If you are like many sellers and sales leaders, you are inundated with metrics. It can feel like the preverbal flavor of the month. New product, new focus, new quarterly expectation. All measured and inserted on a new dashboard, excel file, or even worse manually tracked. It can leave the end user feeling like an IKEA furniture assembly without instructions. All businesses need to measure, but the question is how do you migrate from a library of metrics to a curated few that will drive growth?
Step 1 Curate!
If you are measuring everything than you are measuring nothing. Focus down to 3-5 core metrics that will lead to growth. Review your library of metrics with an eye to what really matters and will drive better performance. Take the time to isolate the meaningful measures. Select 3-5 measures you believe will help everyone focus on growth.
Step 2 Get feedback!
Take those 3-5 curated metrics to your top sellers, sales managers, and business leaders. Ask for their feedback and if these metrics you are focusing on will indeed drive growth. If people want to add, then ask them what they would subtract. Don’t look for consensus, look for agreement and settle in on 3-5.
Step 3 Make them visible!
Congrats you have done the hard work on curation. Now put them on a scoreboard for everyone to see. Think about your experience in any sport with a scoreboard. Not every stat is on there. It is curated down nicely with key metrics to help you understand the situation of the game. All teams, fans, players, and coaches can look to that scoreboard as the ultimate results and in game situation to help them play, coach or cheer.
Step 4 Discuss in every conversation at all levels!
The sure-fire way to showcase they curated metrics importance is to use them in everyone conversation. When a business leader talks to a salesperson have them ask how they are doing in those metrics. Leadership needs to discuss the performance of the business using the curated metrics. Show the organization that these metrics matter.
Step 5 Resist the temptation to add or change!
Decide on timeline for use before adding, changing, or altering. Unless you have completely got it wrong, don’t change. Your organization needs to see the curation, adoption, display, and discussion happening this these metrics over time. If the flavor of the month stigma exist, you will have to prove to your organization this is different and the only way to do so is to stick to it.
This is hard, but worth it when done correctly. Need help with this or any other critical element of the growth ecosystem I would love to help.
