The Tracking EVERY business should be doing consistently.

We see businesses every week at The Marketing Centre that are experiencing challenges of growth.

Some don't understand why or how they are growing and therefore don't know where to spend their energy.

They may not have sufficiently good qualified leads, or if they do, they don't know why they won or lost the business they quoted on.

They often don't have a sufficiently good CRM system, or if they do, they don't use it religiously and consistently. Sometimes the sales team aren't really in the business of sales. They are in the business of quoting.

It goes without saying that most businesses have some financial auditing in place, they have a sales pipeline, may understand revenue streams and gross profit etc. but many of the generic factors in business don't look at the specific areas that directly impact how much money you really make.

All these elements can muddy the waters and make it confusing to analyse the business in a way that helps business owners understand what is making the business grow, plateau or decline.

My top 5 metrics to give you so much better visibility about your business include:

1. Clear and transparent sales processes: mapping the customer journey from enquiry through to sale/no deal...understand WHY those deals fell through or were won, and track the measurements on a monthly basis so that you can understand which factors you can control for better results. Track this over time to see it reducing or improving. Adding a flagging system for regular customers that immediately makes you aware of when their behaviour changes, their orders reduce in amount or frequency or where they stop buying altogether, so that you can manage this quickly and potentially save a long term customer.

2. Marketing ROI: It's not fluffy bunnies or helium balloons and marketing isn't about endless golf days or breakfast events. Or at least, that's not real marketing. Track all your marketing spend and ensure that all activities start with "why are we doing this and what are we SPECIFICALLY expecting to get out of it and how will we track that?" I call this the "so what?" factor. If you can't track it, it may not be worth doing. Make sure all activities are aligned to your overall growth strategy and find a way of tracking your SWOT analysis on a quarterly basis to see Strengths and Opportunities increase and Weaknesses and Threats reduce.

3. The Right Skills. Often businesses plateau or decline because they don't have the right skills in the right places. Don't try and do everything yourself, businesses that grow are those that bring in the brightest and most experienced people to help, even if for a short while. Be it to understand and put financial measures in place, to help sort out contracts and HR, whether its about putting good sales processes in place or someone to drive marketing and lead generation...there are people out there who work in these individual areas as experts and will help you see your business totally differently.

4. Financial Measurement: where is the profit in your business sitting? do you understand where you make money and where you lose money? Do you have key metrics in place to measure service delivery costs, profit by product/service, etc. Know how every cost in the business impacts on your bottom line and where you can make small tweaks that can ultimately really improve your profit margins. Ultimately, more sales don't necessarily equal better business. Rather work smarter, focus on net margins and you may find you make more by winning fewer sales and giving fewer discounts!

5. Track your ability to be focused: Have a process that new ideas and shiny new things have to go through before they distract you and your team from the core business objectives and the strategic direction you have set for that year. Entrepreneurial businesses are easily taken off track by the next best thing to come along but often, those new things will only damage your ability to focus on and move the really important stuff forward. You don't need to ignore them, but having a clearly defined process through which they need to move and be evaluated for feasibility, before everyone changes direction for them, is a way of managing and measuring them first.