KPIs help you hit your goals for the season

Focusing on KPIs is akin to a sports training regimen, as both are designed to exceed goals and optimize performance. Getty Images: jamesteohart/iStock / Getty Images Plus

Spring arrives March 20. Bugs will be crawling, and your phones will be ringing! We have sales to gain, services to deliver, and goals to achieve. Are you ready?

Hitting growth goals takes planning and intention. The first step to prepping for the busy season is getting into the right mindset.

Think of business as a game

Your business is the game you play. As you play, you keep score to know who’s winning and who’s losing. Your opponent is your business goals.

Your scorecard is your monthly income statement, also called a profit and loss (P&L) statement. It doesn’t give you real-time scores, but it does recap the month. You can use it to determine whether you’re winning or losing.

Your P&L statement should detail factors such as:

• Sales.
• Performed services.
• Calls for new services.
• Collection of invoiced money.

P&L + KPI = trackable progress

Measuring progress is vital to hitting growth goals. Your P&L statement is a powerful tool when combined with your defined key performance indicators (KPIs). Defining KPIs by position is necessary to be intentional in achieving your growth goals. Once established, the key to getting results is holding your team accountable for what is expected.

Once the KPIs you want to track are established (see ”The Game Plan,” at right), they must be explained to your team members, along with the instructions for tracking them. Updating and reviewing these daily is important: Without daily updates, accountability gets harder, and making changes to fix poor performance becomes problematic.

You can track KPIs per person in several ways, including:

• White boards. Be sure to put these where everyone can see them.
• Dashboards and spreadsheets. Email the spreadsheet to leadership and team members daily. You also can post these spreadsheets via TV monitors in your office.
• Electronic device apps. An app focusing on your company’s KPIs offers easy access for employees to see on their smartphones or tablets how they perform against their teammates. Check out this free video where I demonstrate my own app, available for purchase: YouTube.com/watch?v=Zx3X899tc5M.

The Game Plan

Tracking one to three KPIs per position is best, especially when first starting. When deciding what to track, pick things that are measurable, easy to track and improve an area of business. They also should help you hold team members accountable.

For example:

• Service roles: Production; number of stops, callbacks or service requests; cancelations; number of days worked per month; return per hour per employee.
• Sales roles: Sales per person per day; recurring revenue sold vs. one-time services; number of leads; closing rate; number of proposals, quotes, and services sold per employee.
• Office roles: Number of calls answered; outbound calls made; total calls; collections; accounts receivable; production per day via technician scheduling per employee.
• Managerial roles: Their job is to hold their team members accountable to their goals. When their team achieves, they achieve.