Results versus Performance: Is Your Car Missing a Dashboard?

by Shawn Karol Sandy

If you’re a Business Owner or a Sales Rep, it seems logical to think that the only performance metric that matters is the end result.

Did you meet your numbers? Or did you fall short?

You got in the car and drove and either made it to your destination or didn’t.

The final number is really the indicator of results but not always reflective of performance. You may make it to your destination but you’ve been leaking oil, running hot or driving the whole way in 2^nd gear.

You made it to the destination, but you can’t do it again.

Just Like Your Car, Your Business Needs a Dashboard

Your dashboard gives you insight into the Key Performance Indicators such as:

Speedometer (Funnel Stages)
Fuel Gage (Pipeline Health)
Miles per Gallon (Customer Acquisition Costs)
RPM’s (Leads to Conversion Tracking)
Engine Signs i.e. Running Hot, Need Oil (Sales Process and Performance)

Sales can be compared to racing—taking the product/business as the vehicle and racing to win— but the best race car drivers are keenly in tune with their vehicle and are able to make adjustments every lap. They use the knowledge from their Key Performance Indicators to fine-tune their strategy to improve their results.

Leverage a CRM to get insights and visibility

There are hundreds of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Tools with dashboards to give you insight into your business and sales performance (HubSpot, Salesforce, Sugar CRM, Zoho, OnePage, et cetera}. You can purchase an individual license for as little as $15/month or use an Open Source like Sugar CRM and have a Web Developer customize so it integrates with your other business applications. There really is no reason for not having a measurement and tracking tool for your business.

Every sales and marketing guru has their pick of which one is the best but they would all agree on two things:

You must invest in a CRM that works for your business and
Then actually use it. If you don’t put the data into it, you can’t measure output and you’re just guessing at what needs to be improved or changed

Start Today: Embrace and Utilize Your CRM

Sales people can grumble all they want (and many do when a CRM or measurement tool is first introduced) but those who utilize these tools have better results and can be better, more consistent performers.

In the meantime, build the habit of tracking, measuring, and optimizing performance by tracking data in our free dashboard!