Around these parts, we sure do love to track sports scores and stats. Like what was the score of last night’s Sox game? How many rings does Belichick have?  Or how many points did Tatum put up for the C’s? And on the rare chance we don’t know the answers, we certainly know how to quickly find out: Hello 98.5 The Sports Hub!

But there’s another part of life where it’s even more important to keep and track scores; one that has nothing to do with sports, but sure has a lot to do with winning.

It’s in business.

Yes, your business.

Like sports, business is all about game planning, performing, and achieving winning results. But with all the day-to-day responsibilities involved with running a company, most business owners don’t have the time to stop and think about where they are, where they want to be, or how to even can get there.

Sure, they have a general idea of how their companies are performing or where they stack up competitively. They may even run regular financial reports. But most don’t really evaluate their performance until it’s too late – when their business is already experiencing a difficulty or a great opportunity has gone by the wayside.

Jeff Provost, Founder & CEO of Marlborough-based Key Performance Integrators (KPI), has a unique way to change that: by keeping score.

“A scorecard can help businesses define their goals and assess their work toward achieving them. Ultimately, that can help them make better, more informed business decisions,” Provost explains.

According to Jeff, scorecards can be used for a variety of purposes to help business owners. It could be to help a company that’s having difficulty attracting new customers or one that’s exploring rolling out a new product or service. It may be one that’s having quality control concerns or one that needs a succession plan.

Whatever your goal, creating and keeping a scorecard can help you resolve challenges, improve performance, and plan for the future.

 Keeping your score

So, if it’s not homers or RBIs, what kinds of things can a business track?

That, of course, depends on the business.

“When I meet with business owners, we talk a lot about their vision and what they want to achieve,” Jeff shares. “We ask them to define what success looks like and what they feel good about. Then, we’ll work together to determine how they can get where they need to go.”

For example, if a business owner wants to add 100 customers in a year, Jeff and his team may take a look at how many sales proposals the company would have to send out to achieve that goal.

Accountability matters

But writing the scorecard is not enough; companies need to be accountable and set up regular meetings to review and track their initiatives and progress.

That process allows the business owner/manager to focus on their goals and make them a priority. And, it can help them identify if their initiatives are working.

“A company that sends out proposals but has a poor close rate may learn that they have some work or analysis to do on the proposals,” Jeff adds.

Not just for big league businesses

Though Jeff and his team work with many types of businesses, he believes that any size company can benefit from keeping a scorecard even on their own, and regularly reviewing their “box score” with their stakeholders.

“We’ve all heard the cliché, ’Work on your business not in your business, but it’s true.’ Taking the time to think about your goals/challenges, creating a detailed scorecard with tactics to help you address them, and then reviewing the data on a regular basis can help you achieve some pretty big wins of your own!”

 

Ready to score more wins for your business?

To contact Jeff and the Key Performance Integrators team and even download a free scorecard template for your business, visit https://www.kpintegrators.com/kpi-resources/scorecards/ today.