What’s In a Number? Must-Have Metrics For Your Business
April Kicks Off Financial Literacy Month
Financial Literacy Month is a nationally recognized campaign to bring awareness to the need for more financial education in schools and for adults. During Financial Literacy Month, financial institutions, nonprofits, and human service agencies increase their focus on the importance of financial literacy through events, programs, and counseling.
We see a goal that goes beyond helping just consumers learn more about finances to helping entrepreneurs actually improve the financial management of their most valuable asset- their business. The result is improved business and personal financial stability and success.
Why Financial Literacy Matters
- Parents rank teaching financial responsibility to their children near the top of their wish list.
- Only a handful of states require high school students to take a personal finance course before graduation.
- Poor financial literacy leads to poor decision-making which leads to poor behavior which limits the household’s ability to reach its financial goals.
- Increased financial literacy will help drive wealth for small businesses and their owners.
The Importance of Business Metrics
Last month, PGP Advisory discussed the importance of incorporating our top 7 value drivers into your business strategy to increase cash flow, as well as reduce risk, thus enhancing the overall value of your company. We established that the valuation process involves an assessment of your company and should be a crucial part of any business owner’s standard operating procedure.
The essential next steps to running a successful business, require a thorough analysis of the work, sales, and financial results. This cannot be done without tracking relevant business metrics. Measuring your organization’s performance requires thorough data collection and analysis. But with countless examples of business metrics, how do you know which ones are worth tracking? The ideal combination of key performance indicators (KPIs) will depend largely on your individual business’ needs.
What Gets Measured – Gets Managed
Business Metrics Every Company Should Know
For all businesses, it is critical to track operational metrics such as output, quality, and productivity on a regular basis. The specific measures will vary from company to company, but your productivity metrics improve operations by highlighting opportunities to standardize work, eliminate waste, and solve systemic problems. The result is happier customers, reduced costs, and a consistent operation that is easier for you (and any future owner of the business) to run.
Gross Margin is one of the most important metrics that an entrepreneur should know. It is crucial to running your business on a day-to-day basis. Gross margin lets you know how much of each sales dollar is available to pay overhead and profit after direct expenses are paid. Many businesses are seeing input costs such as wages, materials, and freight rise. Businesses with strong market positions are often able to adjust pricing to maintain their gross margins.
ROI measures the efficiency of an investment. It can be used to compare different investments made into your business. It is a great way to indicate what is working and what isn’t. For companies looking to grow through acquisition, ROI is a simple metric to compare the relative attractiveness of a potential target.
The current ratio is used to test a company’s liquidity and working capital. The current ratio is the company’s current assets divided by its liabilities. Calculating the current ratio, you will see if your company is readily available to pay its short-term liabilities like taxes, debts, and expenses. A business should keep its current ratio over 1 which means that there is enough working capital for healthy operation. For growing companies, it is an important indicator of whether or not you have sufficient working capital to fuel continued growth.
These two metrics answer the following: How much do you make per customer or lead during its lifetime? How much does it cost to acquire a customer? Knowing your LTV and CAC of your customer is a piece of the crucial information you can obtain. Every dollar of revenue is not equal. Recurring revenue from loyal, “sticky” customers are a valuable asset for your company. CAC and LTV are measures that inform which customers to target, the most effective and efficient sales and marketing approach, and how to ultimately grow more profitably.
The importance of web-analytics can’t be argued in the digital era. Every online business should have a basic understanding of web analytics.
What’s In a Number?
Why should your business be so concerned with metrics? For starters, these metrics are golden tidbits of information and can mean the difference between success and failure. There are many more metrics that exist for your company to track, such as project management metrics. The ones that matter most depend on your specific type of business. For example, if you sell products, tracking your inventory size may be important.
PGP Advisory recommends your company remain judicious in your choice of metrics to track. Business owners can easily become overwhelmed with data or spend too much time just collecting and analyzing rather than using the insights to actively manage your business.
With the appropriate metrics for your company in hand, you can steer your organization in the right director toward achieving your business goals.
