HQQA039 If you could pick only one non-financial metric to measure the success of the business, what would it be?

If you could pick only one non-financial metric to measure the success of the business, what would it be? – Don’t get rattled, think!

Here’s what they mean…

This isn’t a silly question. This is a “thinking man’s question”. Read it again, this time, in deep thought, go! “If you could pick only one non-financial metric to measure the success of the business, what would it be?”

How your response to this question can be telling. Revenues and profits are a great, fundamental way to measure the success of your start-up, so asking for financial metrics will not elicit anything insightful.

This question instead is more interesting. What you focus on for your non-financial metrics can be very revealing as it shows what do you care about. If you were to say the amount of PR you personally get, then you are an egotistical tosser ;). Answers which are customer-centric are safe. Depending on your business, you might pick something product related?

If you are a gaming company, you might think about time in app. If you are a direct to consumer brand, then it could be NPS.

The key point here is not the numbers, per se. It the story you are going to tell around that number; why did you pick it, how is it evolving, how staff act on that number etc.

If a question sounds a little tricky, it’s totally a test. Pause and think ‘why is she asking this?’ What does she want to hear? Don’t just let words fall out of your mouth. Remember you are selling.

What you need to say

“Without a doubt it is NPS. To have a high NPS requires us to do so many things right. And success is not one thing, it is 2,000 little things that you pay attention to and get right; those little things are the experience the customers have.

We could drive ourselves crazy thinking about each one of them, and tracking them, or we could just see how much a customer love us, or not, post hoc!

We constantly ask this question whenever we are not sure about the outcome of a course of action. “Will this increase our NPS or not? If it will do it. If not, well then we should focus on something else.

We give staff a lot of decision making freedom. The only justification they need to offer is “I thought this would drive NPS.”