Keeping Your Finger on the Pulse

What information are you looking at regularly that helps you keep your finger on the pulse of your company?  It’s a powerful question.  If you want to grow your company, and become more profitable, you want to set goals and get feedback so your clear about where you’re headed, and where you are on the path.

Have a revenue, gross profit margin (your rate of return on work) and net profit goal.  Most people have a revenue goal, but rarely have a margin or net profit goal.  If you want to increase your bottom line, get clear on your targeted revenue, gross profit margin and net profit goals.  Each month review your profit and loss statement and see how your doing.  Look at the month, quarter and year to date to see trends.

Set a goal for dollar amount bid, and targeted close rate. It’s easy to just respond to the bids that come in the door and think that’s all there is.  But it’s not.  When you get intentional and set bidding and close rate goals, you’ll increase the odds of meeting your revenue goals.  Try this simple formula – take your revenue goal, divide by your targeted close rate %, the result is how much you need to bid in dollars.  Too high? Increase your close rate.  Every other week track your results and see if you’re on track or if you need to make a course correction in either the amount your bidding, or your close rate.

Setting goals and tracking even just these few key performance indicators in your business will give you greater clarity and confidence to know what actions to take to help you grow your bottom line.