The North Star Metric Worksheet Template

List every metric your business tracks right now. Include dashboards, weekly reports, and anything you check manually.

Metric 1: [e.g. website sessions]
Metric 2: [e.g. social media followers]
Metric 3: [e.g. email open rate]
Metric 4: [e.g. leads from contact form]
Metric 5: [e.g. monthly revenue]
Metric 6: [e.g. number of proposals sent]
Metric 7: [e.g. cost per click on ads]
Metric 8: [e.g. social media reach]
Metric 9: [e.g. number of discovery calls booked]
Metric 10: [e.g. average deal size]
Metric 11: [add your own]
Metric 12: [add your own]

Total metrics tracked: [___]

For each metric above, answer this question: "If this number went up by 50% next month, would revenue go up too?"

Write Y (yes, likely) or N (not directly) next to each one.

Metric 1: [___] Y / N
Metric 2: [___] Y / N
Metric 3: [___] Y / N
Metric 4: [___] Y / N
Metric 5: [___] Y / N
Metric 6: [___] Y / N
Metric 7: [___] Y / N
Metric 8: [___] Y / N
Metric 9: [___] Y / N
Metric 10: [___] Y / N
Metric 11: [___] Y / N
Metric 12: [___] Y / N

Metrics marked N are vanity metrics. Cross them off your weekly reporting. You are not ignoring them forever. You are removing them from the decision loop.

Metrics marked Y move to Section 2.

Fill in the blanks with what actually happens in your business, not what should happen.

A potential customer first encounters us when: [e.g. they find a blog post / see an ad / get a referral from a client]

The action they take that signals real interest is: [e.g. they book a discovery call / they download a resource / they reply to an email]

The step between that signal and a paying customer is: [e.g. a proposal / a sales call / a checkout page]

A customer buys when: [describe the trigger, e.g. they see the proposal and the problem feels urgent enough]

The average time from first contact to first payment is: [___ days or weeks]

The average number of touchpoints before someone buys is: [___]

The one step that most often breaks down or slows down is: [be specific, e.g. proposals go out but calls do not get booked, or calls happen but proposals stall]

If we fixed that one step, our revenue would: [estimate, e.g. increase by roughly 20% because we currently lose X% of prospects there]

From your Y-marked metrics in Section 1, sort them into two columns.

LEADING METRICS (these happen before revenue, and if they move, revenue follows weeks or months later):
[Metric: ___]
[Metric: ___]
[Metric: ___]

LAGGING METRICS (these confirm revenue has happened, but by the time they move, it is too late to change course):
[Metric: ___]
[Metric: ___]
[Metric: ___]

Your North Star will come from the leading column. Lagging metrics go into your monthly review. They are not your steering wheel.

Pick your top candidates from the leading metrics list. Run each one through the four questions below. Score 1 point for each yes.

CANDIDATE METRIC A: [___]
1. Does this metric move before revenue moves? (yes = 1 point) [___]
2. Can the team influence this metric directly with their actions this week? (yes = 1 point) [___]
3. Is this metric specific enough that everyone on the team agrees on how to count it? (yes = 1 point) [___]
4. When this metric improves, do customers get more value from what you sell? (yes = 1 point) [___]
Total score for A: [___ / 4]

CANDIDATE METRIC B: [___]
1. Does this metric move before revenue moves? [___]
2. Can the team influence this metric directly with their actions this week? [___]
3. Is this metric specific enough that everyone on the team agrees on how to count it? [___]
4. When this metric improves, do customers get more value from what you sell? [___]
Total score for B: [___ / 4]

CANDIDATE METRIC C: [___]
1. Does this metric move before revenue moves? [___]
2. Can the team influence this metric directly with their actions this week? [___]
3. Is this metric specific enough that everyone on the team agrees on how to count it? [___]
4. When this metric improves, do customers get more value from what you sell? [___]
Total score for C: [___ / 4]

The metric with the highest score is your North Star candidate. If two score equally, go with the one that is harder for a competitor to fake or copy.

My North Star Metric candidate is: [___]

Ask yourself: could someone on my team make this number go up in a way that does not actually help the business?

My North Star candidate is: [___]

Ways someone could inflate this number artificially (be creative and honest here):
Method 1: [e.g. sending cold invites to get discovery calls with unqualified leads]
Method 2: [e.g. discounting heavily to accelerate sign-ups without improving product fit]
Method 3: [e.g. ___]

If the answer is yes, this metric can be gamed, I need to add a qualifier.

The qualifier that makes it honest is: [e.g. "qualified discovery calls booked" instead of just "discovery calls booked"; or "clients who renew after 90 days" instead of just "clients signed"]

My revised North Star Metric is: [___]

Not all customers are equal. Your North Star should measure the behaviour of your best customers, not an average across all of them.

Describe your best customer (the type who buys, gets results, and comes back or refers):
[e.g. service business owner, 5 to 20 employees, spending more than £2,000 per month with us, typically comes via referral]

Does my North Star Metric track behaviour in this segment specifically, or does it measure everyone?
[Circle one: SPECIFIC SEGMENT / EVERYONE]

If it measures everyone, how can I filter it to the right segment?
[e.g. track qualified discovery calls from service businesses only, not every inbound enquiry]

Final North Star Metric, segment-specific: [___]

How it is counted: [write the exact definition so there is no ambiguity, e.g. "a discovery call counts when it is booked with a service business owner, lasts at least 20 minutes, and the prospect has confirmed a budget above £X"]

My North Star Metric is: [___]

Current baseline (what is this number right now, averaged over the last four weeks): [___]

What this number needs to be for my revenue target to be hit:
  My 90-day revenue target: [£/$ ___]
  Average revenue per conversion: [£/$ ___]
  Number of conversions needed: [___]
  Working backwards, my North Star Metric needs to be: [___] per week or per month

The gap between baseline and target: [___]

Is this gap realistic in 90 days? (be honest)
  If yes, what is the primary action that will close it? [___]
  If no, which of these is true:
    [ ] My revenue target is too aggressive for 90 days. Revised target: [£/$ ___]
    [ ] My conversion rate from North Star to revenue is too low. The conversion rate I need to fix first is: [___]
    [ ] My North Star Metric needs to be broken into a sub-metric for the next 90 days. Sub-metric: [___]

Confirmed 90-day North Star target: [___] by [date: ___]

To make this stick, it needs to live in your weekly routine.

Who is responsible for tracking this number each week? [name or role: ___]

Where is it recorded? [e.g. a shared Google Sheet, a dashboard, a Slack channel: ___]

What day and time does the team review it? [e.g. Monday morning stand-up at 9am: ___]

What is the threshold that triggers a response? [e.g. if the number drops below X for two consecutive weeks, we review the lead source and adjust: ___]

What does the team do when the number is on track? [e.g. identify what drove it and do more of that: ___]

What does the team do when the number is off track? [e.g. run a one-hour root cause session and present three options by Friday: ___]

NORTH STAR METRIC (reviewed weekly by everyone)
Metric: [___]
Target: [___]
Owner: [___]

SUPPORTING METRICS (reviewed weekly by the relevant team member, escalated only if off track)
These are the two or three metrics that directly feed into your North Star. If they move, your North Star moves.
Supporting Metric 1: [___] Owner: [___]
Supporting Metric 2: [___] Owner: [___]
Supporting Metric 3: [___] Owner: [___]

HEALTH METRICS (reviewed monthly, not in the weekly conversation)
These confirm the business is not breaking while you chase growth. They do not drive decisions unless they go red.
Health Metric 1: [e.g. gross margin] Target floor: [___]
Health Metric 2: [e.g. customer churn rate] Target ceiling: [___]
Health Metric 3: [e.g. cash runway] Target floor: [___]

RETIRED METRICS (stop tracking, stop reporting)
These are the vanity metrics from Section 1 that did not survive the filter. Write them down so you remember you made a deliberate choice to stop.
Retired Metric 1: [___] Reason: [e.g. has never correlated with revenue in our data]
Retired Metric 2: [___] Reason: [___]
Retired Metric 3: [___] Reason: [___]
Retired Metric 4: [___] Reason: [___]

From today, I will report on [total number of metrics in my stack: ___] metrics. Everything else is noise.