Making Numbers Count
Picture this: You're preparing for a business review, excited to share success stories with your client. You’ve got a slide ready that highlights key metrics: “Our marketing campaign made 24,547 impressions, resulting in 1,718 conversions and generating $42,940 in revenue.”
Those numbers may excite you because you live and breathe this data every day. But for someone outside of your world, they might just hear big numbers—and forget them by the end of the meeting.
That’s where "Making Numbers Count" by Chip Heath and Karla Starr comes in. This book offers practical tips for turning abstract figures into engaging stories that resonate and stick with your audience.
Improve Your Executive Business Reviews with Impactful, Relatable Stories on KPIs
This book is packed with strategies to convert overwhelming numbers into digestible, memorable data points.
Here are two key takeaways I’ve found particularly helpful:
Less is More – Humans naturally grasp numbers better when they're under 10. Think about how we count on our fingers—simple numbers stick.
Know Your Audience – Use relatable comparisons that fit their world. When numbers are presented in a context that resonates with your audience, they’re more likely to understand and remember them.
There’s much more in the book about making data click, like using imagination to visualize large numbers in 3D or linking data to emotional triggers. Below are a couple of examples from the book that demonstrate the power of these methods:
Example 1: Video Game Industry Size
Original: “In 2020, the global video games market reached $180 billion. By comparison, in the movie business, world box office revenues were $42 billion in 2019 (pre-COVID), while world music revenues were $22 billion.”
Revised: “The video game industry is more than 4 times the size of the movie industry, and about 9 times the size of the music industry.”
Example 2: The Wealth Gap
Original: “The wealthiest 1% of Americans own 31% of the wealth in the country. The top 10% own around 70%. And the bottom half own just 2%”
Revised: “Imagine an apartment building with 10 units on each floor and 100 in total. The richest persons own 31 apartments. Together the 10 wealthiest people in the building own 70 of the apartments. The poorest person shares ownership with everyone who is worth less than $100,000. If that’s you , then you and 49 others would share 2 apartments.”
Now, let’s apply this to real-life data from Google’s Merch store.
August Summer Sale
Google Merch Traffic Acquisition Report
The report shows that the August sale email campaign generated 3,939 sessions from Aug 1st to Sept 19, converting 135 of those into purchases—a 3.4% conversion rate.
To make this more relatable, imagine you’re presenting this to a client who’s a big music festival fan. Instead of just sharing raw numbers, you could say:
”Our August sale email campaign was a resounding success, bringing in nearly 4,000 recipients and converting a remarkable 3.4% of them. That's like attracting a Bonnaroo-sized crowd and seeing 1 in 30 attendees make a purchase – a truly impressive feat!”
If you’re a fellow Customer Success Manager, I highly recommend "Making Numbers Count." It’s full of tools that will help you turn abstract metrics into compelling stories—perfect for driving home the ROI in your next executive business review.
Get your copy here: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Making-Numbers-Count/Chip-Heath/