When I first started ADS back in 2001, I did so with no formal business training, and no business plan. I was a man on a mission. After being told to “slow down” by my current employer and spend more time at each client, I decided (at the ripe age of 22) that I could do better. I believed that I could offer a superior service to my clients, and in so doing, make a living for myself. My girlfriend at the time (now my wife) fully supported me, as her family have always had their own businesses.
And so I went.
ADS has come a long way since then, and I’ve learned a lot. One of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned both from experience and from my MBA training, is that you need to be able to measure pretty much everything you do. And that means you need the systems in place to capture and then report on what’s going on.
Have you ever seen those Quickbooks commercials where the lady says, “Where are our financials? Right up there.” while pointing to her husband’s head? That’s reality for a lot of small business owners. Frighteningly, that’s the case with a lot of businesses.
Don’t let that happen to you.
At a minimum, get software in place that will help you to measure your income and expenses. After that, you’ll want to track things like the conversion rates of all of your advertising effort, and the costs of any internal development projects that you undertake. After that it gets deeper when you look at things such as cost of sales, productivity, and more.
Whatever you determine your major metrics to be, make sure that you have software in place that will allow you to view those metrics real-time, or close to real time. Having actionable information at your fingertips can make or break your business.
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