The enormous amounts of data we generate for the platforms we use is an example of soft data. Weather it is Google, Apple, or just shorts on insta, all of these remember and refine your behavioural patterns in what's called as fingerprinting. That means, they already know you better than you or your closest people do. To contrast, a survey would be an example of hard data.

Now, weather we like it or not, this is a reality we exist in. Can you imagine what would happen to your business if you had access to such detailed and organic data for yourself as a business owner, your employees and your customers?

We may not be able to create platforms to reach this scale, but the good news is that we don't need to at all. What we can do instead is to find out those key metrics that can be obviously & easily derived. These are usually the best measures of health & growth.

For example, an automatic score for your employees based on consistency of customer satisfaction will help you evaluate them much better than just traditional performance metrics like attendance, etc.

Similarly, the number of times a client has returned is a much better indication of success than just how many clients you have.

In fact, I just successfully used a measurement system that resulted in a lot of clarity for my teammate. We simply listed out every single task they were responsible for & marked them with one of the following:

1. Not happening consistently

2. Happening with minimal instruction

3. Happening consistently

4. Can take complexity

5. Volunteers for more, without disturbing existing work

Score starts from 0-4. Even though they got a 30%, we both went away happier and clearer.

Cheers!