All business have some measurements that are the main indicators of performance. It is essential that these are readily identified and that any processes or routines take into account these measurements.

The measurements are normally called KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) and should be based on lead data not lag data. All too often businesses rely upon their accounts for some of their KPIs, with accounts only being produced a month in arrears, in effect a lag measurement.

Lead measurements will show potential problems earlier; e.g. a salesman completes 4 deals out of 10 visits, which is a conversion rate of 25%. If you measure his deals, that is a lag measure and if you measure his visits that is a lead measure. Therefore, if he has a target of 20 sales per month and he has only visited 40 prospects in 3 weeks then we can project that 40 x 0.25 = 10 (25%) meaning he will have to double the sales in the remaining week. This could indicate a problem.

If you can't measure it, you can't monitor it.