this could be up to 10 hours of work to give them this data, because they're having to go back and forth and look in other places to pull it together. This is hours of work. Whereas if you can get the answers that you're getting, let's say high level three to five minutes after setup, the time savings on that is enormous. Not to mention the ability to use the data to now make decisions.
Jack Tompkins 28:49
Right? That's a really good point. Because the other main benefit with this is a perfect lead into it. Have a dashboard is the time saving nature of it. Because updating, even if you say updating takes the full five minutes, which once you do it twice, it probably won't. And then you say okay, maybe I'll look at and do some analysis. And they kind of look at the dashboard for you only really need maybe another five minutes, you're talking a whole 10 minute process to give you that much information. Whereas I've worked with clients in the past and very similar to your story with your accountant. It's four hours per week, just to wrangle everything together. So four hours versus 10 minutes. That's easy math.
Michele 29:29
I'm taking the 10 minutes every time and I'm going to go spend the extra three hours and 15 minutes doing something else. And consider even the cost of that not just in time but in money. If you're paying a bookkeeper and accountant or an employee, an ops manager, somebody to go sit and pull that data together in that same way. I mean, even if they love numbers that it's going to be a little bit of a chore each month we hear our clients talk about how difficult it is to have to sit down and go through the billing process every month, even though there's joy on the other side of getting paid. That billing process can be painful. And I think this type of process can be painful. And it's, I'll say this too, is the type of process that when you're pushed goes to the backburner. Yes. And the beauty of this is in three to five minutes, it can be on the front, right? It can be at the front all the time, not an afterthought. Not if we have time, or I wish I could. It's a were three to five minutes. Let me see it. Yep. Because everybody's got three to five minutes to look at it. Yeah. Right. And to get it done. It's such
Jack Tompkins 30:32
A good point, too, because it's one of those things where it's, it's data, its financials, like, I'll do it later. If you've got a big meeting, coming up with a business coach, or whoever, and you need to know your numbers need to show your numbers carve out five minutes beforehand, you can still grab a cup of coffee on the way to the meeting.
Michele 30:49
Yeah, you know, what's also interesting about it is, I think that when you've got individuals out there listening who think I don't really know my financials, I don't understand them. This sounds exciting to me. It also gives you the ability to now stay on top of the bookkeeping. Yeah. And on top of whoever's doing your bookkeeping, because now you're going to want to see the latest data. And so you're going to be like, my dashboard hasn't been updated in 30 days since the last reconciliation. Come on me that reconciled, so I can see it, you'll start to see areas where you can tweak how things happen. I'll give you a couple of examples I work with a lot of my clients will refer first start to tweak, what is the date that you get your bank statement, what is the date that you get your credit cards, you can go in and ask for those things to be adjusted, so that you can close the month clean, it doesn't have to be that everything's on the 15th of the month, or this third of the month or the seventh of the month, you can move things around. And when you do that, you actually can see real data as close to when it just happened. And that, to me, is really exciting.
Jack Tompkins 31:59
It's really I actually didn't even know you could adjust that those dates either. So that's pretty cool, too.
Michele 32:04
Yeah, we've gone in a couple of times with credit cards and ask them to go to the end of the month so that when we pay it, it covers the whole past month, as opposed to half month chunks where everything is, well this is really part of October and pardon November. It's this is all of October, all of November, all of December, and you can go in and adjust it. Same with bank statements. My bank statement got twisted one time, and I called them and I said every one of my bank statements ends at the end of the month. I want this one to do that, too. And she said fine. Well, the justice. Easy. And that was it. Okay, yeah. But if you don't know that you can ask for those things, then you won't have them. And so that's what's causing a lot of people to say, Well, I never really know my financials, they're never really up to date in their mind, because everything's crossing months. But if the more you can clean up to be within the month, the better off you'll be.
Jack Tompkins 32:50
Yeah, it's a good point, too. With that kind of getting excited to see what are the new numbers, it almost becomes like gamified, where of like, how do I do this month, and you get to see your progress and stuff. It's you're competing against yourself, and you're winning every day.
Michele 33:03
And that goes back to a book I'll throw out called the Great Game of Business. I use that book a lot in my coaching. And in the great game of business, it talks about making these financial goals part of the game, let your team you know, within reason, help them understand how the numbers flow and what things are. And you can use this to help you get ready for things like that.
Jack Tompkins 33:24
Totally. Yeah, it's a fun way to look at your numbers, honestly, because not only is it gamified, it's also really good information, it looks good. And all the stuff that we've already talked about, it becomes this part of your routine that really is it's not just part of your team, it's kind of the start of your routine of this is how I'm going to start my month, and then you go from there.
Michele 33:43
I think about it as a confidence builder, a power builder in your toolbox, right? So all of a sudden, what felt like you wanted to run from or you didn't understand, all of a sudden, your confidence has been built in that item and in that area, and you get it. And you can set those goals and then see yourself reaching them, your team reaching them, and know what's really within your grasp. And then know quickly, right? Not at the end of the year. Oh snap, that didn't work, you know, all along so that you can do micro adjustments if needed, instead of the huge macro adjustment that we sometimes have to do at the end because we weren't watching,
Jack Tompkins 34:24
Right? You get to touch base. You can even go mid month, but you can touch base as many times as you want. And it's nothing against the gut instinct, right? It's just data helps, right? It's right, you can be completely right. With a gut instinct, you can be completely profitable while using a dashboard.
Michele 34:38
Right? We always say you can trust your gut, but you really need to back it up with empirical data. And the more you do that, the more you actually won't go back and trust your bet. Yeah, right. Right. Again, it becomes confidence. So Well, Jack, thank you so much for just having the conversation about how the dashboard was created and kind of the fun and also The power of being able to see these things visually, we're gonna have a couple more podcast episodes coming up, where we talk about some different aspects of Metrique Solutions. But I really appreciate you being a part of it from the beginning, being a part of it at the next step of the beginning and as we move into the future to continue to solve the problems for small businesses, and primarily, certainly in the interior design industry, but small businesses everywhere that really need to understand their numbers and bits and pieces in digestible way so
Jack Tompkins 35:34
Totally, it's been my absolute pleasure to be a part of the journey so thank you for having me on again.
Michele 35:39
You're welcome. Talk soon! Profit is a choice is proud to be part of the design network.org where you can discover more design media reaching creative listeners. Thanks for listening, and stay creative and business minded.