The first year of business is a mirror, not a scoreboard.
It shows you what exactly your business and you look like as a brand, long before it shows you what you earn. And if you’re only tracking outputs, you’ll miss the entire foundation being built.
Most new entrepreneurs start the first year of business with wrong expectations.
- They expect revenues, high revenues.
- They expect leads.
- They expect certain prominent growth every month.
But the first 12 months are not meant to reward you.
They are meant to shape you.
And shaping never shows up in output metrics.
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What Does Measured Inputs Look like?
It shows up in the daily activities you can control, measure and improvise, such as:
- How consistently you’re creating and showing up offline and online,
- Your weekly reach-out strategy and execution,
- How well you are building and improving your systems,
- How seriously you are observing your marketing and taking inputs,
- How quickly you fix what isn’t working.
These activities directly shape your growth.
List of essential l inputs I suggest for the first 12 months:
- Daily customer conversations: Start with one meeting or conversation per day and increase as per your bandwidth.
- Content produced per week: Focus on depth, value and substance in the content. Produce as much as you can. Posting twice a week is okay. Remember, engaging with your audience is more important than posting content frequently. If you don’t engage with others, they don’t engage with your content.
- Outreach messages sent: This is a Must. If you’re shy or introvert, get over it. Learn, practice and master reaching out.
- Follow-ups done on time: Follow-up may be disguised as pushy and salesy. Get over it, too. I recommend 4 follow-ups minimum. It either gets activivated or the next step or dropped. Practice follow-ups until you stop feeling anxious.
- Process documents: Take help from a business coach or strategist. These are a part of essential for a reason. Feel free to ask me for help with creating your processes and the documentation.
- Product improvements: Document every input and feedback from your first set of users, assess, and improve accordingly every quarter.
- Your time in Deep work: You are the core of your business. You got to be strong and solid to build a strong and solid business. Think about what you need, where you can use help, what needs to be strengthen.
These inputs build habits. Habits build systems. Systems build businesses.
Why Outputs Mislead Early-Stage Entrepreneurs
When you measure only revenue or leads, you miss the essence of real business.
A drop in sales doesn’t mean your offer is bad. It may simply mean a lesser reach out and lesser conversations, follow-ups not done well that month. That’s an input.
A sudden spike in reach doesn’t mean the business is growing. It may just mean one post performed well. You can make observations on what worked well and repeat. That’s an input.
When entrepreneurs obsess over outputs, they start making emotional decisions. When they track inputs, they start making intelligent decisions.
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How to Build a 12 Month Input-Led Growth Business
I suggest to start with the simplest, basic, and practical systems. Here is one you can begin today or validate the one you’re already using:
1. Identify 5 Inputs That Will Move Your Business Forward
From personal experience of 21 years and guiding over 5000 entrepreneurs, these 5 Inputs and activities work extremely well:
- 7 prospects or customer conversations per week
- 2 long-form and one-short form pieces of content weekly
- 20 outreach messages per week
- 90 minutes of deep work daily
- 1 improvement to your product or offer every month
2. Track Them Daily or Weekly as appropriate
A simple Excel sheet is enough. Count actions, not outcomes.
3. Review Them Every Week. Fix One Day.
Ask yourself two questions:
- Did I implement what I planned?
- Did I improve?
4. Review and Adjust Your Inputs Every 90 Days
Your business evolves. Your inputs should too.
5. Celebrate Consistency. It’s Addictive.
Consistency compounds silently. That’s what builds a stable business, not viral moments.
The Real Reward of Tracking Inputs
When you measure inputs, you shift from pressure to complete control over your process and business.
You stop reacting to numbers outside your control.
You start building your business brick by brick, day by day. And you know every brick and count. What works, what didn’t.
If you build this discipline in your first 12 months, the next 12 months in 2nd year will build you.
Hope you found the post useful.
I would love to hear your insights, experiences, and business lessons in the comments.
If you want to know more about Systems, comment, “Systems”.
If you want to know more about Deep work, comment, “Deep Work”.
See you soon with another experience from my life and business.
Sunita Biddu
Sunita Biddu is a digital business coach and power blogging mentor helping coaches and small business owners. She helps with building a strong and profitable online presence and reputation that creates a self-sustaining business. Sunita writes on this blog once a week about easy-to-use guides and articles about business, coaching, social media and blogging. You can grab some of her free resources and ebooks from the resources section.