What’s a Measure of Success? 10 Ways to Measure Success

A measure of success is a standard by which a person or entity assesses whether or not they’ve achieved their goals. There’s no single true measure of success, and successful people use a variety of benchmarks to evaluate their personal and professional achievements.

While some measures of success are more common than others, all of them are at least somewhat subjective or relative. For example, even the highest-earning businesses might have excessive employee turnover, overworked executives, and a stifling company culture. Some might characterize such a business as a success (due to its high earning potential) while others may say it doesn’t meet their personal measure of success (due to its inability to foster a positive work environment).

How you measure success ultimately comes down to how you define your primary business goals. While you should set goals in line with the company’s overall priorities, your measure of success should make sense to you on a holistic basis as well as on a personal level. Furthermore, you can measure success by multiple metrics—for instance, making record profits and ensuring your employees love coming to work are not mutually exclusive goals.

There are at least two broader ways to measure success: qualitatively and quantitatively. You measure success qualitatively by looking at overarching trends within your business that might be hard to measure in precise numbers. In contrast, measuring success quantitatively means looking at specific metrics, data points, and the like to determine how well you’re meeting your predefined goals.

It’s possible to take factors other than hard numbers into consideration when deciding whether your company has achieved success. Here are five common standards by which to measure success in a more qualitative, rather than quantitative, way:

1. 1. Creativity level: Set wide-angle goals around your company’s ability to innovate and create. Ask yourself if your business churns out a constant stream of new products and initiatives. Creativity might be hard to quantify, but you’ll know intuitively whether your organization has obtained the level of innovation you want.
2. 2. Customer satisfaction: Generating a positive customer experience is a sign your company is working toward success. Any successful company, by necessity, has a satisfied customer base that will regularly buy its goods and services. Consider using more precise metrics like an NPS (Net Promoter Score) to see how likely it is that satisfied customers will recommend your company to friends and family online.
3. 3. Efficiency: Work on creating an ironclad project management strategy to obtain success through efficiency. The more readily and quickly your company completes its objectives, the more likely you are to feel satisfied with your business overall.
4. 4. Employee satisfaction: Use positive reinforcement in your performance management style, which can improve the experiences of your team members. Similarly, if you’re working as an employee, ask yourself what it would mean to be successful at your specific job with your unique personality. Company success should not be mutually exclusive with a good work-life balance and positive company culture for employees.
5. 5. Personal satisfaction: Whether you’re a business leader or just showed up for your day of hard work as an employee, measuring how you feel about your own success can provide a good barometer of how you feel about the success of your company overall. If everyone (or nearly everyone) at a company feels successful, it’s a good sign the company as a whole is successful, too.

If you want to use concrete metrics to help you define your achievements, try using measures that rely on hard data. Here are five quantitative measures of success:

1. 1. Customer retention: Look at your sales data and see how many customers you’re retaining to measure the success of your business. This metric specifically works well for companies that offer subscription services or online accounts, given business owners can look at precise data about all their old and new customers.
2. 2. Key performance indicators (KPIs): Choose a desired outcome you can measure in a quantifiable way to create a key performance indicator. For example, look at the literal time you or your employees spend performing tasks to measure productivity in a concrete way.
3. 3. Market share: Determine how much of the market your business has a share of to measure its success. Devise strategies to increase that share through innovation, productivity, and company acquisition.
4. 4. Profitability: Perhaps one of the most common definitions of success in business is profitability. Look at how much revenue your company brings in and, more specifically, how much it has left over after covering all necessary costs. Alongside profitability, you can also keep an eye on your return on investment (ROI).
5. 5. Turnover rate: While you might have a harder time getting a precise read on your employees’ happiness at work, you can see how many workers have come and gone over a given period. Aim for low employee churn and high employee job satisfaction.

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