The post How The Alternative Board’s Blueprint Drives Strategy, Clarity and Success – Brian Alford Case Study appeared first on The Alternative Board.

This white paper unpacks the core principles behind Blueprint, offering a practical guide to aligning your team, tracking the numbers that really matter, and building momentum towards long-term goals. Whether you’re looking to grow, streamline operations, or map out your eventual exit, these insights will help you shift from working in your business to working on it with more confidence and control.

Discover a proven, AI-powered approach to strategic planning and execution that’s already transforming businesses across industries, here in Australia and around the world.

Click here to download the white paper today and see how Business Builder’s Blueprint can help you create a clear, actionable roadmap for success.

The post Fuel Strategic Growth with a Business Builder’s Blueprint for Success appeared first on The Alternative Board.

Are you tracking Key Performance Indicators for your business?

Why are Key Performance Indicators important? How can Key Performance Indicators grow my business?

There are no standard Key Performance Indicators to measure company performance. By setting measurable company goals, you can effectively use Key Performance Indicators to help grow your business strategically.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are metrics that provide a quantitative measurement of your company’s performance over time.

They should act as a “flash” report, giving you a quick understanding of how your business is progressing, or can be expected to perform in the near future.

The main idea is to have a few key measurements that help you track critical components of your business. Financial statements just aren’t enough. KPIs should be more “big picture,” taking into consideration your Personal Vision and the company’s goals.

A secondary benefit is to help educate your Board members about critical processes and results in your company.

The more they know about your business, the better advisors they can be to you. For this reason, KPIs should be “normalised,” which means expressing them in a way that is easily understood. For instance, if your finance company allows you a credit line based on 80% of the number and age of units in inventory, you would want to express this as “My credit line is 94.8% of the allowable limit,” as opposed to “My line is at $347,000 on a current inventory value of $458,000” which is difficult to interpret in terms of performance.

There are no “standard” KPIs.

Every company has a different driving force, so KPIs will vary from one to another. Sales and profits are numbers every business tracks, but they only tell you the results of your efforts. Because dollars are a universal method of measurement, it’s tempting to use them for KPIs. However, a KPI should be measured against something (e.g., sales against same month last year and against budget). A number is just data, but ratios provide information about how your business is performing in reality compared to expectations.

You may also track industry-related data, such as oil prices, but remember that industry indicators don’t measure your performance.

Your metrics should illustrate how you are doing, not how your industry is doing.

By way of example, here is some “KPI Logic” from members of our Board:

• I want to bring on “x” partners in the next three years. Each partner must be supported by $”y” revenue, and my average new account is $”z” annually. My KPI is the number of new accounts opened in the last month and for the year to date.
• If we have more than an “x” week backlog, we begin to miss deadlines due to over commitment, but less than “y” weeks results in under utilised personnel. My KPI is the number of weeks of backlog against the over/under optimum range.
• We are growing rapidly, and it is difficult to track the productivity of new hires. My KPI is dollars of revenue per field technician.

Once you start using KPIs, you’ll be able to track your company’s performance over time in a way that can be easily understood by your management team, as well as employees, Board members, potential partners, etc. Just remember, nothing is forever – if you find that a KPI is not giving you actionable information or is no longer relevant, get rid of it.

This Key Performance Indicator whitepaper will:

• Define key performance indicators and discuss why they are important.
• Discuss how KPIs can help grow your business.
• Set guidelines for what KPIs you should track based on your company’s goals.

[/two_thirds]

The post Why KPIs Are Important appeared first on The Alternative Board.

You know what you want in life; how is your business going to get you there?

Studies show you are 33% more likely to achieve your goals just by writing them down.

Think back to when you first started your business. Or, better yet, when you first conceived the idea for your business. You had a great vision about what your business would mean – to you, your family, to your customers and perhaps to the community.

Are you realising those dreams? Is your personal vision of success being fulfilled?

“A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder.” —Thomas Carlyle

One of the most difficult things for any of us to do is look out beyond our immediate horizon and imagine what can be. It is even harder to “paint that picture” in such vivid detail and bright colours in our “mind’s eye”, that it becomes a source of daily motivation and constant inspiration.

While there is an eternal desire to find what motives successful people, most are motivated by their own vision of success.

Some make great sacrifices to give the best to their kids, others to buy their first house, and we are moved by the stories of ordinary people facing enormous adversity. The common thread among these stories of determination is that people are strongly motivated by the clarity of their vision and purpose, but also the clarity of the route to achieving it.

Your Success Road Map

Do you have a written Personal Vision Statement? I would expect many readers would say they have a Personal Vision in their mind. The fact is that writing it down makes a very big difference in terms of whether you achieve your vision or not. Not having a written Personal Vision is like traveling without a map.

Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at Dominican University in California, did a study on goal-setting with 267 participants. She found that you are 33 percent more likely to achieve your goals just by writing them down. Her research also concludes that sharing your goals with a friend significantly helps with achievement. Why? Because you become accountable and committed to achieving your goals.

Your Vision of Success

The unique vision an individual business owner has may not include maximising profits or potential selling price. Their desires may involve such things as family benefits, image in the community, flexibility of time away from office, and many other items that are not profit-oriented. Scott Harrison was a successful nightclub promoter in New York City.

He had every material thing he wanted. But he felt unfulfilled. He decided to change everything and volunteered with Mercy Ships for two years bringing medical supplies to the world’s poorest.

He then used his Personal Vision to start “charity: water”. His vision is to ensure that every person on the planet has access to life’s most basic need – clean drinking water.

A Personal Vision Statement is the long range vision of what you want your life to be like. It will drive every decision, personal and professional. Your personal vision, is in fact, both the beginning and the desired end-state of your strategic plan for success.

In this whitepaper we will:

• Discuss what having a written Personal Vision should look like and how it will help you achieve your goals.
• Provide 6 considerations to developing your Personal Vision.
• Introduce how your Personal Vision will work with your Business Vision to get your business working for you, and not the other way around.

[/two_thirds]

The post How To Achieve Your Vision For Your Business appeared first on The Alternative Board.