Explaining the Change to Somebody Who Signs Cheques

Why this needs saying in advance

On the first of July the measurement changes, and the figures reported in August will be lower than the ones reported in June.

Somebody who has been watching a monthly number for three years will read that as a decline.

Explained afterwards, it sounds like an excuse, however true it is.

Explained in June, it is a note about a scheduled change, which is what it actually is.

The four sentences

• The tool changes on the first of July.
• It counts differently, so figures will step down.
• Nothing about the business has changed.
• Comparisons to last year will not work for a year.

That is the whole explanation and it does not need to be longer. Adding detail about session definitions and event models loses the reader and makes it sound like an evasion rather than a fact.

Give the size of the step

Which is what makes it credible.

If you have run both properties, you know roughly what the ratio is, so say it: the new figure runs at about this proportion of the old.

A specific number reads as somebody who has checked, and a vague warning that things will look different reads as somebody hedging.

Where you have not measured it, say you will confirm the figure in July rather than guessing.

Then follow up with it, since the promise is what makes the original note trustworthy.

A worked example

A supplier reported monthly to a business owner who watched one figure closely.

They sent four sentences in early June with the expected ratio and a note that they would confirm it.

In August the figure was down by roughly the amount predicted and the owner had already been told why.

The conversation took thirty seconds rather than being an investigation.

A second business in the same position said nothing, and spent a fortnight in August explaining a fall while the client wondered what had gone wrong.

The difference was entirely one message sent eight weeks earlier.

Change the headline to something unaffected

Which is the better structural answer.

If the report leads with visits, this problem exists; if it leads with enquiries counted from your own inbox, it does not.

Enquiries are counted by you, in your own records, and no tool change affects them.

Moving the headline figure to something you count yourself removes this whole category of explanation permanently.

June is a natural moment to make that change, since you have to explain something anyway.

Do both: explain the step, and change what the report leads with so it does not recur.

Mark it on the chart

A small thing that prevents the question resurfacing.

Wherever the monthly series is shown, put a visible line at the first of July with a two-word label.

Anybody looking at that chart in eighteen months sees the step explained rather than having to ask.

That includes people who were not there for the original conversation, which after a year is most of them.

The same applies to the spreadsheet archive, where a note in the row for July does the same job.

Say what has not changed

Which is reassuring and true.

Enquiries, quotes, jobs won, and revenue are all unaffected.

Search rankings, the site, and everything a customer experiences are unaffected.

What changes is one measurement tool and the numbers it produces.

Listing what is untouched puts the change in proportion far better than describing what is changing.

Expect one specific question

Since it always arrives.

Somebody will ask whether the old figures were wrong.

The answer is no, they were measuring something slightly different, and both were internally consistent.

Have that sentence ready, because the alternative is an unplanned conversation about whether three years of reporting was misleading throughout.

Say the same thing about the new figures, since somebody will eventually ask that too.

Both were measuring something real and neither was measuring the whole of it, which has always been true of any analytics.

Put it in writing rather than saying it

Since the point is that it can be referred back to.

A conversation in June is forgotten by August, and the person who remembers it is you rather than the person who will ask the question.

An email or a note at the top of the June report is retrievable, and it is what turns the August conversation into a reference rather than a defence.

Keep a copy where the reports live rather than only in a sent folder.

That also covers the case where somebody new is looking at the figures by then, which after a year is more likely than not.

The same applies to your own memory

Worth doing even where nobody else reads the numbers.

A business owner looking at a chart in two years will have entirely forgotten why there is a step in the middle of 2023.

Writing the note is as much for yourself as for anybody else, and it takes one line in the archive.

Every business that has been through a change of this kind has at least one unexplained discontinuity in its historical figures.

This is the one chance to avoid adding another.

The counter-case

Some audiences do not need this.

A business owner who has never looked at the figures will not notice the step and does not need a memo about it.

Over-explaining can also draw attention to a number nobody was watching, which creates the scrutiny it was meant to prevent.

And for a business already reporting on enquiries it counts itself, there is nothing at all to explain.

Send four sentences in June with the expected ratio, mark it on the chart, and move the headline to something you count yourself.

Before July

1. Send four sentences this month.
2. Give the expected ratio.
3. Say nothing about the business changed.
4. List what is unaffected.
5. Mark the date on the chart.
6. Move the headline to enquiries.
7. Confirm the actual figure in July.

Step six is the one that pays beyond this month, since a report leading with a number you count yourself is immune to every future change of this kind.

Keeping the reporting continuous is covered in reporting to somebody who liked the old reports.

Frequently asked questions

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