I'm growing ruthless in my determination to focus. Not just personally—though it applies to how I spend my time, my values, my relationships—but especially in business.

At the very beginning of who you are and what you're doing as a business, the question must be: What is the most important thing you could be doing with your time, your team, your talents?

I'm finding there's simply not enough time in the day, the week, or life on this earth to focus on anything else that doesn't move the needle toward your objective.

This starts with messaging and branding. If somebody lands on your website, do they understand in two seconds who you are and what you're about? The colors, the typography, the photography, that headline at the very top—do they convey what it's like to be on a call with you, to partner with you, to work with you?

I don't think we've done this well enough at Snapmarket—not for clients, not for ourselves. I want to be laser focused on the kind of people we want to work with, the kind of work we want to do, and who we want to present ourselves to be. That requires eliminating everything that doesn't communicate that as clearly and early as possible.

From messaging down to project management: What do we need to work on this week? What is the most important objective for our clients, for ourselves? What should every single hour be focused on?

Last year, a mentor who had run a much larger agency than ours told us: "The God metric for you, the North Star, the most important KPI is capacity utilization." As a professional services business, that's true. I didn't take it seriously enough.

Now I'm realizing: this is the question we should be asking every client. What is the most important number for your business—the metric that if you focus on it, everything else takes care of itself?

I saw a commercial with Kristen Bell where she said, "If you watch the pennies, the dollars take care of themselves." I love that line. It captures this idea of the God metric, the North Star, the utter ruthless focus.

What are the pennies in your business? What's the most important thing you could focus on such that everything else will take care of itself if you achieve that?

I'll be honest: there are lots of implications I'm still working through. What do you do when something unexpected happens? What about margin? What about being generous and going above and beyond? You can't cut everything out.

But I believe the path of focus and clarity is more important than those questions. I can work out the details. What I can't afford is continuing without ruthless focus.

Here's what I know: To say "I'm going to focus on this objective or this audience to the exclusion of everything else"—that's really risky. It takes courage. It requires knowing who you are and what you're about as a business or as a person.

But I'm doubling down. There is no alternative at this point.

What's your God metric? What's the one number that, if you focused on it relentlessly, would make everything else take care of itself?