Measurement – A Reminder from Bill Gates | Small business news; tips; networking

Posted by IanDSmith under Management
From http://www.portfoliopartnership.com 4308 days ago
Made Hot by: Big Business Boogaloo on February 2, 2013 8:30 pm

Bill Gates has moved on to a new chapter in his life. Using his wealth and influence he is attacking some of the greatest problems on the planet. His latest letter to followers of his foundation highlights the need for measurement to ensure success. Inspired by Bill, this article reminds us why business needs measurement to achieve its full potential.

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Comments

Written by keepupweb
4301 days ago

Hi Heather,

This is an important reminder for all small business owners and bloggers as well. We need to remember that unless we're blogging for fun, we really need to think of our websites as business tools and we need to consistently be tracking what we do and the results we're achieving. The only way we can succeed is to be constantly making improvements. We need to know what's working and what's not working and then act accordingly.

Thanks for the link. I'm always talking about the importance of tracking. So that article is good content to share.

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Written by HeatherStone
4301 days ago

Completely agree, Sherryl. Paying attention to the data you collect, on both what works and what doesn't, is the real key to long term success.

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Written by IanDSmith
4301 days ago

Many thanks

Look out for some more measurement related posts this week related to Scaling businesses.

Best

Ian

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Written by IanDSmith
4307 days ago

Heather I think small biz owners are often put off by the jargon, the overhead, the time needed to create their own little dashboard. But it really can be kept simple. For example simple measurement of traffic to web sites, or sales or renewals of contracts say compared with the same period last year. This may answer something as simple as - am I growing and where? The key seems to me to curate. To choose say 5 key metrics you can measure weekly that are easy to measure and that actually trap progress. But it must be progress towards a goal.

One quick tip on graphs is the Trailing 12 graph. Every month plot on a graph the previous 12 months sales. If the graph is rising you are growing. If not..... This takes seasonality out.

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Written by HeatherStone
4308 days ago

Hi Ian,

Agreed. Without measurement, metrics, there is no repeatability, sustainability, or opportunity for forecasting and making course corrections. The thing is, small business people...on the smallest level, have a hard time thinking in terms of KPI's. What they need is a software solution of some kind to walk them through determining what their metrics should be and that will help them keep record. And, though these solutions exist, I think a lot of very small business owners just don't have or think they don't have the money to invest in these kind of metrics. But without some tracking software, CRM, whatever, any kind of old school metrics is time consuming to gather. So what's the solution for the very small business owner, especially a brick and mortar or non tech savvy small business owner...or someone bootstrapping? I know there's open source stuff around, but there's a learning curve. Hmm...

Anyway, great post!

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