Financial information tends to bore most people except for accountants, accountants, and accountants. Even though the thought of looking through and analyzing numbers may scare you, there are some metrics that drive your financial results and should be measured carefully. They are usually more exciting to keep track of because they can also help predict your results. Here are some examples:
Customer Metrics
Volume: Examples of customer metrics can include: the number of patients, clients, or customers seen/visits per day, week, or month. An increase in this number will increase your sales, however, there may be a delay in actual cash received.
Sales per customer: Are your customers purchasing more or less from you? An easy way to increase sales is to increase the amount of sales to each customer.
Multiple Location Metrics
Same store sales or sales by location: If you have multiple locations, you must keep track of your sales by location. Ideally, you want to keep financials by location, but sales per location is a good starting point. You should compare the sales versus the same period last year and also with other locations.
Net profit by location: It’s great if your sales are doing well in one location, but if the profitability is poor, then you need to know this to make improvements or to shut down that location. Time and resources need to be spent at locations that will achieve the highest return.
Sales or Billings per Employee or by Employee
Sales results: Which employees are performing well, and which are not? What if you operate a real estate office and do not know which agents are your top performers and which are not performing?
Billings: For non-sales positions, especially professional services firms, a crucial number is billings per employee. A low amount may mean that you are over staffed or have inefficient operations. It is also critical to know billings per individual employee.
Leads & Sales Generation
# of leads: Are you receiving more inquiries or less inquiries compared to last month or last year at this time? An increase in leads should result in an increase of sales, but this is just the starting point.
Appointments scheduled: What is the percentage of inquiries that set appointments? You need to make sure that you are able to schedule appointments from your leads.
Appointments closed: A high closing ratio is the ultimate goal and a sign of sales productivity.
Customer acquisition cost: Ideally, you want to obtain customers at the lowest cost possible with the least amount of effort. The longer you retain a customer then the more you can spend trying to acquire them, but if you spend too much money on obtaining one-time customers then your profitability will suffer greatly.
The Metrics are Endless
There is an endless amount of metrics, and each industry has their own set of metrics that are measured, but sometimes metrics can be borrowed from outside your industry to make your own business more profitable. Review your situation to see which metrics will have the most impact to keep your success moving forward.
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