Are You Flying by the Numbers?

Phil's Toolbox · By Phil DiBlasi · Oct 13, 2026

Before an airplane leaves the ground, the destination is known. The aircraft has been inspected, fueled for the trip, and a flight plan is in place.

Once airborne, though, pilots don't simply point the plane toward the destination and hope they arrive. They watch the instruments. Weather, winds and conditions change, and the original route may need adjusting. The destination hasn't changed, but the way you get there might.

Running a business isn't much different.

Know Your Destination

Every business should know where it's trying to go. Maybe the goal is revenue growth, higher profitability, better customer retention, improved employee satisfaction, a safer workplace, or some combination of these.

But a destination is only the beginning. You need gauges that tell you whether the business is actually moving in the right direction. Those gauges are your KPIs: key performance indicators.

The Gauges I Watched at the Shop

During my 35 years running a Meineke Car Care Center, I watched a handful of numbers closely. They weren't complicated, but together they gave me a clear picture of the health of the business:

• Car count: How many customers were coming through the door?

• ARO (average repair order): How much was the average customer spending?

• Margin: Were those sales producing the gross profit we needed?

• Customer retention: Were customers coming back?

• Employee productivity: Were we efficiently turning available labor hours into completed work?

No Single Gauge Tells the Whole Story

Car count could rise while ARO fell, meaning we were attracting more customers but doing less work for each one. Sales could climb while margins slipped, making the top line look good while profitability moved in the wrong direction. A full parking lot could hide poor employee productivity. And strong sales today could mask declining customer retention that was quietly creating a problem for the future.

The numbers also need context. A higher ARO looks good by itself, but if retention is falling at the same time, you need to understand why. Higher productivity is valuable, but not at the expense of quality, safety or customer satisfaction.

That's why KPIs are like the instruments in an airplane. You don't fly by watching one gauge. You read them together.

Check the Instruments Often

You have to review the numbers frequently enough to do something about them. If car count dropped noticeably in February, I didn't want to discover in October that it had been declining for eight months. I wanted to know in February and start asking questions:

• Is it seasonality?

• Has customer retention slipped?

• Has something changed with our marketing?

• Are we answering the phones properly?

• Are customers getting appointments when they want them?

• Has a competitor changed something?

The Gauge Shows Where to Look, Not Why

A KPI identifies where to look. It doesn't necessarily tell you why the problem exists.

That's where management comes in. You investigate, adjust the process, and keep watching the gauge to see whether the adjustment worked. If it did, great. If it didn't, you make another correction.

Not every movement in a KPI is a crisis, either. Numbers naturally shift from week to week and month to month. The goal isn't to panic every time a gauge moves. It's to understand what normal looks like for your business and recognize when a change becomes a trend that deserves attention.

Focus on the Few That Matter

If you try to track 50 numbers, you can easily lose sight of the five or ten that actually drive the business. Your key KPIs should connect to the things that produce revenue, growth, profitability, safety, employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction.

At the end of the year, financial statements tell you where you ended up. KPIs help you manage the journey while you still have time to change the outcome.

Course Corrections Aren't Failures

A pilot may fly around a storm, change altitude or alter course. Those aren't failures. They're adjustments made using the information available at the time, and the destination stays the same.

Business owners should think the same way.

Phil's Toolbox Takeaway

• Set the destination.

• Decide which gauges tell you whether you're on course.

• Check them often.

• When something starts moving in the wrong direction, find out why and adjust the process.

Make small course corrections before you find yourself miles off course. The destination remains the same. The course can change.

Today was good. Tomorrow will be better.