Measure and Monitor Everything

A little analysis enables great clarity. This might sound obvious, but really, monitor and measure as much as possible. Obviously, you track income and outgoings, which have become increasingly important as costs rise. But what other metrics can you or should you track in your business? Well, that probably depends on what you want to achieve in your business. Is it more customers? A higher average basket spend? More online sales? More newsletter sign-ups? Whatever you are aiming for, start looking at what metric to track as you work towards that goal.

If you have an EPOS/POS (Electronic Point of Sale) system (whizzy till) there are probably numerous reports you can download that will give you all sorts of metrics. If you don’t have a whizzy till system, find a way to monitor what happens and when it happens in your business. Whether that’s customer numbers, certain product sales, or the number of customer enquiries; monitoring any of these metrics will help you make better business decisions.

Often, this is the last thing we make time for, we might look at the top-line information but it’s the detail that can give you the insight you need, making this possibly the best tool that can have the most positive impact on your business. You may be pleasantly surprised when you look at the details and if you’re not, you are at least armed with information that supports any decisions you make about the way ahead. Although the constant changes of the last three years have made it harder to see patterns and plan forward, making decisions about the future direction of your business should be easier with concrete information.