Having spent some time at the helm of a small business, I’ve learned that there are three important things seamlessly happening within any successful small business: sales and marketing, operations, and accounting. When all three of those functions are running on all cylinders, the result is a thriving, healthy business. With that in mind, the things you measure the business metrics  should give you insight into how the business is performing in all four areas.

Although there are a lot of things you can measure

And most of them will provide insight into how you’re doing, I think of those business metrics the same way I do the color commentary in a baseball game. I really  IT Directors Managers Email Lists loved listening to vin scully call a baseball game. But even though scully’s famous knowledge of baseball and awesome story telling ability added a lot to the game, it was the hits, runs and points on the scoreboard that told the real story of whether or not it was a win.

In a small business, like a baseball game, there is a lot of information to understand and absorb, but there are a handful of metrics that are worth their weight in gold.

This is information you can’t afford to ignore if you want to build a successful business.

Although sales and marketing are two distinct disciplines

In most small businesses they are often considered together. Even if you treat your marketing and sales efforts separately, this will still apply to your business.

Marketing includes all the things you do to get new and repeat customers into your business so you can ultimately make a sale.

What are the business metrics?
Leads
It doesn’t matter if you call them leads, prospects, or something else — it all starts with getting customers into the door. And it starts with marketing.

Without a doubt, you should be keeping track of how many people express interest in your product or service.

This could be the number of people who visit your CRB directory website and request information, visit your store, or call you to ask questions over the phone. Although we hope every lead becomes a sale, that might not be a realistic expectation, but you should be regularly looking at how to convert more of those leads (or potential sales) into actual sales.

Counting them and keeping track of how many there are from month to month and year to year will help you measure how you’re doing.