Keeping track: your customers, your jobs, your numbers

There is a point where being good at the work stops being enough. You have more customers than you can hold in your head, and the business starts leaking — a call you never returned, a customer you have not seen in five months and never noticed leaving, a job you did for the old price because you could not remember what you charged.

That is not a discipline problem. It is a paper problem. Your customers have to live somewhere you can look at.

One list, and everything goes in it

A notebook works. A spreadsheet works. Your phone's contacts do not, because they cannot tell you who you have not seen since March.

One row per customer, and these columns:

• Name
• Phone, and address if you go to them
• What you did for them
• When — the date, every time
• What they paid
• Anything you need to remember: the dog, the gate code, they like Saturdays, they pay cash

Add the customer the day you finish the job. Not at the end of the week. At the end of the week you will remember four out of five.

What the list is actually for

This is the part people miss. The list is not a record. It is where your next month's work comes from.

• Who have I not heard from in three months? Those are your easiest jobs. They already know you and already paid you once. A text — "Hi Mrs. Carter, it's been a while, would you like me to come by?" — brings back more work than any flyer.
• Who pays the most per hour? Look at what they paid against how long it took. Your prices are probably wrong somewhere and this is where you find out.
• Who is difficult? You are allowed to notice, and eventually you are allowed to be busy.
• Who sent me someone? Those people deserve to be thanked, and they will do it again if you do.

A calendar you actually check

Upcoming jobs go on a calendar — phone, paper, whichever you will genuinely open. The test is simple: if someone calls right now and asks "can you come Thursday?", can you answer without saying "let me check and call you back"? If not, you will eventually double-book, and a double-booking costs you a customer.

The money, once a month

Once a month, twenty minutes, same day every month:

• What came in
• What went out — supplies, gas, anything you bought for the business
• What is left

Three numbers. Write them down and keep the months next to each other. After three months you will know things you have been guessing about all year — which service actually makes money, whether you are growing or just tired, and what you can afford.

Keep business money separate from household money, even if it is just a second envelope. Mixed money cannot be counted.

If you have Clinic Tools

Clinic Tools is this list, the calendar and the monthly numbers in one place. Customers holds every customer (you can import your phone's contacts), with a "last time they used you" date so you can see who you have not seen in a while. Schedule is the calendar, and with booking switched on, customers can pick a time themselves. Money adds up what came in and went out each month. The coach can see a short summary of these numbers, so you do not have to read them out.

In the portal

Ask the coach to help you set up your list — it can give you the columns and help you think about what to track for your kind of work. It can also look at your three numbers with you and tell you plainly what they say.

To reach this milestone

• Every customer I have is in one list with name, contact, what I did, when, and what they paid.
• I add new customers to the list the same day I finish the job.
• My upcoming jobs are on a calendar I actually check.
• I can pull up who I have not heard from in three months.
• I wrote down last month's money in, money out, and what was left.