Turn business into a game
by Kelly Schwedland
Information systems are required to make your business run effectively.
While looking at your systems strategy it would not be complete without the numbers. The information system is the natural out growth of having a predictable business. These are the numbers related to the results. If every aspect of your business has been created and documented and orchestrated to the level that you know it works, the only way you can know it works is by having the measure of its success or the numbers.
Having the numbers or the information systems in place in your business means you know every critical item that should be measured and that you measure it. To some of you this may seem far fetched but pay close attention to this next example and think about how you can make it work for your business.
Let’s say you have a business that sells something to someone. You have developed a strategy to identify likely prospects, call them, Meet with them, analyze there needs, and develop a recommendation for a solution. Pretty typical business transaction. Since at this time we have created a process for doing each of these items, The next part is tracking the results along the way.
So as the business owner you want to know:
- How many prospects were contacted?
- How many did you make appoints with?
- Out of those appointments how many needs analyses did you do?
- Out of those analyses how many solution presentations were you able to offer?
- Out of those solutions how many became customers?
Then you track this day to day and week to week and month to month. You know what type of trend begins to appear. You see which process works and which one doesn’t. You now know exactly how you get your customers. So you then know how to get more customers. Armed with this information you can make your business any size you want, because you know what works!
A game
Your business has now become a game. A game which is fun to play. With this information you can predictably change the process and see the result. If it is better, then that becomes the way we do it, if not, change it back. But, you make every decision with absolute surety that you know how it will impact the final outcome, because it has been tested against a known result.
The most difficult part of this is actually doing it. It is very simple to keep track of where the leads come from and how they are handled. The responsibility, however, is yours and yours alone to see to it that that it happens. To see to it that the numbers are tracked and that you look at them to determine where to make changes. You no longer say “well I’m pretty sure that that advertising works” or “I think that this is the best way to get orders.” You know what works and you can prove it.
No longer are you one of the hundreds of business owners that has told me that the sales depend on him or that he has no idea how to get more customers. Because now you know!
Your system solution is now complete with an understanding of the numbers. You now have a business that works, that can be replicated and measured. Now you can free yourself from your business.
Kelly Schwedland is president of American Business Dynamics, a small business consulting firm focused on issues related to growing companies.