6 mistakes setting commercial KPIs for your team

KPIs are meant to give direction, represent priorities and drive behaviour. In many companies however, KPIs are used to micromanage their teams and reports are used for windowdressing or wallpaper.

Here are six mistakes you can make as a Lean Business Leader setting KPIs for your marketing and/or sales teams:


Not Cascading

Your KPIs have 0 relevance to your companies goals or don’t even relate to your boss’s. Evenly bad: Sales and Marketing competing KPIs (#opportunities vs winrate).


Not Measurable

If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Meaningless. If you can’t measure you’re market share it’s a bad KPI.


Not visible at genba

KPIs are a tool for teams while doing their work. They need to have access. Don’t hide KPIs in finance system,


Not balancing leading and lagging KPIs

Leading KPIs tell you where you’re headed, lagging KPI’s are about impact you have made. Both can be relevant. Understand the difference.


Not showing how much and how

In the spirit of QDIP, balance your view on how much and how. # Leads as well as cost-per-lead. Both Organic Growth as well as Operating Margin Expansion.


Not actionable

There are things in this world you can control and things you can’t. Make sure to drive ownership of KPIs through selecting actionable metrics. Don’t track market growth as a KPI, track your market share.

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