Last week Rachel and I bought a new(ish) car and drove it back from Georgia to New York. As a result, I spent quite a bit of time looking at the dashboard and it got me thinking about its design. The point of a dashboard is to give the driver instant, relevant information about the car’s performance. So in this case, which factors proved most important?

It is clear initially that the car’s speed and revs are viewed by most car companies as most critical  in the short term and as a result are big and obvious. Next you have the more medium term statistics that give you a better idea of performance over time, like fuel and engine temperature. There is a lot of thought that goes into the way a dashboard is designed and created to ensure the car’s operator has the best data in front of him by which to make critical operating decisions.

So, how much dynamic data do you have about your practice?

A trend we see in our field is that a lot of practices sacrifice potential growth by making decisions based on emotion rather than salient statistics. The best run practices create a dashboard similar in principle to what car manufacturers have perfected over 100 years.

5 Tips to Create Your Practice Dashboard

1. Schedule time to work out the information is most important for you to know. This will not get done without you committing time. Plan who will design the dashboard and who will update it. If it is an employee you will need to have a checklist in your operations manual for a repeatable system.

2. Work out where your statistics will drawn from. What statistics are your accounting and checkout software capable of delivering? What reports can be used? Make sure your statistics are easy to generate consistently. How will they be presented? A custom excel spreadsheet is a cheap and easy way to present statistics.

3. Make it easy. Dollars and cents can be the easiest to measure, but often figures that are showed in percentages can be easier to digest consistently. For revenue you could look % towards goal or % +/- this time last year.

4. Produce the optimal  statistics. Different statistics will be more relevant for businesses at different stages, make sure your information aids your decision making. i.e. When investing in commercial space, occupancy % can be really great to see what % of your physical capacity you are operating at. Once you are near capacity, then something like retail ratio can be more relevant. Your retail ratio is the percentage of total revenue made up from product sales.

5. Don’t go it alone. Getting consistent data from your practice could not be more critical for your future success, so treat it with the respect it deserves. If you are ‘not a numbers person’ it is even more critical to get help from someone who is. In our teleseminar training and personalized coaching, we provide sample pre-made dashboard for you.

To drive your car safely and efficiently, car makers have made it easy for drivers to make the right decisions. How easy are your making it for yourself to make the right decisions for your practice?