Your customer gap

A goal you cannot count is a wish

Once you know your four metrics you can do something most businesses never do: convert a revenue goal into the exact number of customers required to hit it. Expressing today's revenue and your goal in customers reveals your customer gap, and once you can see the gap, you can build a plan to close it and measure progress against it.

Find your gap in six steps

1. Set your monthly revenue goal. An average month is fine.
2. Find revenue per customer per month. Spend per visit × visits per month.
3. Find your customer goal. Revenue goal ÷ revenue per customer per month.
4. Account for defection. If customers last 10 months, you lose 1 in 10 every month. Customer goal × defection rate = replacements needed each month just to stay level.
5. Find your revenue gap. Goal minus current average monthly revenue.
6. Convert the gap to customers. Revenue gap ÷ revenue per customer per month.

Revive Lemonade's gap

Revive wants $30,000 a month. Each customer is worth $24 a month, so it needs 1,250 active customers. Customers last about 10 months, so 10% leave every month, which means 125 new customers every month just to stand still.

That gives you two numbers that change how you plan: the one-time gap to reach the goal, and the ongoing treadmill to hold it. Together they are the true size of the acquisition job.

A reality check before you spend

Turning the goal into customers lets you sanity-check the goal itself. Is serving 1,250 customers, and replacing 125 every month, even possible in your market, with your traffic, at your price? Sometimes the customer view reveals a target is a fantasy before you have spent a dollar chasing it. It is far cheaper to discover that on a spreadsheet than in the market.