August FAQ - How Do I Measure My Business in Such a Crazy World?

One Friday, each month, I dedicate the post to looking at some questions I have heard recently from developing leaders. Sharing those questions and my thoughts for them is a way for me to spread the information to as many leaders and future leaders as possible. If you have a question about leadership, or just a situation you would like some additional insight on, please email me at Effective Retail Leader. Let’s take a look at this week’s question.

In August I have been writing about how measuring your business in today’s environment needs to be different from what we have done in the past. There was a timely question that came up that I thought I would share and address as a break between the remaining articles in the series.

The business is kind of crazy right now, how do I measure whether I am being successful or not?

This is both a great question and one that is very difficult to answer. As I have been writing about over the last few weeks, measuring through traditional comparisons to last year can create a lot of potentially confusing messages. Are good comps to be believed? Are bad comps a real indication of performance right now?

The answer to those questions is no - any metrics that rely on comparing to last year are very suspect at this time and will be for the foreseeable future. So what is a store or district leader to do in these times?

The starting point is setting expectations based on your current trends and knowledge of your business. What measures can you put in place that do not rely on comparisons to a year ago? Looking at improvements week over week in areas you can control within your store is the best place to start. Is every customer being greeted and served in a meaningful way? Are your processes working to standard? These may be more difficult to measure, as some will not have a simple report to look at, but you may find that you get better information through your observations than from the typical reports.

A re-prioritization of your day may be necessary to free up blocks of time to stand back and conduct observations of your associate team and your customers. Make time to speak directly with customers as they enter, exit, or during their shopping trip in your location. How have their expectations changed, and are you meeting those? Talk to associates throughout their shift about what they are hearing from customers as the interact with them. These are excellent ways to get real qualitative data about what is happening in your business.

Unfortunately, there may not be an easy solution to changing what you report or measure for success. It will be largely dependent on your specific situation. Finding new measures will be important for all businesses though. If you have begun to offer new services such as buy online pick up in-store or curbside pickup, those are good areas to measure, since so many customers are beginning to use these services.

Finally, remain flexible with how you are evaluating what is happening in your business. Trying to make old reports or ways of measuring work in today’s changing environment likely will not give you the best information. Spending more time on observations and evaluating qualitative data will yield better data points for you to make quick decisions to maximize the opportunities that are available right now.

In the next few articles in the measuring your business differently series I will explore the differences between types of measurements, how you can put them to work for you, and aligning the measures to the outcomes you are seeking. These will also be helpful in helping you identify ways you may be able to measure your current business trends.

I also recently discussed this topic and some of the ideas from this series of articles with Graeme Grant, CEO of Blueday, on their webinar Measuring Store Performance in Turbulent Times: Defining Your Key Metrics for 2020 and Beyond.

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