There is a heart in your business. It is often hard to articulate, but you know the people, meetings, and general culture from which most decisions and actions originate. Your project, program or department may or may not be in on this heart of the business. Often times, eBusiness is not at the heart of a corporation, for example.
Usually, change leaders are not at the center of day to day business. They are running the marathon and everyone in the day-to-day around them is running a sprint. So how do you make change happen that hits the marketing bullseye?
The best way to get into the heart of the business is to use metrics. Metrics can’t be ignored. They force attention of sprinters who are looking at metrics every day. And, they most importantly, they get the attention of senior management. They give something for people to put on their resume. And they give your overachieving peers something to work towards.
The strategy is to create a system around you using metrics to build momentum for the right (bulls eye) projects, programs and initiatives.
Here are 12 Steps to use metrics to get to the heart of your business, in a Ready, Aim Fire approach:
Ready
1. Democratize – standardize the data and give open access to the data or reports to the masses. 2. Focus – what are the killer metrics / levers in the business? Does everyone know what these key metrics are? 3. Own – give people ownership for key metrics. Someone who pulls together the team to drive the metric, educate, evangelize, report. 4. Partner – put goals in performance plans of cross-functional partners.
Aim
5. Define – Define your metrics in ways people can understand. Use industry standards. Describe definitions in laymen’s terms, and educate the masses. 6. Report – Create an easy to read, regularly updated, consistent report that is distributed widely. 7. Co-habitate – Merge your analytics with standard business reporting. Where are the eyes on the business? Put your metrics there. Put them at the top. Don’t reinvent reports and channels. 8. Visualize – Show some meaning behind the numbers. Connect emotionally, create internal buzz and sound bytes.
Fire
9. Causate – Show the connections of what causes what: Y=f(x). This is a Six sigma methodology. Do A/B testing and pilots to show what moves these metrics people are now paying attention to. 10. Extrapolate – Show what if scenarios. If we do this, this lever changes, makes this customer or P&L impact. Then extrapolate to larger number (a quarter of a year of impact) to get a lot of attention. 11. Compete – Create internal competitions to improve metrics. Inspire people with stretch goals with a “Results Rabbit” for people to go after. 12. Share – Present results of business impact related to web metrics. Show the impact to the business.
Usually the biggest impact you can make in a business is to create a system by which people pay attention to what is important. Create this system using metrics to shine a light on the right ideas and get people to change!
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