How do we know if we are doing something well or not? Are we doing enough?
What am I talking about? An example is my walking. A couple of times a week I walk 1.5 hours, up and down hills – in most people’s book it’s a good walk. Then, for a little while, I joined a walking group that did a 2-hour fast walk up and down hills – so, an even better walk! Finally, recently, I completed the 3 Capes walk in Tasmania, walking for 4 continuous days, 44 km up and down steep hills and thousands of steps, carrying all our food, clothing, and sleep bag – now that is a GREAT walk!
If we only look at my 1.5-hour walk, we would have said that was a good walk. Joining the walking group, that was even better. But now, looking back after the 4-day walk – how does my 1.5-hour walk look like now? And, if we only looked at the 44km walking trek – was this really a great achievement? Relate that to a 9-day trek, and you could say the 44km trek was just ok!
If it is all relative – what are we relating our accomplishments to?
From a business perspective, how and what are you relating your business accomplishments and your bottom line profit to?
Are you looking at industry benchmarks so that you can compare your business with other similar businesses in your industry and locality?
Do you have financial budgets, resource budgets and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) so that you can compare actuals with these budgets and targets?
Whatever you believe, if you are not relating your business achievements to reality, that is, what is really happening out there in the business world and internally within your business – you really don’t know how well you are performing.
To continue to succeed, we want to continue to improve. But how will you know if you are improving if you are not relating your current activity to previous activity?
So, it is important to stop for a moment, take stock and have a look at how you are travelling – both personally and in your business.
You may surprise yourself as I did with my 4-day trek!
Need help with setting up budgets and targets? Contact us by email, Elke at hello@miebs.com.au or Phone 0410 819 783.
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