Mike Andes warns that net customer growth hides churn. A business growing from 100 to 200 customers might have added 150 new ones while losing 50, masking a serious leak. During recessions, attrition spikes while new customer inflow drops, making invisible losses even more dangerous.
Who here could tell me how many recurring MOEs you have? Raise your hand. This is not a trick question. How many people know approximately how many mowing customers you have? Fantastic. I would guess and imagine that less than 10% of the people that raise their hand actually know how many customers they lost. Last year you said, oh no, no, I went from 100 to 200. Great. But actually you got 150 new customers and you lost 50. Your net might have been 100, but you lost 50 of your customers. That might be 20, 30, 40% of your business being lost. Every single here's what's really scary about a recession. Attrition goes up at the exact same time that new customers filling that attrition stop coming in.
