30+ Key Performance Indicators to Watch Before You're Consistently Earning

This online business journey can get very discouraging especially if you're looking at the wrong key performance indicators for your business growth stage. You want results and you don't see them because they don't scream at you.

In the beginning, we all go thru the startup stage. This stage is marked with experimentation where you're trying to discover which key performance indicators most influence sales. You're trying to decide:

• Which traffic sources are most effective?
  
• Which offers are most effective?
  
• Which content topics do website visitors like seeing most?
• Are you targeting your audience the most effective?
  
• and there's other things you have to figure out before sales start rolling in regularly
  

I wanted to encourage you by letting you know that EVERYONE starts at ZERO in sales and EVERYONE has to watch other key performance indicators before sales become consistent. If you're constantly looking at the sales counts, you're focused on the wrong metrics for a startup, and it can be frustrating and discouraging.

When you start to look at other key performance indicators (which is a MUST in the beginning), you'll be able to get more excited because you can see growth in your business. This post will give you a few metrics you should watch in the startup phase before getting consistent sales. Watching these metrics will help you focus your efforts on what matters in the beginning and sales will be a byproduct.

Key Performance Indicators Before Consistent Sales

Typically, when you're starting out, you won't see money. It takes some time to see money. Instead, the metrics you have to look at are:

# of pageviews: 1st 10, 1st 20, 1st 30, and so on

# of posts

# of traffic sources

# of email subscribers

# of emails sent to email list

Amount of traffic from each source

Quality of traffic from each source

# of engaged communities you're involved in where your target audience is

Amount of community involvement

Amount of time spent on the business

Amount of time spent on lead generation

# of words written

# of people helped

# of prospects contacted

# of networking events attended

# of prospects in the funnel

# of products you offer

# of prospects followed up

# of business proposals submitted

# of cold emails sent out

# of cold calls to prospects

# of social media posts

# of social media followers contacted

# of product/service samples offered

Size of prospect list

# of services you offer

# of social shares: 1st share, 2nd share, and so on...

1st sale

1st $1

1st $10

1st $100

1st $1000

Key Performance Indicators after Consistent Sales

Then, after the preliminary metrics have been watched developed and tweaked over time, you'll get to a sweet spot where the right products and services marry the right audience, the right systems will trigger the right KPIs, your schedule will put emphasis on the right tasks, and you start to see sales.

You'll begin to see a pattern between the preliminary KPIs and sales that will be so clear that you'll know exactly what your most profitable tasks are in your day, and you'll be able to make a schedule that hones in on your most profitable tasks. Then, you'll be able to look at metrics like:

1st year with income monthly

1st $1000 month

1st $10000 month

Products/Services which get the most sales

How many A/B tests running

A/B Test Results

Underperforming products or services

# of problem areas in the customer journey

Frequency of sale

Conversion rate

Pricing effectiveness

1st repeat buyer

# of repeat buyers

Lifetime customer value

Customer acquisition cost

# of B2B ventures

and so on...

Final Remarks on the 30+ Key Performance Indicators to Watch Before You're Consistently Earning

Every business is different, but you should find a few of the key performance indicators I've listed will be very important and directly correlate to sales. Once you see the pattern of moving one lever that directly effects sales, then you simply continue to scale from there.

Now, it's Your Turn...

What key performance indicators directly effect the sales in your business? Have you found where a few of the KPIs listed above spike your sales numbers consistently? I'd love to hear from you.