A bit of what concerns me about society, our economy, is that this topic isn’t FAR more discussed.
HOW you explain the importance of information to a company is actually really simple, in my experience. You SHOW how information will impact the business.
I simply do this…
And then I ask…
What caused what happened at the first arrow?
What happened where the second arrow is pointing?
Overwhelmingly most of the time, companies have no answers.
I get dumbfounded looks.
And in turn, I can be a bit of a jerk… talking to the founder or executives of startups and companies, “what do you mean you don’t know?? How can you make any ethical or informed decisions about the business when all you can say to that is you don’t know?!?”
Too many consultants, articles, advisors, and even employees, get bogged down in trying to explain to a company the value of research, customer discovery, competitive analysis, interviews, surveys, etc. What you’re understandably asking is how we make companies appreciate why all that stuff matters.
The problem with focusing on things to do or investments that would have to be made to get the information, is that people naturally think, “what is the ROI of this budget you’re asking for to do that stuff?” Rather, you explain it by challenging the ignorance that already exists, in a way that hits the bottom line for the business.
See it?
“So… whatever happened at the first arrow, more than doubled attention on what we’re doing and an opportunity to capitalize on it. But you don’t know why, or care why, how, or how to repeat it?!?”
“And whatever happened to cause everything to fall through the floor, doesn’t matter to know.”
“Damn…. okay… good luck!”
My work is mostly with startups and investors so I don’t have a quick take on how to easily do that for Companies, but the approach is the same: Google Analytics for Startups —- Should take you about an hour to put all that in place. And there should be no excuse not to. If only so you can take the data to the company and ask, “what happened?”
Aye!
I’d like to add:
Understanding > Knowledge > Information > Data
While your example seems like it leans to the right, what I really think you were wanting to emphasize is to the left 🙂 That is, the value – the real make-a-difference value – comes from Understanding. Yes, it stands on the shoulders of the three others. None the less, it’s The Difference-Maker.
Very much so agree! My brief post stems from the fact that I tend to rarely write briefly LOL
Given what has transpired the last few weeks, and with all these people newly or increasingly online, the gap in knowing the data is readily available has become glaring.
I leaned right on purpose because, like you and so many of us, we’re on the left, and I’m getting disappointed in society hearing from so many businesses that aren’t even helping themselves, or who don’t have fundamental answers to questions that should be readily answered.
Damn good article Paul. Thanks for sharing. I’m re-posted and given direction to each of the companies I mentor to read this article. We appreciate your support of the Startup eco-system here in Austin.
Thanks for that Gary Forni, this is really just a “for cryin out loud, at least do this” article because so many of us could help entrepreneurs so much more if the fundamentals are just there, in place, before we get asked to help. No startup should be doing anything without all this stuff (free) at least turned on so that when people get involved, they aren’t working from speculation.