There are plenty of business consulting firms out there who trumpet their success at helping small- and medium-sized companies grow and flourish. Many of them point to ephemeral measurements of success that aren’t easy to quantify. “Unparalleled growth” doesn’t really tell you much. Unparalleled growth based on what scale? Compared to what?
How Some Business Consulting Firms Spin Strategies
A free-floating goal like “becoming the best service provider possible” just won’t work. If there is no end goal that can be clearly defined, your managers and employees will soon lose focus and lose their motivation. After all, there really isn’t an end in sight or an attainable goal in “best possible.” Some business consulting firms will try to bend your business into this mold because it’s easy to skew the results to fit their criteria for satisfaction, but that won’t help your business develop a winning strategy that can work after they’ve walked away, taking their metrics with them.
Why Quantifiable Results Are Crucial
Every small business should have two types of concrete, measurable goals: short term and long term. One can motivate employees on a day-to-day basis while the other motivates the company and its management for the long haul. Having both goals for the “here and now” as well as the future translates to better results on both the individual scale as well as the overall, business scale. If you can’t track and measure your results, you can’t accurately analyze how well your new business strategy is (or isn’t) working.
Motivating Employees Through Measurable, Short Term Goals
Short term goals keep things real for employees. Administrative assistants and customer service representatives won’t necessarily work harder and produce more because someone has told them that the business strategy involves becoming the leader in the industry. They will, however, be motivated by short term, quantifiable goals such as decreasing paperwork by 20% or each sales representative closing a deal with at least five new customers a month. Once your employees have experienced success with short term goals, they’ll be far more likely to be “on board” with long term goals such as opening three new locations in the next five years.
Makarios Consulting is a leader among small business consulting firms because we help our clients develop both short term and long term goals that result in solid growth, improved efficiency and measurable success. To learn more, visit our website or call 610-380-8735.
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