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Data · · 2 min read
Metrics every small business should check every month
You don't need a hundred metrics. With a handful of well-chosen indicators you can know how your business is doing and where to act.
Measuring everything is as useless as measuring nothing. For a small business I recommend starting with a few indicators, always reviewing them on the same date and comparing them with the previous month and the same month last year.
Sales and revenue
- Monthly revenue and how it's trending. It's the basic figure, but it's worth seeing as a trend, not in isolation.
- Average order value: how much each customer spends per purchase on average. Raising it is often easier than finding new customers.
Customers
- New customers this month.
- Returning customers. A healthy business doesn't depend only on attracting new people.
- Where customers come from: referrals, social media, Google, the website. That tells you where it's worth investing.
Profitability
- Margin per product or service. Sometimes what sells most isn't what earns most.
- Monthly fixed costs, so you know how much you need to bill just to cover them.
Operations
- Response time to requests or orders.
- Pending orders or jobs, to spot bottlenecks before they show.
Your website
- Visits and, above all, enquiries received through the website. Visits without enquiries don't pay the bills.
How to start
Pick five from this list, the ones most related to your day-to-day decisions, and write them down every month for a quarter. Once you see the value, it's time to automate them in a dashboard.
If you'd like help choosing and setting up yours, let's talk.