How do you measure the effectiveness of your efforts, work or actions as an entrepreneur?

How do you when you’ve reached success? What IS success for your business?

Defining your mission and desired outcomes directs your business’s success. Determining a mission/vision for your business, the outcomes, results and/or product you will deliver is pertinent to establishing standard operating procedures, business norms and guidelines that will govern how you do business and who’s your target customer to name a few. Your success is measured by how effectively you execute or perform the functions of your business based on this mission and/or vision and serves as a marker in measuring your success. This process is very helpful in establishing the values and ethics in which you will conduct business and it’s the foundation in building your brand.

Plan. Planning governs how you will achieve success. Now that you have your mission, vision and your desired outcomes established for your business, you need a strategy. Whether you are a corporation or an independent contractor you need a strategy on how you will run your business. You also need to determine how often you will evaluate your work. Assessments, yes that dirty little word.

Quantify your work. Develop a rubric that effectively measures performance based on what you do, how you do it and how your operations line up with your business plan and outcomes. Always assess your performance. In the infancy stages of starting your business, I would recommend assessing your performance quarterly. Assessment tools that are designed to effectively measure your processes, is only valuable if the information gathered is transferred into action steps.

Qualify your task. Your tasks and action steps should always lead to your desired outcomes. Anything else is motion and movement, not progression. What you decide to do from day to day must be intentional. If you’re not working towards your outcomes, you’re planning to delay your success or worse, fail.

Assessment tools should be a part of your business plan. Investors, banks, future partners and collaborators want evidence of your business’s performance. If your business is in it’s infancy stages, I would suggest assessing your performance quarterly until you yield the outcomes desired. Being proactive keeps you in control of your business.

There are some online tools you can find but they will not be personalized to the exact needs of your business. You can also seek an SHRM consultation from Preferred Elements.

Define. Plan. Quantify. Qualify. Assess. Deliver… Repeat.

Michele Santiago is a certified life coach, SME who retired from sales management to pursue her passion to empower small business owners, organizations and individuals with 21st Century Skills needed to compete in a global workforce. Soon to add BS in Management with a focus in SHRM to her 20 plus years of real life experience, Michele is available for speaking engagements, trainings and consultations.

Contact: preferred elements.us@gmail.com