A Dashboard on Business

[Nick Carter]

My wife and I just purchased a new Jeep Grand Cherokee. Now, when we went to the dealership, we were looking for something roomy but with decent gas mileage. Mind you, after the salesman let me drive the V8 Hemi-Powered Grand Cherokee, mileage got demoted in my mind to a mere afterthought. Nonetheless, I asked what it should get. "If you drive it tame, 16 in the city," he told me.

One of the features of this new car that we've used the most has been the rolling-average MPG rating displayed right on my dashboard. I keep it up the whole time I'm driving. It's always there staring at me, telling me what my lead foot is costing me. After a few miles on I-465, it gently climbs to 15 or 16. But, through the city... well let's just say the stereotypes of car salesmen are well deserved.

But having this number glaring at me all the time has had an affect on my driving. I find myself conscious of my acceleration. I play little games, trying to coast to red lights for as long as possible watching it tick up a tenth of a mile per gallon. Even though it's just a small figure, it convicts me of what I should be doing and holds me accountable.

What if you could do that everyday with business? What if you could see how many calls you really made last week, or last month? What if you could see how many appointments you kept, and with whom? What if you could see how many calls your salesmen were really making?

If your business depends on your productivity, not only for production itself, but for sales and growth, you need a dashboard like my Jeep. Use technology to track your activity and hold yourself accountable. Our CRM, AddressTwo includes user activity reports on any member of our sales team, and even reports on downline accounts [if I were a network marketer]. I can't stress enough to business owners: get a dashboard on your business!

[Rhoda Israelov]

I heartily approve of "self-dashboarding" to stay on track towards any personal or business goal. My fitness trainer told me years ago that if I documented every morsel of food I put into my mouth, I'd be twice as likely to lose weight. I haven't always followed that good advice, hence keep losing the same 20 pounds and regaining same. However, for years now, I've been keeping weekly and monthly tallies of business appointments, speeches delivered (and the number of people in the audience), exercise "sessions" per week, and cultural events attended. In fact, the analogy of the "needle on the dashboard" is one I borrowed from Chris Katterjohn (IBJ publisher) and turned into a blog (http://blog.gravymasters.com/blog/ghost-blogger/0/0/move-the-needle-on-your-blogs-dashboard). I enjoyed browing through your blogs posts.

[Jason Fields]

I manage operations, and I came across this book that has suggestions for getting a dashboarding project started. It's a little dated, but a good place to get some ideas.

Eckerson. (2005) Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business