I want to let you in on a business coaching secret - simple scorecards not only give you meaningful feedback, but more importantly, they automatically focus your attention on those fewer, better things that make a difference in your business.
How does this impact you as you scale your company? Simple, in order to scale your business you need a rock-solid base in all the five core pillars of your company: Sales/Marketing; Operations; HR; Executive Leadership; and Finance.
One way to do that is to have a clear structure to help you evaluate how you're doing in each pillar, and to guide you to incrementally improve pillar by pillar as you grow.
In this article I'm focusing on your Sales/Marketing Pillar (I've addressed the other pillars of your company in other articles.)
Here is a simple scorecard that you can use each quarterly to make sure you're continuously improving your "Sales/Marketing Pillar".
Each quarter, rate your company on a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being best) on each of the following nine aspects of your Sales/Marketing Pillar:
1.Lead Generation: How well does your company do at generating new, top-of-funnel leads into your prospect database? Is this a systematic, consistent thing? Or is it ad hoc and sporadic? Can you rely on it to reliably churn out new, qualified leads? On a scale from 1-10 how strong is your Sales/Marketing Pillar in this area?
2.Lead Conversion: How strong is your company at systematically converting your leads into happy buyers? Is your conversion process handicapped by an overreliance on one specific key sales person? Or do you have a reliable process that lets multiple people consistently close new business for your company? On a scale from 1-10 how strong is your Sales/Marketing Pillar in this area?
3.Lead Management: How well does your company do at organizing, storing, and distributing leads? How effective is your lead management process at helping automate your sales function? How effective is it at reducing lead conflicts between sale people? How about at clearly identifying lead priorities and follow up steps? On a scale from 1-10 how strong is your Sales/Marketing Pillar in this area?
4.Sales/Marketing "Linkages": Do you have a clear process for handing new leads from marketing to sales (lead distribution)? How about for turning over new sales to operations (client onboarding/order entry)? How about making sure any payment arrangements have been accurately noted so that your company collects timely and complete payments (A/R set up)? On a scale from 1-10 how strong is your Sales/Marketing Pillar in this area?
5.Client Repeat Purchases: Do clients buy only once from you but never again, or do they buy again and again from you? Have you optimized the frequency they buy from you? Have you systematized this so that your business maximally serves your customers and reliably produces resale revenue? On a scale from 1-10 how strong is your Sales/Marketing Pillar in this area?
6.Client Upsell Business: Do you have a clear and effective process to upsell or cross sell your clients to better serve them and increase sales? Is this a formal system(s) or is it an informal, sales person dependent, ad hoc thing? On a scale from 1-10 how strong is your Sales/Marketing Pillar in this area?
7.Brand Strength: How well established is your brand? How consistent is your entire company at living consistent with your brand? How valuable do you think your market perceives your brand is? On a scale from 1-10 how strong is your Sales/Marketing Pillar in this area?
8.Current Revenue Growth Potential (Next 90-180 days): Looking at your near term revenue opportunities, how much potential is realistically there for you? On a scale from 1-10 how strong is your Sales/Marketing Pillar in this area?
9.Future Revenue Growth Potential (1-3 years out): Looking at your longer term revenue opportunities, how much potential is realistically there for you? On a scale from 1-10 how strong is your Sales/Marketing Pillar in this area?
Now that you've rated your company's Sales/Marketing Pillar on these 6 key sub-functions, what key insights jumped out at you?
Which ONE sub-function would most benefit your company to focus on improving over the next 90 days.
Then ask yourself, what three simple steps could you take this quarter to improve your score in this one sub-function by 1-2 points or more.
By breaking things down into bite sized chunks and doing this each quarter you'll be amazed at the compounded growth your business will enjoy over the next few years.
Also, to help you grow your business and get your life back, we just put the finishing touches on a powerful free toolkit which includes 21 in-depth video trainings on how to intelligently scale your company. To access this free toolkit click here. Enjoy.