May 14, 2020
ISSN# 1545-2646
The Power of Numbers
For the past couple of months numbers have been in our faces every morning, afternoon and night. These numbers were not the ones we wanted to focus on but they did need our attention. There will be many debates, investigations and time spent on the who, what, when, where, why, how come, how much etc. over the coming weeks. These too will produce many numbers. Unfortunately, depending on what is attempting to be accomplished, numbers can be presented or not presented to achieve a desired outcome or objective.
Additionally, during these past few weeks there has been a lot of attention on the internal cash flow numbers in your business. Numbers were the basis of the stimulus packages. Numbers drove decisions about laying off staff, retaining staff, furloughing staff, or closing up shop.
As part of the daily numbers there was time spent on educating the nation on the transfer of this virus from person to person. I recall a press conference where one of the members of the task force gave the multiplication of 1 person infecting 3 people, those three infecting 3 more people in turn those 9 people infecting just three more people and so on goes the spread of the virus resulting in world wide pandemic and economic shutdown. This model was used to illustrate that if we could isolate (stay home) from each other then the spread would eventually reduce and run out of carriers to spread forward.
It is now time to focus on our business numbers in a new light.
Using this same sort of model we need to look at how we get our brands out into the marketplace. It is basically the backbone of marketing using social media and the internet as the carrier to the marketplace. Your business exists and provides goods and services to a given area. Maybe it is locally or nationally and possibly internationally. You need to get people sharing your brand much like the sharing of the virus. No, we DO NOT cough or sneeze on or at each other. No, we don’t presently shake hands. YES, we continue to practice proper hygiene (wash those paws) and distancing (6 feet) for the time being, but we can still communicate both digitally and verbally.
As you roll out your 30/60/90 recovery plan for returning to business operations as they will now be defined, you are going to need to start up again. For some businesses like restaurants the nature of operations will be different. People will have a pent up demand to go out and eat and socialize but will be controlled by how that segment of our world reopens its doors. Distance between tables and entry ways are likely to be different. People will view each other differently, wondering who might still be contagious. The list goes on and will be variable based on where you are at and what you are doing. All of these changes are going to affect your business numbers.
For those of you who prior to going into the shutdown were already numbers junkies and have some solid benchmark and baseline data, you will simply be trending to your prior activity data. You will be able to make more timely judgement calls on returning staff and ordering materials etc. For those of you who were less focused on the forecast of numbers and future pipeline data, maybe this is your wake up call. I hope we do not have to experience another pandemic, but regardless of that global event, you need to know your numbers. Not just what happened but what is about to happen and what to plan for into the future to happen. By knowing your numbers you can make solid strategies based on data and not just your gut or hopes.
This week take some time to get your numbers in order. I hope you took some time over the past couple of shutdown weeks to polish up your finance numbers and can now get onto using them for key decision making strategies as we move forward.
Still floundering in your numbers? At JKL Associates we are not your accountant, your banker or even your CPA. We are about engaging you at your accountability level and being there along the path with you. Give your Promise Guide a call at (313) 527-7945 in Michigan or (407) 984-7246 in Florida. Numbers need to be your friend and your Promise Guide is there to keep the relationship with those numbers accountable.