As Christian business owners, we must have key metrics or performance indicators that we are tracking.  If you don’t keep track of your numbers, how will you know if your business is growing and what you can do to take it to the next level?

There are literally thousands of indicators you can track in your business.  Depending on the type of business and your goals, two businesses in the same industry could be tracking totally different numbers.

Here are the broad strokes of some of the most basic metrics and give you a sample of what you may want to track in each area.

 

Financial Metrics

Financial metrics cover where money is flowing, moving and staying.  We already talked about profitability numbers and balance sheets which is a snapshot of your business at a point in time, but there are many things that can be tracked financially.

When you track financials, you should have a strong accounting program that will give you the reports you want.  You can track expenses, salaries, investment income, etc.  Focus on the key metrics that bring growth to your business and line up with your goals.  Those usually fall into sales and marketing.

 

Sales Metrics

Sales metrics track what is ‘going out the door.”  They track whether you are actually selling your product or service.

When you track sales, you may choose to track many different things.  You may track inventory or customer acquisition.  You may want to track how certain sales people are performing so you set goals and track how their performance is moving forward.  You can even track how long customers are staying with your business and define how you can keep them as a customer longer.

 

Marketing Metrics

Marketing metrics track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.  They track how much you spend compared to how many customers respond.  You must understand the return on investment before deciding to buy a coupon in the local sales magazine.

When you track marketing, you should have a way to keep up with different campaigns that you create.  If you are online, you can set up simple tracking codes on each page or use Google Analytics.  If you are offline, you may put codes on coupons, use different numbers for different ads, or you may just have your secretary keep track of where people come from when they call by intelligently asking customer.

 

Conclusion

“What gets tracked gets done.”  It is an old saying that rings true today.  If you want your business to grow, you must track what is growing your business.  Decide what areas you need to focus on and set up simple tracking.  It can be as simple as a spread sheet or just a paper with columns drawn on it.

Tracking takes time and effort to get set up, but it soon becomes a habit and will run on autopilot.  They will help you set goals and understand when you reach those goals in your business.

Tracking is how we identify and amplify growth in our business. Click To Tweet