You set up your business. You put together a marketing plan. You hired on some help. Then you went about the process of growing your business. Now, it’s time to evaluate your business and see where you’ve succeeded and where you need to make improvements.

Step 1: Evaluate Your Business

The key to making your business successful is taking the time to measure it. If you don’t set up a system to evaluate your processes, products, marketing, etc., you are wasting the effort and finances that went into developing each aspect of your business. Without a concrete measurement there is no way for you and your team to know what is successful, what needs improvement and what needs to be eliminated.

Set up the processes to measure each aspect of your business from the beginning. This can include the following:

• Marketing Efforts: Set a budget for each project. Set up a goal for each project. Track the effectiveness of each project. Record everything.
• Sales Efforts: Set a goal for your sales. Record your prospects and your sales cycle. Track where you lose prospects. Track where you convert prospects, etc.
• Business Tools: Set a budget. Regularly check that the tools are meeting your needs.

Keep these measurements up to date and set a time to review your efforts on a monthly or quarterly basis. In the beginning, you’ll need to check the pulse of your business more frequently. You will need to be very hands on to make sure that everything is working the way you need it to in order to find the success you expect.

Step 2: Executing Decisions

After you and your team meet to evaluate your business and each of its projects, make a decision. If a marketing platform isn’t generating the leads (or the type of leads) you expect, take the steps to transition out of it. If a product isn’t performing to your standards, take it back to the drawing board – evaluate the price, the packaging, the marketing and the essential flaws that aren’t attracting customers.

If you need to make a negative decision – pulling the plug on a product, ending a contract with a vendor, canceling an advertisement, firing an employee – it is better to make the decision quickly before the problem becomes larger or spreads into other areas of your business. The tough decisions aren’t always the easiest, but they will help you keep your company fit and trim and moving toward your goals.