You Can’t Expect What You Don’t Inspect

What you don’t know can’t hurt you, so we’re told as kids. When we grow older, we quickly find out that not knowing about something can ruin our day before we can even say our first ‘Good Morning.’ As a small business person, you know the best way to avoid problems is to anticipate them ahead of time, which is why you track your results to stay ahead of the game.

But are you tracking the right results? 

You probably don’t lack available tools. There are enough analytical software packages out there in the market to fill a B&O Railroad car, and enough business ratios and equations to make a mathematician salivate. But to take advantage of them, you need to know exactly what they’re measuring, how that measurement is relevant to your particular business or the particular problem within your business and how they’re calculated. In other words, you need to inspect your tools the same way a pipe fitter might inspect his or her welding equipment and safety harness before starting a job. 

You also need to keep them up to date, because the tools you need and how you use them will change over time. For example, many business software packages are keen on you tracking your sales over time or tracking them by time period. While these figures may be important if you have an established business, they may not be as relevant if you’re forming a start-up.  If you plan on aggressively advertising your new business, tracking the return on marketing dollars may be more important. You’ll want to know if you’re generating more leads with your email campaign, texting or your appearances at local events. And as you grow, you’ll want to know what percentage of your sales are coming from new versus existing customers.

As any workman will tell you, having the right tools for job is critical. They’ll also tell you need to keep those tools in working order to make sure they’re still doing the job they’re supposed to. Tracking results and anticipating problems is why you have analytic software, like this one for your social media marketing dollars, but before you can ‘Expect’ you need to ‘Inspect.’