A business owner’s fundamental role is to grow a business to increase revenue, profits and wealth. In order to do this you need measure and control performance. benchmarking is the process of comparing your key financial and operational results against industry, peers, and then your own past performance to measure improvement or as an early detection of potential issues. The outward appearance of businesses in various industries may be dramatically different and the various ratios and metrics may have different names but the essence of identifying and measuring key performance indicators is identical whether it be sales per employee, gross margin percentage, net margin percentage, SGA as a percentage of sales, ROI, ROA, ROE or ROC. The critical issue is that we understand the key drivers of the business and how to measure them.
In our Peer benchmarking ReviewTM you will collaborate with 10-12 owners of non-competitive businesses from your industry to compare metrics, learn best practices, and develop specific plans to measurably improve your financial results. Each group typically meet twice a year. The founder of peer benchmarking, Ron Sturgeon, attributes most of his business success to this dynamic process he participated in for over 10 years. Of the entrepreneurs who participated in his group it was no coincidence that some of them became largest operators in the industry. Not one of the original owners dropped out in the decade plus that the group existed and all remain great business associates and friends still today.
In a typical peer benchmarking reviewTM, you and your peers will write your metrics on a white board (every peer signs a confidentiality agreement), and then analyze them. Someone in the group will have a metric that shows more income per employee or per square foot indicating their business is doing something better that than the rest of the group. That person will then share with you how this superior performance was achieved giving you incredible insight and understanding of the critical issues of success. Another peer in the group may have lower operating expenses as a percentage of sales than everyone else; he or she will discuss the strategies and tools used to achieve these results. Our peer review dashboardTM greatly enhances this process and heightens the focus of the group meetings. The peer benchmarking reviewTM then will analyze the strategies and plans of each peer to grow their business and bottom line profits. Our growth matrix optimizerTM is another exceptional enabling tool used by peers to measure and the complexity and impact of implementing and executing these strategies. You then leave with toolset of strategies, metrics to grow your business and measure your progress and performance our benchmarking path forwardTM
