Great ways to measure your business success

If your business efforts provide a substantial monetary reward but you don’t enjoy what you do, can this really be called success?

Well, It depends.. what you expect from your business in advance gives you a way to measure success and to gauge your progress. Not only enjoying what you do will make you successful but also creating value for others. So in addition to being profitable and enjoyable, for you to accurately measure success, you would also need a way to gauge whether or not you are actually creating value for other people.

This week, I’ve conducted a workshop for a team of business professionals and some common issues have emerged through our discussion. I’m sharing what I’ve concluded from the discussion; ways you can use to measure success in your work each day to stay ahead of the challenges:

Profitability
If you find that you’re continually in the red, it’s time to reevaluate your finances. This is where you might consider enlisting the help of a financial specialist to help you get back on a profitable path.

Customer satisfaction
Understanding your customers and being able to satisfy their needs and keeping them satisfied with having strong customer service are crucial to measuring success.

Employee Satisfaction
Developing a work environment that rewards employees for their hard work is imperative in attracting and retaining quality employees. If workers know they are appreciated, they are much more likely to go the extra mile when needed.

Your Satisfaction
Are you satisfied with the direction your business is headed in? Do a reality check and identify the sources of your dissatisfaction, list all of the things you hope to improve, then you will figure out at least one with the potential to increase success.

Competitive Standing
Understanding how your business stands up against competitors is key to staying on top of trends

Customers talking about you
Online forums have made it easier to catch more of the discussion surrounding your business. Checking on your online reputation, reviewing comments and ratings are crucial to measuring the success of your business.

Innovation Efforts
What have you done to improve? How’s your customer service looking? Are you thinking outside of the box in your marketing plan? These are just some of the areas you should consider

Leads Acquired
Take time to qualify the leads you’ve acquired. What can you do to increase them? Generating qualified leads on a consistent basis is a real challenge!

Client Retention
Loyal customers are the best representatives for your business, they are continuously contribute to your success. This is why it’s important to take note of your retention rate when measuring your
success.

Customer Conversion
Understanding your conversion rate is key to understanding how successful your business is in appealing to your target market. To improve your conversion rate, you should consider areas such as you business Website, customer service, storefront appearance, and reputation.

Social Media Presence
Have you been working to build and engage your brand’s social audience? If not, it’s about time to start! effectively managing Social Media is a great way to connect on a more personal level with your customers.

Your learning
Try to put aside the metrics and instead ask yourself how much you’ve learned. What do you know that you didn’t before? What do you still need to find out?

It is about to get a lot out of the experience and learn as much as possible. So no matter what stage your business is in, consider what you’ve learned as a measurement of your success..

Ask yourself these questions, think and try to find the answers:

My offering?

What are the most inquires about your product or service?

How features are getting response, and what is the most and least?

Why are your customers buying? and why others only inquiring but not buying?

How your offering gets recommended to others by your customers?

My customers?

What they are trying to accomplish by using your product or service?

How your actual customers are compared to the expected target?

How do they hear about you and how do they share their information?

What have you learned new about them?

My market?

How has the market changed over the last 6 months?

What are the emerging trends?

How do your product or service stand against competitors?

How can you educate customers about your market?

My experience?

How has your experience of entrepreneurship compared to your expectations?

What are the things you found yourself satisfied in doing and what are the opposite others?