Monday
Jun302008
Memory is a poor substitute for data
Monday, June 30, 2008 at 7:00AM
A good friend of mine counsels couples on how to handle their finances. His experience is that rarely, in fact almost never, do people accurately recall how much they spend on various things in the course of a month. If they think they spend $600 a week on groceries they probably spend $850. If they think $300 is an accurate figure for meals and entertainment it's probably something like $500.
Our memory will often lead us wherever we want to go. It's a willing accomplice in our self serving attempts to recast the facts more to our liking. The problem is that numbers don't lie. They can't. They might raise more questions than answers at times. But they won't mislead you. Numbers are just numbers. There is nothing either innocent or sinister about them. Facts are just facts. They reveal infomration. It's up to you to use it to your advantage.
In our quest to run our businesses better we should be on the lookout for good information at all times. Most businesses have an impression of who their customer is, but very few can back up that impression with a set of facts. We usually know how long it takes someone to reach a buying decision but very few of us have broken down the process and measured it to find out exactly where the critical decision point is made.
My point is this, you settle for anecdotes and gut feelings way more than you should. The same way you measure your finances you need to take stock of other areas of your business. Your customer service experience, your sales process, your employee development program all of these areas yield the potential for greater understanding and improvement if you'll just take the time to gather good information.
A good place to start is a process map. This is a diagram that explains how your business handles a particular scenario. For instance, in my business I have a process map that explains what happens from the time I meet someone at a networking event until the 30th day after their first invoice. This process covers networking, prospecting, selling, setting up new clients, logging in work to be done, delegating jobs to staff, reviewing the work, billing it, and following up to make sure everything is satisfactory.
Process maps take out all of the assumptions about how something is done and make you think about every step. They can be a good tool to help you start identifying where you can gather more information and where you may just be taking things for granted in your business. If you need some help putting one together give me a call. And don't forget to make it a great week!
Our memory will often lead us wherever we want to go. It's a willing accomplice in our self serving attempts to recast the facts more to our liking. The problem is that numbers don't lie. They can't. They might raise more questions than answers at times. But they won't mislead you. Numbers are just numbers. There is nothing either innocent or sinister about them. Facts are just facts. They reveal infomration. It's up to you to use it to your advantage.
In our quest to run our businesses better we should be on the lookout for good information at all times. Most businesses have an impression of who their customer is, but very few can back up that impression with a set of facts. We usually know how long it takes someone to reach a buying decision but very few of us have broken down the process and measured it to find out exactly where the critical decision point is made.
My point is this, you settle for anecdotes and gut feelings way more than you should. The same way you measure your finances you need to take stock of other areas of your business. Your customer service experience, your sales process, your employee development program all of these areas yield the potential for greater understanding and improvement if you'll just take the time to gather good information.
A good place to start is a process map. This is a diagram that explains how your business handles a particular scenario. For instance, in my business I have a process map that explains what happens from the time I meet someone at a networking event until the 30th day after their first invoice. This process covers networking, prospecting, selling, setting up new clients, logging in work to be done, delegating jobs to staff, reviewing the work, billing it, and following up to make sure everything is satisfactory.
Process maps take out all of the assumptions about how something is done and make you think about every step. They can be a good tool to help you start identifying where you can gather more information and where you may just be taking things for granted in your business. If you need some help putting one together give me a call. And don't forget to make it a great week!
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