We are shifting our business from a project-based transactional model to a recurring subscription model. How do we adjust our weekly scorecard metrics during this transition?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Transitioning your business model requires a complete overhaul of your weekly scorecard. Project-based metrics, like milestone completions and project margin, will no longer give you an accurate pulse of your business. If you keep tracking the old numbers, you will miss the early warning signs of subscription failure. For a recurring revenue model, you must shift your focus to customer health and retention indicators. Instead of tracking one-off contract signings, track weekly recurring revenue additions and your customer churn rate. More importantly, track the leading indicators of churn. This includes metrics like weekly active user rates, customer onboarding milestone completion times, or the number of support tickets opened within the first thirty days of onboarding. On the sales side, your leading indicators must change from total deal value to pipeline velocity and customer acquisition cost payback periods. You need to know how quickly leads are moving through your sales funnel and whether your marketing spend is generating profitable recurring clients. During the transition phase, run both sets of metrics side-by-side for a few weeks, but set a hard date to retire the project-based numbers. This prevents your team from clinging to old habits and ensures everyone is aligned around the new recurring revenue engine.