Many business owners or managers don't know whether they are many a profit or not and whether they are growing or contracting until their accountant does the sums at the year-end. It could be too late then. Maybe they believe it will never happen to them--the business might fail. 70% of businesses fail within the first five years.

They manage by intuition or gut feel. They think that is being a great manager.

The irony is that it takes a little amount of time to quantify what's going on, but they are reluctant or not convinced enough of the value to spend the time or the money doing this. The benefit of knowing how your business is performing, is astronomically beneficial. Without this knowledge, you are trying to navigate your way through business swamps and mountains to a profit without any map or compass.

All it takes is a few hours clerical work per week. The kids can even do it–it is not high tech stuff! Spend the money and do it.

For example, just count up the number of sales made, sales leads received per week or month for each product. Plot them in a simple graph with time. Look for trends. Is the graph rising or falling?

How do you do this cost effectively? The answer is use a simple spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel. If you don't know how to use a spreadsheet–get along to a night class or employ someone a few hours each week.

You might say–it is too difficult because of the variation in the data. My graphs would like the Himalayas mountain range –all peaks and troughs.

Use moving averages to smooth out week-by-week or month-by-month variations.
What's a moving average you might ask? Work out an average value from your first four weekly figures in your time series of figures i.e. four weeks in a month so add up the all four values and divide by four, plot this value. Then move one point along and calculate the average for the next four figures, and plot the result. Continue to work out these moving averages for the rest of your data. A spreadsheet can do this in milliseconds.

Remember cause and effect–look to see if rises and falls in your sales lead figures have corresponding rises and falls several weeks or months later depending on the length of your sales cycle.

These graphs can be used proactively to see if campaigns and other developments are having the desired effect.

It's simple. Just do it. You will be amazed. Start now–look at my web site http://sydstewart.com


About the Author
Syd Stewart has been an owner and manager for over 30 years. He is an expert in the use of data to guage business performance. Visit his site to find out more http://sydstewart.com.com