In life and business, we all have big goals and dreams that we strive towards. However, on the path to success, we’re often faced with an onslaught of novel obstacles.
Creating and providing smaller, realistic goals allows us to take our journey one step at a time; every goal achieved is one step towards your final goal. This formula follows a natural progression that fosters motivation, and resilience as you climb the ladder towards success.
That is where Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come into play. Through the use of KPIs, business owners and managers can systemise their business and delegate tasks whilst knowing that the work will be completed to their chosen standard.
Brad van Koersveld, Founder of Autop, knows all too well the importance of KPIs, so much so that he created a business around managing exactly that.
“Autop is a marketing analytics tool which helps face to face marketing directors analyse their results,” says Brad.
“Providing real time business analytics to marketing companies to automate and optimise efficiency.”
Running a tech business provides for an interesting day to day job, with a variety of unique tasks to be completed. However, this is a highly specialised industry that allows for business owners such as Brad to truly shine.
“My role in the business involves drawing up the direction of the business and where it is heading next,” says Brad.
“Week to week, when I do a SWOT analysis and see where the company is at and the next directions that we should head.
“I assess whether we need to pivot and where is best to invest our time and resources in to continue down the correct path.”
Working within a busy industry, it is important to ensure that your team understands your aspirations for the business, and the KPIs they need to meet to achieve them.
“I think KPIs boil down to smart goals. You gotta have measurable goals, and KPIs help you fall into line with that,” says Brad.
“It’s also a good statistic to boost employee morale to make sure that they’re hitting their goals.
“It sets benchmarks or something that they can aim towards instead of just a general goal.”
Setting a benchmark early on provides managers and owners with the ability to set the standards at the start, yielding quantitative measures on their teams work. Having a strong KPI system in place, provides a performance management summary to refer to at any time in the future.
“When the time comes to evaluate their performance, those KPIs… I can just pull up straight away and actually have a number of numeric values associated with their work ethic,” says Brad.
With a thorough understanding of their personal responsibilities and goals within the organisation, employees can learn [with the help of their mentor] to develop their own KPIs and ultimately, hold more control over their work and progress.
“I’d like to sit down with the employees and actually see their take on the KPI,” says Brad.
“The reason why I do this is to make sure first of all the KPIs are not unrealistic, but it’s also to gauge a bit of responsibility from them to make sure that they think that they’re capable of hitting their KPI.
“For example, I will ask my team member, how many messages do you think you should be replying to each week, and I’ll actually make them set their own KPI
“This puts the ball in their court, and provides the opportunity for them to be responsible for their own work.”
Providing your team with the opportunity to be held responsible for their own KPIs translates to their confidence and ability to complete a task. This ultimately allows you to feel more comfortable and willing to delegate time-consuming tasks.
“The second part of this is giving them the management of the KPI, and opening up what they need from me so they can take full responsibility for managing said KPIs,” says Brad.
“This reduces the chance of them coming to me down the line, and marking those requests.”
While each owner or manager has a different operating style, Brad believes that working out the company’s weekly aims allows for the team to understand their contributions towards the realization of their final goal.
“I literally sit down every week and I draw up a to-do list for the business and allocate the tasks and goals throughout the team,” says Brad.
“From here, we work out the values, the thing we are striving for [not necessarily the goal]
“These values give my employees the chance to work out their own KPIs to achieve said value.”
Many owners are reluctant to hand over parts of their business to their team, concerned about the consistency in the work. With a KPI system in place, systemising your team’s work through effective self-created SOPs allows owners to take a step back.
“The reason I do this is so they are prepared. If I need to step out of the office or am away, I know they are capable of handling the task at hand without any hesitation,” says Brad.
“It is a confidence check for them, and a trust check for me.”
No matter your management or leadership style, there are many universal tools and skills needed to systemise and grow your business, starting with developing the emotional intelligence required to develop your team, with the use of KPIs at the forefront.
