What gets measured gets done. But scaling companies and aligning all the efforts of your team requires specific measurements worth sharing. Don’t underestimate the power of sharing one department’s metrics with another. In fact let me show you the power with examples:

10 Killer Metrics Worth Sharing

  1. Production Order Books – Production Teams &  Sales Teams
    Explain to your sales team that their performance drives the manufacturing shop. That order book that’s dropping is the sales team’s fault. Show the weekly state of the order book in $ and # of weeks of production. Graph it and explain the target production numbers. Production teams will be given more granular versions.
  2. PO Pipeline – Cash Flow Forecasting Teams & Sales Teams
    If your sales process is built on a consistent basis with weighted probability based on the stage the deal has reached, then you might be ready to connect your sales weighted pipeline to your finance team’s cash forecasting model.
  3. Lead Generation Stats – Marketing  & Sales Teams
    It is essential that the sales and marketing teams have a symbiotic relationship. Where better to start to build that rapport than the lead generation area. All weekly marketing lead generation statistics should be shared with the sales teams e.g. the lead allocation to each sales professional, status of leads, # of leads generated from each campaign, ROIs on trade shows.
  4. Onboarding New Customers – Customer Support & Sales Teams & Production/Service Teams
    The onboarding of a new customer is a precious thing. It’s the beginning of potentially a 20-year relationship! All customer-facing teams need to be aware of the key metrics surrounding the onboarding of a new customer. It may start with a PO but it certainly doesn’t end there.
  5. Support Ticket Performance – Customer Support & Sales & Marketing
    Customer service statistics go to the very heart of your culture. You claim to be customer centric but are you? These type of stats can be used in marketing campaigns. Sales teams can weave impressive service level numbers into conversations. But unless they are relentlessly measured and shared with these key departments then opportunities are missed.
  6. T12 PO & Sales Graphs – All Staff
    All staff want to understand whether the business is growing. Trailing 12 graphs that share the latest 12 months worth of data are compelling. As each new month’s performance is added, last year’s number is dropped. So a rising graph is visually and instantly good news. Purchase Orders won, sales invoices, headcount, gross margin. Almost any statistic trapped by a T12 shows the good news or the bad news instantly with seasonality neutered.
  7. Productivity Numbers e.g. Sales per employee – All Staff
    Productivity is worth sharing (not recommended if RIF being implemented). What productivity ratios do you measure and share e.g. # of new clients/consultant, Production output by week, # of conversation per week by sales professional, # of Accounts Receivable Days outstanding. What productivity ratios imply you are servicing the customer better?
  8. Website Statistics – All Staff
    Pride in your website doesn’t start and finish in the marketing department. Key ratios like unique visitors, time spent on the site, pages per visit, average time spent on the home page, the most popular landing page, are all interesting measurements to all staff. They need to be graphed and presented in a meaningful way.
  9. Search Rankings – All Staff
    Show Staff that you are top of the tree on many search terms. Explain the importance of being found. Show how your ranking has improved over time. Most employees probably use search engines every day but don’t consider SEO and it’s importance to the company’s success.
  10. Awards, Industry Rankings – All Staff
    Remember awards, press releases, enhancements to your web site are not just about Credibility with your customers and prospects (which of course are important) but they are about building confidence in the minds of your own team! Share your success. Let’s face it those awards were earned by many people doing many things remarkably well.
What metrics are you going to measure and share to align your team?