Last month, I asked each of you to schedule time with whoever creates your financial reports and critically review your business results for the prior month. I know that some of you accepted that challenge. For those of you who invested the time, I’ve heard that you learned a few things to make your business more successful. Congratulations! That is a great “once per month” activity.
But a month can be a long time in a business, especially one that is struggling. In some businesses I’ve worked with (especially the more successful ones) they had weekly operating statistics. Sometimes these were called “Key Business Drivers”, “Flash Reports”, “Monday Morning Reports”, etc. While the names varied, the key to all of them was the same. They all provided insight into the results of the prior week. The statistics varied (appropriately so) depending upon the kind of business. But let me give you a sense for the kinds of things companies can (and some do) know at the beginning of every week (and sometimes even more frequently).
• Sales
• Traffic (people coming into a retail store location)
• Conversion (percent of potential customers that purchase)
• Product mix (premium versus base product)
• Number of customers served
• Customer complaint calls (or compliments)
• Shipments (units, dollar value, on time, late)
• Average sales per customer or transaction
• Calls or appointments made by the sales team
• Proposals submitted to customers (and their dollar value)
• Win or close ratio for sales people
• Orders
• Customer satisfaction results
• Advertising spend
• In bound calls or web clicks in response to advertising or promotion
• Estimated gross margin dollars or percent
• Cash collected
• Change in receivables
• Employee absenteeism or hours worked or billed (for professional services)
• Factory or production output
• Efficiency measures
I could go on, but I hope you get the point. If you think about your business, I’m sure that a few of these statistics would be meaningful to you and that there are others you could add in order to have a handle on the pulse of your business. Start with a few and build from there.
How’d your business do last week?
If you need help with your business, financial plans, or goal setting, please give me a call at (314) 863-6637 or send an email to And, remember . . . Your Cash Is Flowing. Know Where.
Copyright @ 2006 Homza Consulting, Inc.