Close the Gaps, Elevate Profits

In this episode, Pete Mohr digs into the sixth pillar of purposeful leadership: Performance. But it's not just about KPIs. Pete unpacks a holistic approach to performance that stretches beyond mere metrics. Learn how to identify and fill the gaps in your business to not just survive, but thrive. It's not about numbers; it's about meaningful actions.

Here are a few things Pete covers:

• The real purpose of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
• The vital role of metrics in decision-making
• How to identify and address gaps in your business
• Avoiding "vanity metrics" that don't serve your goals
• Building a KPI dashboard that actually matters

It’s time to take action:

After listening, your next move is to build your own KPI dashboard. Focus on metrics that genuinely reflect your business goals and values. Don't let those numbers just sit; use them to identify gaps and make informed decisions.

Are you looking to make some changes in your business and your life in 2024?  Head over to speaktopete.com and book a chat with me to see if we're the right fit!

Transcript

Pete Mohr: 0:36

All right, today, we're going to dig into a big one here. It's called performance. And it's point six of the 10 pillars of purposeful leadership that we've been discussing here in the miniseries on the business owner breakthrough. And when I say performance, I'm not just talking about measuring the KPIs, I'm talking about an overarching sort of holistic approach to driving levels of performance throughout your business. So we're gonna look into metrics, of course, KPIs, and all that sort of stuff. But we're also going to dig into a little bit about identifying the gaps and what you can do to fill them which in my opinion, is the most important thing to garner are performance attitude within your business. And the reality of it is, is performance just isn't about the metrics, right? Metrics are really just numbers unless you know what to do with them, right. And think about metrics as may be the pulse of your business, because a pulse can tell you that you're alive, but it can't really tell you if you're healthy. And the same goes for metrics, they can indicate whether your business is operational, but they can't really say, if it's efficient or effective, it just gives you points to make decisions off of right. They're one of the decision making tools that you require as the leader, and your team requires them as well. So they have to be informed and knowledgeable about the numbers to make the decisions that they need to make. Because remember, decisions are made at the lowest possible level of the organization. We talked about that a lot here on the podcast. But the idea around key performance indicators, really is that there are metrics that directly correlate with your business objectives. And they can guide your strategy, they can help you focus your team around some of this stuff. But listen up, you know, KPIs really are only effective if they're aligned with your business goals and your values. Don't get caught up in vanity metrics that look good on paper, but don't really help you or your team, make decisions and move the needle. For deeper dive on this, you can go to a couple of different episodes that we've had in the past. One is called cracking the code figures for business success, and the other one is decoding decision making the power of facts, so deeper dives over there. But for now, you've got this idea about KPIs, and they're aligning with your business goals, right? Now what? Well, here's where you find the gaps. Let's say your customer satisfaction rate is top notch, but your customer acquisition is maybe lagging a little bit, that's a gap. And once you identify these gaps, it becomes clear where you need to focus your energy. If you're in retail, maybe your turn rates aren't as high as you'd like them to be. Or if you own a business that has returning clients, maybe it's your client return rate that isn't as high, you know, you're not getting them to re up as they return or come back to you as much as you would like. But once you've identified these different gaps within your business, don't worry, you know, we all have gaps in our businesses. So it's not like you're the only one out there, the most important thing is you need to address them as the leader, right. If you don't address the gaps, they turn into black holes, that can suck the life out of your business and, and quite honestly, the culture of your business too, right? Understanding that deep dive into these main 123 gaps that are going to be the biggest impact for you, this quarter is an important piece, look at the training, revisit your processes, maybe even reevaluate your product or your service based on the gaps that you come up with. And it's really good to include your team in some of these meetings as well, because they're hands on, they're doing what they need, and you need their input in order to make an even better decision. So the task for the week really is to build your KPI dashboard. Think about the metrics that truly matter to your business and plot them all out. A well designed dashboard can really give you quick insights without sifting through all of the different pieces of the puzzle that make up your business. And some of you can get the metrics from your CRM or maybe your point of sales system. But you probably have other KPIs that are really important to that aren't on those different platforms. So I really find using a spreadsheet to be a good way to have them all in place. There are tools out there that will take all the different spreadsheets, all the different, you know things and put them all in a nice little dashboard as well. But quite honestly, the main thing is that you have the information that you need. It doesn't really have to look pretty or cute. It just has to give you the information that you need to make better decisions. We have sales and metrics on ours at utopia. We also have things like accounts payable, email, open rates, and we even have the amount of pairs of shoes that we've collected for local Foodbank, because that's one of our key pieces of being a good corporate citizen in our community and we want to track that you need a benchmark to start with so that you can track your improvement along the way and make the decisions that will create the success that you're looking for in all the areas of importance on my dashboard for this business simplifying entrepreneurship, I have things like the amount of speaking opportunities that I have booked, the amount of listens on the podcast, hear business owners in the pipeline at any given time. I also look at podcasts and YouTube numbers, I look at a variety of different things. But the idea here is that you pulling them all into one area so that you can have a quick overview to make easy decisions to make the difference and identify the gaps, right? If all this talk of KPIs and performance gaps and dashboards is making you feel a little bit uneasy, well, as you know, I'm here to help reach out to me on LinkedIn, that's where you'll find me most of the time as far as the social sides of things, or just go to speak to pete.com. That's speak to pete.com. And you can book an appointment with me and we'll have a chat for half an hour or so to see if we're right fit for some future coaching. You know, a quick note here. While it's important to act swiftly on these things, you don't want to jump the gun, acting too early, can waste resources. And you really balance is the key here as the leader of the business, a measured thoughtful approach often wins the race with this stuff. Remember our episode a couple of weeks ago on the importance of patience, right. And if you didn't listen to that, when you might want to go back there as well. There's been a few good things here that are linking in together here on the business owner breakthrough. It's really easy to be overwhelmed by the data. But the numbers are pointless unless converted inaction. So use your KPIs as triggers for change and improvement, right? Your company culture can be a silent killer, or a secret weapon, when it comes to performance and a culture of continuous improvement will keep everyone aligned and focused. So take a good look at this culture of performance. does it encourage performance? Are you encouraging performance as a leader? And is it time maybe for some change in some crucial conversations with your team around this sort of stuff, you can use tack but tech isn't just about the gadgets. It's about streamlining processes, improving customer experience. And yes, tracking performance as well. Don't shy away from using tech tools that can give you a better picture of your performance and help you act on some of the things right there are so many great API's out there. There's so many great apps, there's so many great tools. It's your job as a leader to stay informed with some of these and to make sure that your team is staying informed of the ones that are most relative to them as well, right. Our last activity sort of had you creating this dashboard. Now take it one step further. Align the dashboard of all of your KPIs with the actionable steps tied to each one of those. For instance, if a metric dips below a certain point, what's your action plan? Who is responsible Write, write it down, make sure that your team knows it's even better when you can take this and put somebody's name behind it. Remember, align it and assign it is your only way to freedom unless you are going to make all of the decisions in your business every day, right. So here's where you can use one of the thinking tools that I came up with back a few years ago. It's called the one page prop and you can download it pretty easily over at my website, simplifying entrepreneurship.com forward slash p r o p prop. So it's just a great one page tool to get everything out of your head, put it into an actionable step so that you can then take that sheet handed off to somebody else in order to get the ball rolling for you, right. It's called the prop once again, P R O P stands for purpose, result, obstacles and plan. And it's your way to help get the stuff out of your head onto the sheet so that you can then align it and assign it with some other people in the business in order to move through the gaps. Get through those KPIs and make some stuff happen in your business. Most aspects of your business can be measured from customer satisfaction, profit margins, all sorts of different things, of course, and the numbers do tell a story. But it's not just about the numbers. It's about what you do with them. And identifying these performance gaps that we've been talking about here. drafting those actionable plans, and always holding yourself and your team accountable in order to move the ball for your business because when your business moves ahead, so it is your life. Go and make it a great day.

Buzz Burbank: 10:20

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