Solutionz Signs of Success series - #1 DRIVING RESULTS

DRIVING RESULTS
As you are driving down the entrepreneurial road, there are roadsigns that guide you. Tenets of the road you might say.

They are intended to keep you safe and ultimately to get you smoothly to your destination. To get your drivers license, you have to study the signs and actually pass a test, confirming that you understand the signs of the road.

Conversely, in business, and in particular in an early stage business it is possible to get ahead without passing an explicit test about the signs of success.

Sure, you graduated at the top of your class and got your diploma and perhaps even got your MBA. But once you move past the theory studied in university, it is rare for anyone to really stop and think about the real signs of success in business that help you on your journey to the destination of growth, profitability and a high valuation for your business.

In the course of our consulting over the last 13 years, the Solutionz Group has uncovered a series of "signs" to help you along your journey, as you work toward achieving success in your business. We would like to share these. So, this is the first in a series called Solutionz Signs of Success™. This one is focused on DRIVING RESULTS.

What gets measured, gets accomplished. What gets rewarded, gets repeated.

The first time that I heard this, I was working with AAA Mid-Atlantic on a multi-channel distribution strategy for their enterprise. Ron Gray, the head of HR, shared this with me and I was struck by the simplicity of what he had said. These are two tenets of business that are irrefutable. In fact, if you apply them to almost any area of your business, you will be amazed at the outcome.

As you look at these tenets, you may say to yourself that you are at too early a stage in your company to think about this. You are after all, a start up.

As a start up, it is absolutely critical to know your business drivers and to measure against those and also to reward against them.

On the measurement side, for an early stage company, I highly recommend a DASHBOARD - no more than one page that is produced daily, weekly or monthly (as appropriate to whether you are a high volume sales organization or a lower volume service business). That dashboard should have your critical measurements all in one place for your leadership team (and your investors and board) to review at any time.

Ensure that you are rewarding the things that you want to have repeated, both by individuals and by teams. This last bit is very important, as often the individual goals that you have put in place actually work against your teamwork goals. Additionally, individual goals often do not take into account the skillset differences between people. By putting a weaker person in one area with a stronger one in another, and measuring them as a team, you may find that you more quickly and efficiently achieve your goals.

You have to know your destination in order to recognize the signs of success along the way. Measure your progress and reward the various aspects of getting there. Success is within reach.