Have you ever tried driving your car in reverse for an extended distance, using only your rearview mirror to see where you are going? It is challenging to say the least. Yet many businesses use this exact approach to drive themselves. Current CRM and business intelligence technology encourages sales and marketing leaders to build pretty dashboards that look at metrics that happened in the past, such as how many leads were created yesterday, how many meetings their sales reps held last week, and how many deals they closed won last month. While those backward-looking metrics are important, you cannot successfully drive a business by looking only in the rearview mirror.

The specific questions within each category vary based on who is asking them and the details of the business. An additional challenge is that some business leaders only want to focus on questions in their area of the business without looking at the bigger picture. For example, I have spoken with marketing leaders who want to drill into detail about their marketing metrics but when asked about revenue results, they say that those are sales’ problem, not theirs. The highest performing business leaders take time to understand answers to key forward-looking questions in all four categories, regardless of whether they personally have the title of “CMO”, “CSO”, “CFO”, “CEO”, or others. This gives them a broader strategic understanding of the business and positions them to make their own areas more successful.

1. Is our revenue on track to hit our future goals? Have we calculated our marketing and sales funnel momentum, and what does it tell us? If we keep doing what we are doing today, can we reasonably expect to hit our future revenue goals, or is there a gap?

 5. Are we generating the correct number and quality of leads at the right times to hit our revenue goal? By reverse engineering your revenue goals, you should know the exact number of leads or MQLs needed to feed your funnel. Do you have the right goals for not just the lead volume, but the quality and timing of them?

8. Are we completing the right sales activities with leads? Are sales reps complete the right touches with every lead to make sure your sales results meet expectations? Touches can be measured by a variety of metrics, including total quantity, quality, and time to first touch.

11. What is the return on our overall investment in marketing and sales? There are many ways to look at ROI, including by analyzing CAC:LTV. Is your business getting an acceptable return on every dollar that is being spent on marketing?

If you need help with marketing online or building intelligent funnels to generate leads, convert sales and create raving fans for your business, we can help. Simply click the "get a quote" button below and then schedule a 30-minute strategy session so we can give you a blueprint for being successful online based on our experience of "what's working now" in the world of online marketing and advertising.