Measuring What Matters in Business

Just do your best!

I wish I had a hundred dollars for every time I heard this directive from my parents as a child. It's a lesson that I have carried with me throughout my adulthood and even in business.

Doing our best in business is not always easy to do. There are extenuating circumstances that may prevent you from doing your very best at all times. However, at those times you must carefully examine what needs fixing so that you can get back to the business of excellence.

When it comes to determining how well you are performing at your job or in your business, it's important to have a standard of measurement. You must decide what is considered good, great, and excellent. Additionally, you must know what your customers perceive to be good, great, and excellent as well.

In business, there are a few ways to determine how your products and services measure up as well as how well you are performing overall. The question is, what should you be measuring to determine how well you're doing?

There are a few tried and true ways to determine how well your company is performing in any area.?Here are 3 ways to give your company a report card to see how well you perform.

1. ?Set Goals

?Success is defined by how well we reach our goals. As a business owner, you must determine the ways in which your company will grow and how to forecast future success. Your company should have?clearly defined goals?every year, quarter, month, week, etc.?If you don’t plan for where your company will be in the future, you might not make it there. A business forecast is simply a calculated projection about what you plan to achieve. It’s important to set forecasts about the accomplishments you hope to make, and how you hope to make them.

Some examples of company goals are:

A. Obtaining a greater market share

B. Increasing profit margins

C. Improving Customer Satisfaction

D. Increasing production efficiency

2. Set Key Performance Indicators

The KPIs are standard measurements typically in ratios that provide information about your performance. Key performance indicators can be used for businesses as well as career professionals. Career professionals can measure their decision-making capabilities, job performance, and more. Businesses can have?KPIs that measure net profit, employee turnover,?revenue generated per employee, qualified leads and conversions,?financial statements, and more. These performance indicators help you measure performance against the goals you’ve identified.

There are two main types of KPIs that most companies track and measure. Key performance indicators that target an entire organization’s goals are high KPIs. These indicators measure the company’s success rate overall. KPIs that target smaller projects, such as departmental strategies, are low KPIs.

3. ?Track and Measure

?Figure out what areas of your business need metrics assigned to them. The fact is numbers don’t lie but people do. Therefore, if there is an area of your business that is not functioning at maximum capacity, perhaps there is a way that you can apply a measurement tool to help you determine your input versus output. Research tools that can track and quantify data that will provide you with insights and information for improvement.

?Here are some examples of things you should be measuring in your business.

A. Gross and Net Revenue

B. Cost of Customer Acquisition

C. Leads to Client Conversion Rate

D. Website Traffic

E. Conversions from website visitors into sales

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As you can see, there are very important ways you can measure your performance as a small business owner. This article has just scratched the surface. You can learn more by booking a strategy session to discuss your business goals and needs. Learn more by clicking here.

This article was written by Lori A. Manns, Trailblazing Business Strategist and President of Quality Media Consultant Group.

Original portions of this article are taken from the Blog found at QualityMediaConsultants.com