Small business metrics that really matter
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 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
Although sales and marketing are two distinct disciplines, in most small businesses they are often considered together. Even if you treat your marketing HR Directors Email Lists 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.
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 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.
All the leads in the world don’t mean a thing if you can’t close the sale
That’s why the marketing function and the sales function need to work so closely together. How many of those leads turn into sales. There are two ways to look at sales both are very important.
I know of a dry cleaner that sent regular marketing CRB directory messages to their current customers offering them a discount on things like cleaning their sweaters and winter coats, the shirt laundry, and other services they provided. They counted how many of them acted on the special offers (that were only available to current customers) so they had insight into how many of those leads became sales. The result? This effort made good customers great customers.