Better decisions, better business

Do you remember when you started your company? It was hard to know if you were going to make it as a business or not, but you went out and made sales. Revenue came in and everyone was happy. Then, more sales made you think you needed some basic processes people could follow. Pretty soon you had a real business that needed to be managed.

The following are 5 signs you are managing proactively and not reactively. Proactive management makes a big difference in performance if you can deliver on what you’re managing.

• There are always fires, but they don’t surprise you – when you are ‘out in front’ of your business proactively managing backwards you will typically see most fires before they start. And defuse them before they start, rather than responding to them after they are hot.
•  You have a clear process for reviewing key financial metrics that everyone knows about – being totally transparent about how you make decisions is not recommended, but being proactive and communicating to everyone about the process you use to make decisions and which metrics drive your decision-making is critical.
• Everyone knows the person responsible for key priorities in your business – not only have you determined your key metrics and everyone gets to see how the company is doing, it is very clear which person (name names) is responsible for performance of that metric. A financial dashboard is extremely helpful in making this possible.
• You can see key trends of your business performance without asking your people – forecasting where your business is headed over the next 12 months can be more difficult that recording where it has been, but both are critical.
• Your strategic vision becomes daily reality after you create, plant, water and nurture it – enough said!

 Based on research we have been performing in a growing number of small businesses across 11 different countries we are seeing an enormous trend emerge that is illustrated in the following infographic –all I can say is be proactive, it makes a big difference!