A goal driver is something that contributes towards you achieving a goal.
For example, if your goal is to lose five kilos of body fat in six months you would focus on your nutrition and levels of activity. Your goal drivers would be:
- Daily calorie consumption
- Level of exercise
You would set targets and track the drivers every day. Focus on the goal drivers and you will achieve your goal.
This is fairly obvious, everyone know that if you eat less and move more you will lose weight. And, it may be enough for you to achieve your goal. But, you may need to go deeper to get the optimum long term result. You can do this by asking questions.
- What ultimately determines your calorie consumption?
- What determines you level of activity?
When you ask these questions answer spring to mind:
- The type of food we eat
- What we drink
- Our emotional relationship to food and drink
If you change the type of food you eat and adjust your relationship to food, you will consume fewer calories without feeling like you are losing anything. You may even get more enjoyment from food and drink more.
What determines your levels of exercise?
- The type of exercise you do
- Your attitude to exercise
I took some advice from a personal trainer recently which I found interesting – he introduced to strength and conditioning training. I thought it was clever because it addresses the reason why people put on fat.
Around 30 years old we all start to lose lean tissue, which is what burns calories. So, part of my plan was to build lean tissue by using weights. Not only did I lose weight, I felt stronger and had more energy.
My goal drivers are how many times I train a week and how much weight I can lift doing the various exercises.
If your goal is to make a certain level of profit, focus on the things that drive profit. Profit is the difference between sales and costs, so focus on sales and costs drivers.
These are different for different businesses but for a restaurant sales drivers are things like:
- Your prices
- Number of customers
- Frequency of visit
- Average order
These drivers all work together so if you can make small improvements in them all your sales will rise massively.
Costs drivers for people are things like:
- Efficiency of staff
- Sick days taken
- Staff turnover
We’ve worked with accountants for many years helping them improve profits from bookkeeping. These firms wanted to offer fixed prices because that what clients really want. So, the question was “how do you ensure you make a profit from a fixed price when you don’t know how long it will take?”
The answer was to focus on the transactions – how many were there in the job and how many could be processes in an hour?
We ran time and motion studies and found the average transaction rate of a good bookkeeper was 60 transactions per hour. The worst was 20 an hour and the best was 300 an hour.
When we looked deeper we discovered the transaction rate was ultimately determined by the quality of the paperwork. So, we developed the Small Business Handbook and paperwork monitoring systems.
Goal drivers can help you find answers and breakthroughs in your business.
