The 5 Numbers Every Creative Business Should Track
KPIs get tossed around a lot—but most creatives aren’t told which ones actually matter or how to use them.
In this episode of Creative Minds Smart Money, we break down KPIs in plain English and turn them into decision-making shortcuts. You’ll learn how to pick a small set of metrics that fit your business model, track them without drowning in spreadsheets, and use them to improve pricing, delivery, delegation, and profit.
In this episode, we cover:
✅ What a KPI really is and why it must be tied to a goal and an action
✅ Core KPIs every business should know: net profit margin, owner’s pay %, average client value, offer profitability, operating expense %
✅ Creative-industry KPIs to consider (designers, photographers, social managers, course creators, influencers)
✅ How to choose your 3–5 KPIs using simple prompts you can revisit monthly
✅ The danger of vanity metrics (likes, follower counts, top-line revenue, “busy = successful”) and what to track instead
✅ How to make KPIs visible and useful with a lightweight monthly cadence
If you’ve ever wondered whether your effort is actually moving the needle, these KPIs will give you clarity and control without turning you into a spreadsheet queen.
🎧 Hit play now and set up KPIs that fit your business, your brain, and your goals.
🔗 Resources & Links
Website: https://www.firestormfinance.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/firestormfinance/
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@firestormfinance?hl=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantha-e-8796b6176/
Newsletter: https://firestormfinance.myflodesk.com/ajmiv1kyt1
📝 Want to see a specific topic on the show? Submit your suggestion here!
📢 If this episode helped you focus on what really matters, share it with a friend, leave a review, and help more creatives make confident money moves.
Transcript
You're listening to the Creative Minds Smart Money podcast.
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:And today's episode, we are diving back into more CFO related things and we're talking all
about KPIs.
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:KPIs are a very exciting topic because they're something that a lot of people tend to
ignore, but could be really good indicators of the health of your business and the success
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:of your business.
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:So everyone talks about...
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:KPIs, you see them all over the place.
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:I'm sure you have.
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:You've seen them on social media somewhere.
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:But no one explains what to actually do with them once they're tracked or like what you
should even track.
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:So today we're going to talk about key performance indicators, how to choose the right
ones, how to make them work for you, and how to create metrics that are actually unique to
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:your creative business as a creative service provider.
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:We don't need to become some sort of a spreadsheet queen or track our entire life to be
good at business.
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:We really just need those few intentional numbers that are gonna give us that highlight
and that insight into the health of our business overall.
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:So let's really get into these and talk about them.
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:So what the heck even is a KPI?
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:You're probably like, okay, Samantha, that's great.
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:You're throwing big financial words at me, but please explain to me in plain English.
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:What is a KPI?
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:What is a key performance indicator?
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:First of all, KPI is a key performance indicator.
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:It's a number that tells you how well something went when your business is performing.
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:And it's not just any number.
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:A KPI is tied to a specific goal.
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:It's tracked regularly and it's actionable.
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:So it's not just data, it's a decision-making shortcut.
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:One of the first positions that I ever had was working for my dad at a logistics company.
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:And one of the things we did was KPI was tracking how many cases or how many items were
picked per hour, I believe.
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:And then we would compare that and make sure to see like what the average should be for
picking orders when we were doing it in logistics.
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:It was a very interesting.
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:process, but that is how I learned about KPIs and how I learned about the power of them.
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:Cause it would show us like people who were underperforming based on a KPI, like how do we
get them up?
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:Like what are they doing differently than the people who were performing above average or
at least at average.
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:So that's why we really want to kind of dig into KPIs.
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:So why do creative businesses need KPIs?
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:First of all, they're going to help you measure your effort versus results based on that
example I gave you, which is kind of like helping you have that
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:return on investment and really understanding how things are working.
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:They're going to help you to prevent overworking by showing you what's actually moving the
needle.
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:They replace just plain numbers or something like that with visibility.
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:So you don't have to wonder if your business is actually working.
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:You're going to know and you're going to understand if it actually is.
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:And of course it allows you for empowered delegation.
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:If you're hiring a VAR marketer, how will you know if they're doing a good job?
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:So maybe you're measuring.
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:their KPIs against something like that.
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:And this is more of like someone who's internal and less of like a subcontractor.
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:Because of course, if you're having someone who's a subcontractor, they're gonna have
their own KPIs that they're holding to their own standards.
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:But of course, we wanna measure and understand how things are going in our business.
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:And that's where we use KPIs.
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:So I wanna talk about the core KPIs that every business should know.
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:So core key performance indicators that you should be looking at.
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:at least monthly, if not quarterly, but I would really suggest that you look at these
monthly.
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:So let's keep them accessible and tied to some actual decisions that you'd be making.
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:So the first one is your net profit margin.
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:Now, again, you're probably like Samantha, you're throwing big words at me, what the heck
is a net profit margin?
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:So the net profit margin is the percent of income that becomes actual profit.
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:So when we look at this as our cost of goods, our direct costs minus our expenses,
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:The last number is actually that percentage and you want the percentage.
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:You don't just want the number.
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:So if you have 10,000 and you made 60,000 or sorry, if you have 10,000, you made 6,000 at
the end of the month.
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:You made 60,000, wow.
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:But if you have 6,000 at the end of the month, that's a 60 % net profit margin, right?
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:So it tells you if you're pricing right and if you're managing expenses, you might just
think, well, I can just look at the 6,000 and know that.
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:But for some reason, our brains look at percentages differently.
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:And the reason I know this is because when I'm working with a client and we're working
through their books and we look at their expenses, I put a percentage next to every
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:expense.
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:And when you think, okay, I'm spending $20 a month on coffee and maybe you're only making
$300 and that $20 a month of coffee is like 15 to 20 % of your, your profit.
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:That's when things start to click in your head and you're like, crap, like, do I want to
be spending 20 % of my income on coffee?
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:And again, this is not to shame you or judge you or say, my gosh, like don't spend 20.
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:If you want to spend 20 % on coffee, girl, get your coffee.
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:Like don't ever come at me and say, my gosh, Samantha, how could you judge me for that?
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:Your business is your business.
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:If that's what brings you joy, if that's what lights you up, if that's what gets you
going,
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:spend the money on the coffee.
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:The point of that is to really give you that full picture, like I said, and give you that
knowledge.
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:So when we're looking at these percentages, again, it's not for judgment purposes, it's to
give us that knowledge to see, okay, is that really where we want to be?
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:Or do we wanna be somewhere completely different?
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:Next, we wanna look at owner's pay as a percentage of revenue.
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:So we're looking at if we're paying ourselves 5,000 and we make 10,000, we're paying
ourselves 50%, right?
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:We wanna make sure that it's not a luxury.
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:Like we're not saying, okay, we're just gonna pay ourselves what's left over.
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:It's a metric, which is why when I'm working with all of my clients, I ask them how much
they wanna pay themselves every month.
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:Because we wanna make sure that we're getting paid and then if we can take anything as a
potential bonus, some sort of bonus or something like that.
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:Another good one is your average client value.
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:This tells you how much every client is really worth, not just what they pay upfront.
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:So when we talked about the profitability analysis last month, this is something that can
really come in handy because now you're gonna already know what your client value is based
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:on what they're paying and you know that data.
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:now you're gonna start to see how all of these kind of like integrate really well and how
important having these multiple reports are
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:You need more of this information to really get that full picture.
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:And then of course we have the offer profitability.
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:So again, bringing in that profitability piece.
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:What offers are actually making you money?
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:Which ones look good but drain your time?
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:And if we're doing that profitability analysis, we can just pull it in and make it a KPI,
which is something really exciting.
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:And then obviously you're operating an expense percentage.
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:Are you running lean or leaking cash into tools and subscriptions?
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:So.
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:That's where we can really get specific as well with KPIs and tracking the percentage of
specific categories.
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:Maybe you spend a lot of money on marketing and you want to make sure you don't reach a
specific percentage every month.
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:We can track that monthly and make sure that we're actually getting that specific
percentage that we want to see.
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:Maybe you want to track software and subscriptions.
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:You want to make sure that your software and subscriptions are getting over a certain...
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:percentage.
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:A lot of this seems kind of like a redundancy is like, okay, we're we've already covered a
lot of this, but it's about giving you clarity, right?
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:Because if I just threw a report at you and said, Hey, like you made 20 % last month, like
your net profit merger was 20 % last month.
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:It's not going to stick, right?
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:When we do KPIs, we put them bold in their own section, like in a metrics formula.
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:So that you're like every month, you know exactly where to look.
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:Maybe you don't even look at the rest of the report.
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:Maybe you just want to look at your KPIs.
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:You can drop right down to your KPIs and see that number.
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:Maybe you don't want to have time to watch the whole video.
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:Maybe whatever is going on in your business, like with my clients, I want to give them
that availability to just look at something and be like, okay, I know what's going on.
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:I'm going to move on.
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:Okay.
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:So now that we've kind of discussed what generally everybody should be looking at is KPIs.
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:want to really get into some client creative industry specific KPIs based on a lot of
people that I've worked with and like people that I know.
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:So.
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:let's kind of talk about that on a deeper level and really get into it.
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:So first of all, I have a couple of broad categories that I want to talk about.
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:like designers, brand strategists, copywriters, social media managers, whatever it is, you
want to look at things like time to delivery.
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:So this is your average hours per project phase because it helps you manage your team or
the scope of work.
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:Revisions per project maybe could be a good one identifying clients who need tighter
boundaries
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:Client ROI reports.
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:So looking and seeing if the new branding product that you did or the new design project
that you did brought more conversions because that can be used in advertising too.
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:Like that's a great KPI to keep track of an advertising.
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:Your client turnaround time.
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:How long did it take to complete the onboarding and intake process?
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:How long did it take to complete the project?
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:Keeping track of all that can be really, really good.
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:For photographers or videographers,
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:Maybe your shoot to edit ratio, how much time are you spending after the shoot?
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:Not just on the shoot.
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:Maybe your average upsell per client do clients buy add-ons.
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:Do they buy additional albums?
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:Do they buy galleries?
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:Like what are they adding on?
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:Like that could be a really good KPI for you as well.
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:Image delivery turnaround.
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:you know, seeing how fast it takes you to turn around that and then seeing if you're
overbooked or if you're under pricing, like if you're turning things around, super fast,
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:but you're, you know, you're not charging for that.
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:Like how do you, how do you manage that?
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:course creators slash educators, looking at your conversion rate per lead magnet.
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:So how much of your lead magnets are converting?
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:Looking at your email open rates on your sale sequences, having that into your financials.
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:And I know a lot of this, might be looking like, why would I want that on my financials?
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:But it all kind of ties together if you understand what I mean.
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:Like everything is working together in tandem and that's what you really wanna see.
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:So your completion rate for your signature offer.
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:like, know, how many people are actually going through your course?
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:And then your refund rate per offer, like how many people are refunding if they are not
going to your offer.
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:And then of course we can have like your influencers, content creators, social media
managers, time per sponsor deliverable, profit per collaboration, reach versus engagement
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:ratio.
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:Like, you know, your client rebook rate, how many brands are coming back.
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:These are all very important KPIs that different, you know, creative service providers can
keep track of.
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:There's a million to one that we can talk about.
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:And I can't obviously list every creative industry, but there's just some highlights on
things like that you can be looking at that are considered KPIs and that could be helping
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:you.
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:Okay.
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:How do we choose our KPIs?
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:So first of all, start with goals, which is something as a fractional CFO.
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:always start with my clients.
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:We look at their goals.
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:Like what are their goals in business?
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:What do they want to do with their business?
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:Are you trying to grow?
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:Are you trying to protect your profit margin?
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:Are you trying to improve your profit margin?
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:Are you trying to improve?
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:Like what are you trying?
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:What are your intentions with your business?
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:Like what, what are the specific goals that you have?
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:If you have a goal of making $10,000 a month and you're at $5,000 a month, you know, how
do we get there?
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:So we're going to pick three to five KPIs.
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:Don't do a ton.
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:Again, I want you to be clear on that.
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:You wanna pick three to five because any more is just gonna cause you overwhelm and you
don't wanna track so many that you're like, okay, I'm over here, I'm over here, I'm over
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:here.
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:You wanna pick three to five specific KPIs that you wanna be looking at on a monthly
basis.
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:And then make them visible.
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:Add to your monthly CEO day, put them on a dashboard, track them in a Google Sheet.
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:If you're working with me, like I said, I put them on a dashboard for you.
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:I make it very clear.
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:because it is very clear to yourself.
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:And then I want you to do a mini exercise on this monthly basis, like just a mini exercise
to help you choose these KPIs.
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:Ask yourself this, what do I always wish I knew earlier?
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:So what is something that you wish that you knew before you started?
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:What numbers do I check when I'm spiraling?
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:So when you feel like your business is falling apart, what do you usually look at?
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:And then what would tell me if I'm growing, even if revenue is flat.
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:So even if your revenue is consistent month over a month, what behind the scenes is going
to tell you that you're growing.
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:And that can help you choose maybe what's important for you.
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:If you're maybe just a little bit confused about what to really look at.
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:So I want to just also mention something that a lot of people look at as KPIs, but are a
danger.
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:So this is the danger of vanity metrics.
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:Okay.
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:So
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:Likes, for example, on your social media posts.
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:Likes don't equal sales.
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:If you want to track something that actually matters, track the conversion rate in your
DMs.
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:So maybe you're consistently talking to someone in your DMs and they convert into a
client.
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:That is more important than tracking the likes on your social media posts or the followers
on your social media posts.
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:That is not actually going to show you growth, right?
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:That's going to show you growth on your social media.
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:Sure.
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:And if that's a goal of yours, fantastic.
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:But if your goal is to make more money,
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:having likes on a post isn't going to really show you that.
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:Revenue does not equal profit.
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:So that is also a vanity metric.
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:Looking at just your top line revenue is completely a vanity metric because if you're just
looking at, okay, I made $100,000 last year, great, but what were your expenses and what
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:was your profit?
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:That's what we want to understand.
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:So don't just look at the revenue.
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:And of course we don't want to say that, you know, we're just busy, which it does not
equal successful.
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:So.
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:We want to be looking at these KPIs to understand if the busyness is actually profitable,
if it's actually meaningful.
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:We don't just want like a pretty dashboard filled with numbers that are like, yay, I got
five likes on my post last week.
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:That's fantastic.
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:I'm so happy you did.
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:And I'm so like, I want to celebrate that with you, but I also want you to celebrate the
fact that, you know, your numbers actually make sense and not just that you got more likes
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:on your social media post.
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:Okay.
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:So if you found this episode helpful, as always, please leave a like, a comment, share
this episode on social media, and for other creators to find this podcast so that we can
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:all grow and learn together and really dig into this stuff.
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:If you wanna hear about different topics, maybe you have a specific topic you really,
really wanna hear about, and you're like, Samantha, you haven't touched on this yet,
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:please, can you talk about this topic?
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:Then please send me a...
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:a form, I have a form in the description box below, please fill out that form and send it
my way and I'll definitely start talking about that topic.
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:As always, I wish you the best week ever.
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:I'll see you next week.
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:Farewell, fellow travelers.
