How Do You Measure Small Business Success?

A tricky question. Business success is a very personal thing. Here is my ‘how I measure success list’ and I will share what some other business owners told me when I posted the question to a small business group on LinkedIn. My favorite response? One entrepreneur said. “Did I get a good sleep last night.” So important to feel good and right about what we do and how we do it.

I measure success by:

• Having clients who need our services.
• Adding outstanding individuals to my company.
• Being part of a larger business and non-profit community.
• Innovating, creating, advancing and having fun doing it.
• Balancing work with the rest of my life.
• Living my values in the workplace.
• Enjoying modest monetary rewards.

Some other entrepreneurs and their thoughts about business success:

1. Financial results through revenue and profitability. Scaling revenue and simultaneously increasing margin is one way to measure success.
2. New client acquisition. This is key to any company success. Most small businesses fail to thrive because of their lack of new logos. Dipping into the same customer bucket can lead to failure.
3. Innovation in the respective space. All things at some point either die or evolve. If your product or service is not evolving, it will die. This is vital in order to stay ahead of the competition and to avoid obsolescence.

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Plain and simple: my bank account.

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This is a tough question.

My company is a start up business and with startups it takes time to see results. If we were to base our success on financial or clientele numbers it could be easy to get disappointed.

You should have a set of goals/objectives and base your success on how well you achieve these. This can be anything from gaining new clients, establishing a new Facebook page, participating in an event related to your niche.

Success is not a one-time thing, it is something you should constantly be trying to achieve. As you succeed in reaching one objective, you should set yourself a new one.

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Someone decides to hire me for a gig…

Bazinga…

Success…

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• Making payroll
• Having enough work to keep my crew busy
• Occasionally having enough left over so I get a taste …

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Metrics:

• Cases – 4,100 over the last 5 years
• Awards – yes
• 175% increase in web site visits over the last year.

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• Cash flow – are we constantly liquid?
• Net Profit – are we making enough money?
• Ratios – How are we doing against other business of the same type?
• Customer Satisfaction – Do we consistently receive Customer Recommendations?
• Am I or Are we proud of what we did today?
• Have we planned so that we have something to look forward to?
• Did I get a good nights sleep last night?

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By the amount of calls I get asking to write about my company ( without my requesting it:), my ROI, the mentions I get on social media, the amount of times I get listed on twitter ( so I know these people want to keep up with my posts).

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Do these entrepreneurs reflect your thoughts on business success? Are you surprised that it is about so much more than just $$?

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