One of the biggest mistakes that entrepreneurs and business leaders make is failure to track key activities and results. You probably struggle with balancing the reality of running your business day to day while building business value. Setting annual targets once a year and not tracking how your organization is performing on a regular basis is a sure sign of trouble.

No tracking = no awareness = no behavior change = NO RESULTS.

Simple metrics to track:

+ Revenue
+ Profitability
+ Revenue per employee
+ Sales per rep against quota

Prominently displaying these metrics within your organization will motivate your teams.

What is the annual revenue target? Divide it by 12 to get your monthly target and then multiply by 4 to get your quarterly target? For example, if you want to gross $1 Million in revenue for 2012 you would set the quarterly target at $250,000 and the monthly target at $83,334. How did you do for Q1? Comparing actual to target is the only way to see how you are doing and course correct if necessary. How are you tracking on expenses? Profitability? Revenue per employee?

In sales it is critical to measure consistent activities and behaviors against your sales process. What is the annual quota of your reps? Divide that by 12 to get your monthly target and then multiply by 4 to get your quarterly target? How did your reps track for Q1?

Track each rep on the following activities:

+ How many meaningful conversations with prospects per day? Per week?  Per  month?
+ How many initial meetings are held per week?  Per month?
+ How many second meetings are held per week? Per month?
+ What is the conversion rate per rep on contracts?  How many are won?  Lost?

Tracking is so simple and it boggles my mind that many business leaders fail to do it. What metrics will you track? Track key metrics and see the difference it makes.

By Judy Sunblade, ITK Solutions Group, LLC