Before the Thanksgiving break, I did a free consultation with a prospective client (you can get yourself one too just by asking!). We talked about where the business has been and where he thinks it should be going. The problem we identified was that much of his information was feeling-based and not fact-based. I can hear the frequent readers of this screed preparing for yet another rant on the value of data, so let me surprise you a little today.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The hardest thing in business is seeing over the horizon. Oftentimes we need to shut our eyes and project ourselves forward in time, carried on the magic carpet woven from what we know so far and our own intuition. The reason is that in today’s business climate the future is often very different from the past and the analytics that reflect past behaviors have to be projected forward in the context of what might be the future environment. The more ambiguity the future holds for your business the greater the reliance on your own gut.
The issue for this business is that the leadership team was either young or inexperienced in business (they are scientists, mostly) or both. That’s why it seemed as if bringing in experience and intuition (that would be yours truly) made sense. You might not be in that situation but you might be feeling uneasy about your firm’s future direction even as you act in accordance with all the business measures you have in place.
Please don’t mishear me. If you have any sort of digital presence (website, social, email, etc) and aren’t using your analytics to inform you about traffic and how users are engaging with you, you’re not doing your job. If you don’t know or understand those things, find someone who does. If you can close your eyes and feel your typical customer, that’s fantastic, but if the reality of your data doesn’t match your feelings, you need to try again. You can’t let run a business making feeling-based decisions alone. Don’t over-think, but don’t under-inform. OK?
Consult Keith 