Practice
Down is not always bad
Half the numbers that matter in a small business are ones you want to fall.
The short answer
Every KPI needs a direction as well as a target. “Up is good” is the default in most tools, which quietly gets cancellations, refunds, debtor days, wait times and cost per acquisition exactly backwards.
The numbers you want going down
- Cancellations and no-shows
- Churn
- Debtor days
- Cost per lead and cost per acquisition
- Time to first response
- Refunds and chargebacks
On a tool that assumes bigger is better, all six will show green as they get worse. That is not a cosmetic problem. It is a dashboard actively telling you the wrong thing.
Direction plus a ceiling
For a “down is good” number, the target is a ceiling rather than a floor. Cancellations with a target of 30 a month means 30 is the most you will tolerate. Twenty-two is green. Thirty-four is red. The logic inverts, and the tool has to know that.
Up is good → attainment = actual ÷ target Down is good → attainment = target ÷ actual
The subtler case: numbers with a band
Some numbers are wrong in both directions. Practitioner utilisation at 55% means you are quiet. At 98% it means you have no capacity and your team is about to burn out. Neither is good, and a single target cannot express that.
These want a range: green between 75 and 85, amber either side, red beyond. Fewer tools support this than you would expect, and it is worth checking before you commit to one.
Why this is worth an afternoon
Getting direction right is the cheapest improvement available to most dashboards. It requires no new data and no new integration. It is one setting per number, and it is the difference between a board that warns you and a board that reassures you while things quietly deteriorate.
See it on your own numbers.
Thirty days, no card. Start with your figures or a template for your trade.