What are Your 3-5 Metrics? Let's Talk Scorecards

You measure what matters when it comes to growing a business, health or wealth. Looking at 3-5 metrics specific to your goals at the end of the week can give you insights into how healthy and on track you are with your desired outcome Numbers don't lie, they can assist help extracting out the emotions so you know where you're actually at. It's easier to find a solution when you know what the problem is. Your numbers are your compass to course correct or maintain your growth.  

Prerequisites

Know what you do, who you do it for, where you are and where you want to be.  (Vision, Mission, Purpose, Values). You can't keep score if you don't know the game you are playing.

Quantitative Scorecard (Operations)

What gets measured, not only gets managed, it opens the door to greater meaning and mastery

1. Step 1: Identify 3-5 weekly metrics that are unique to your business that will help you assess and manage its health and growth.
2. Step 2: Identify the expected results you are comparing them against.
3. Step 3: Then graph that data so you can have a visual representation to see the direction of the trend lines against your initial projections.  This is simplicity at its finest. (Delegate or automate if possible)

Ex Scenario: I used these metrics for a venture I started with my Dad in 2008 when we both had other full-time commitments and needed to be able to check in and communicate if things were on track.

• Revenue (Cash collected)
• Expenses (Costs)
• Equipment Status (Machinery issues)
• Google Reviews (Customer complaints and other issues)

Qualitative Scorecard (Starting)

When starting something I like to keep it even simpler, all the way down to YES or NO measured against a set of criteria. Basically a simple checklist. I like to do this before I do a deeper quantitative due diligence dive so I'm filtering things based on utility and priority. The old adage look at 100 houses put in half a dozen offers, and close on what you can.

A short pencil is better than a long memory

One of my favourite yes-no questions is: Is this in my top 3 hierarchy of values in what my life truly demonstrates? If not, I have a low probability of executing against it.

The other question I like is about my effort already put into strategic planning. As a family we spend a lot of time on personal development, if it's not in our life goals and we haven't been talking about it for years, it's probably not that important and could be a squirrel brain moment. People get confused about what strategy is, strategy is as much what not to do as defining what targets your going to hit and how. #Focus is key, it's the one thing that will allow you to move that needle forward over the long run.

Summary

If you are struggling with this it's more of a reflection of how congruent you are with your intrinsic values. When you have alignment, you have fewer judgments about yourself and tend to take action on your plans. When you really care about something you plan and executive realistically against it.

Let's narrow it down further. If you define goals and metrics that you hitting too fast, in a short time frame, you're not setting difficult enough objectives. To long of a time frame, you overestimate your ability or the initiative at hand. The goldy lox zone is attained when you access the executive centre of your brain. You see the outcomes in vid detail and can see the risks far in advance.      

The journey of becoming is by doing. It's less to do with the destination you are headed to. If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else.

Keep it simple.

Work backwards from the 3-5 Metrics that are trying to help you achieve, so you can track your progress as this is part of the 3 larger questions I like to consult on.

1. What are you focused on? (Day, Week, Month, Quarter, Year)
2. What are the 3-5 metrics? (Ensure you are on track)
3. What are the bottlenecks? (We can develop a strategy, align resources, and clear the mental hurdles)