One of the reasons why clients leave a business coach is because business coaching can be quite an intangible service. It’s not like a carpenter who has created a bookshelf. They build it and deliver it and everyone knows exactly what has been done. However, with business coaching it’s more about support and advice – including emotional support as well. It can be very difficult to pinpoint the exact successes if you don’t have the right measures in place. That’s why tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is vital if you want to increase your chances of client retention.
Tracking KPIs for your clients will help to prove just what’s been achieved. You can literally point to data and show them that since you’ve been working together they’ve had an increase in net profit of this much, or an increase in sales, or an increase in conversion rates. It could also be quality control, customer service or pretty much anything else.
The stats in themselves are very useful, but where the real power comes from is tying it back to when you onboard a client. When you first have that conversation and you find out what your client wants to achieve, it’s important to track the KPIs based on those objectives. Link the stats to the vision and the goals that you are helping them to service.
Tracking Goals
Having an initial conversation with a client where you discuss with them specific goals is so important. We need to visualise it before we can achieve it. Then you need to keep a track of all of the elements in relation to achieving this goal.
For example, if they told you they wanted to grow and launch five new product ranges, then their product creation effort is an obvious part of this to track. But you also need to track their quality control, because there’s no point in launching loads of new products if the quality isn’t very good. You also want to be tracking the strategy for getting it out there, and what the marketing and sales figures say. It needs to be everything along the line to success.
Alongside that, there are standard KPIs that you should track. These are things such as the financial aspects and sales figures, because virtually every business has those. From a finance perspective, you want to be looking at the turnover, the gross profit and the net profit, and from a sales perspective you want to look at the number of leads they’re getting in, where they’re getting them from, and the conversion rate of each of the sales stages.
In reality, there is so much you could dig into if you think it could be useful. You might want to know what the profit margin is on each of the deliverables of the different services and products. At what capacity are they running out?
As any business coach will know, solutions can come in a variety of ways. For example, let’s take a manufacturing company that wants to increase its profit margins. You could look simply at sales or finance. But you could also look at their operation hours. They might currently be working 9am to 6pm. By establishing an overnight team, they could double the amount of work that they get out the door without increasing overheads, except for salaries. Keeping track of things like that could open so many doors in terms of how to move forward.
If all of a sudden your client’s profit is skyrocketing because of an idea you shared, it would be a shame not to be able to prove that it came from working with you. If you don’t track the suggestions that you’re making to them via KPIs, it’s very easy for people to forget where the ideas came from.
It’s easy to track the basics, but taking the time to track KPIs that are pertinent to your client’s goal and vision, and tracking the actions and advice that you give to them, could transform the way that clients react to you. And it’s amazing proof of how you work when you’re chatting to potential new clients as well.
How to Track KPIs
Talking about how beneficial it is to track KPIs is all very well, and you are probably all on board with the idea. But how you go about tracking these KPIs is a whole other thing. You need to have a system in place to do this.
Knowing how vital this part of the client process is, we have made sure that hubbix is set up to support you with tracking KPIs. From logging all the questions you have asked your clients, to the proactive action plan you put in place, to what the results are, it’s all in the system. That means tracking these KPIs becomes a natural part of your client sessions and there’s no further laborious admin work to do after your client meetings.
If you’d like to explore how hubbix could support you with your client tracking, why not book in a demo and see for yourself? The people that are using hubbix are saving on average 40% of their time, and they’ve shared with us that they have a great deal more visibility of what is happening with clients. How could this help you?