12.2.24 – SSI – Paul Boucherle
Having business health indicator gauges ensures you have warning signals and can take corrective actions before multiple systems degrade.
Would you ever take a long road trip in a vehicle without a fuel gauge? What if the instrument panel had no engine temperature gauge or no low oil indicator? Well, if you did, that road trip could take 20 years!
Now, think of that vehicle as your systems integration business. It has 30 people — your employees — onboard for the road trip. Are you feeling confident as the driver?
If you’re feeling good about your chances of a safe journey, it’s possible that you won’t feel that way soon — especially if your passengers pull that stop rope and ask to get off!
Key Business Health Indicator Gauges
Having key business health indicator gauges ensures you have early warning signals and can take corrective actions before multiple systems degrade to the point of partial or total vehicular failure.
Ask yourself some questions:
- What business indicator gauges do you have while running your business on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis? Do you use them with solid discipline?
- Do your department managers have specialized gauges to monitor their team’s performance metrics?
- When driving your business vehicle, how often do you scan your gauges for real-time feedback?
I know that, when you’re on a long journey, you can become distracted. You may only check your gauges at the beginning of the journey — for example, in January. Then, you might get a surprise in June when a light illuminates on your dashboard. That’s what’s called “an OMG moment.”
Advice to Make 2025 More Profitable
Let me share some advice to make 2025 less stressful and more profitable for your business.
- Identify the key metrics of your security integration or dealer business. Ensure that your “vehicle” delivers reliable, profitable “transportation” for you, your passengers and your customers. Don’t fall victim to paralysis by analysis. Pick one or two department metrics to start. Share progress during team meetings.
- Lean into the industry associations to which you belong — for example, SIA, ESA, PSA Security Network or perhaps com. They will help you to identify which business metrics are key to running and eventually selling your business.
- Set dates and times for how often your department managers and you check those gauges, discuss them and, if necessary, determine corrective action. Do it monthly at a minimum; weekly is optimal.
- Determine how quickly business data is captured and available to managers to analyze. If your business systems are slow, manual and challenging to evaluate, mining data will be tedious and time-consuming. If that’s the case, trust me: Your managers will find workarounds that will be less accurate.
- Emphasize accurate and timely capture of sales, technician, service and marketing data. Evaluate how data is captured and delivered. If it takes more time than it’s worth, forget about it!
- Your first step toward emerging technologies might be pivoting toward adopting digitalization, while retiring manual, inefficient business processes.
A Crucial Gauge
Let’s look at an often overlooked, but crucial, gauge — namely, your people gauge. If you can’t read that gauge, you’re in trouble. Do you have the right people in the right seats on your vehicle? If you’re not sure, what follows are my suggestions.
- If you want to “walk your talk” regarding company culture, you must understand how your people communicate and process communication. Information is power. Utilize DiSC gauges.
- DiSC assessments allow managers to better communicate with their team members. This tool also provides guidelines on how to “coach up” their team, one on one, for optimum performance and career development. We deliver and use DiSC assessments with every client before we begin our work. They’re tactical, practical and affordable.
- These days, good talent is hard to find and expensive to acquire. Remember: People leave managers, not companies.
Business gauges are only as effective as your growth plan and your managers’ willingness to be disciplined, committed and accountable.
Put the pedal to the metal! Have a great holiday and a profitable 2025!
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About the Author
Paul Boucherle, SSI Contributor
Paul C. Boucherle, Certified Protection Professional (CPP) and Certified Sherpa Coach (CSC), is Security Sales & Integration’s “Business Fitness” columnist. A principal of Matterhorn Consulting, he has more than 30 years of diverse security and safety industry experience including UL central station operations, risk-vulnerability assessments, strategic security program design and management of industry convergence challenges. Boucherle has successfully guided top-tier companies in achieving enhanced ROI resulting from improved sales and operational management techniques. He is a charismatic speaker and educator on a wide range of critical topics relating to the security industry of today and an accomplished corporate strategist and marketer whose vision and expertise in business performance have driven notable enterprise growth in the security industry sector.