Common Denominator of Success for Entrepreneurs

Recently, at an annual conference of a franchise company, the franchisor's leadership team held a series of 4 meetings with its franchise operators to discuss pertinent issues for each group. The interesting part is that the top quartile (in terms of sales volume) met first, then the second quartile, and so on. For these particular meetings, management thought that high volume business operators would interact best with each other and the low volume franchisees would be facing challenges similar to other low volume operators.

The first group, the high volume franchisees, talked about numbers, numbers and more numbers during the entire meeting. They shared benchmarks about their marketing expenditures and plans, margins on sales, product mix by percent, payroll costs and so on. All the pens were flying in the room. By the time the fourth group came through, the meeting was completely different. When questioned about percent of revenue budgeted for marketing or about sales product mix, this group had no idea where they stood. It was a blinding flash of the obvious that the low volume operators did not understand the key metrics behind their businesses.

In high school and college I ran track and cross country. I was blessed with runners body and was very competitive. It is hard to imagine finishing 4 laps around the track and not knowing how fast I ran the mile. It's hard to imagine not knowing the split times for each lap. Without targeting 64 second laps, you would never finish the mile in 4:16.

Ask yourself the question, "Am I in touch with the key metrics that drive my business?" Strong leaders take it to the next level and ensure that all their team members are in touch with the metrics they control. Laying out a plan and consistently measuring actual versus desired results separates the winners from the "also rans".


Jim Pascale
The Entreprenuer's Advantage
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jimpascaleminnesota@yahoo.com