Greg's Right FIT #481

Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . sometime next week. 

In this issue: 

- Thoughts on Presenting
- Being Human
- Random Stuff

Thoughts on Presenting

• Beginnings and endings stick out. If you're in a rush, spend a minute thinking about how you want to start and how you want to end. The listener tends to recall start and stop.
• Work from an outline. The skills your elementary school teachers drilled during composition apply to presentations. Outline first. Before you present, share the outline with the listener. Ask if there is anything else before starting. (Tip: there usually is. Don't be surprised if it goes a new direction.)
• As with all good stories that have a beginning and an end, there are markers along the way to let the listener know progress is being made. Plan your markers and have some fun with them. It's ok to be lightly entertaining.
• Practice is important, but reviewing your performance is where you'll make the most improvement. Record yourself if possible. Plan on three reviews. The first gets you used to hearing yourself. In the second you'll hear how well you presented the content. By the third listen, you'll hear your audience. That's where the good stuff is. 

Being Human - Mapping

“Maps schematize the real world in that they are two-dimensional, they omit information, they regularize, they use inconsistent scale and perspective, and they exaggerate, fantasize, and carry messages” – Barbara Tversky.

Mapping

It's helpful to have maps. Humans are good at mapping. The experts will tell you that our maps tend to be either top down, or first person in nature. I keep one in mind when talking to businesses about growth. 

It helps me ID areas where I might be of assistance. 

I know, it's so simple, right?!?

It is. Let me run through each scribble from top to bottom.

At the top, you have customers. Existing customers plus new customers (which come from leads, and we can calculate an effectiveness we call the conversion rate).

Each year, a percentage of these customers do business with you. That’s your retention rate.

Each year, those transactions have an average value. That’s your transaction size.

Each year, your company does a certain number of transactions with those customers.

That gives you total revenue.

Subtract your fixed and variable costs, and get your gross profit.

That’s simple, right?

There’s one more expense that comes with growing, and we’ll call that your growth expense. It's in the costs section, but I don't talk about that until we've decided where we're going to focus.

I know your business is more complicated than this, but in my mind, this is the process you go through to get a profit.

With this map in mind, I get to listen to the issues being discussed. Trying to hear what we need "more" of or "less" of, then imagining which levers will get them there. 

You have maps in your company too. Each of your people have an idea of what goes on in your company, and their role in it. It's not a bad idea to get those maps out and on paper. Someday, when you need more or less of something it will come in handy!

Random Stuff

“Spring is sooner recognized by plants than by men."
–  old proverb

Basketball again? she said. 

It's that time of year. Spring officially starts today and every spring it's time for the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. My alma mater, Creighton, made it to the tournament and won their first game. Very exciting. For me. For my lovely bride, not as much. I tend to get sucked into every narrative and watch an unhealthy number of games. I have friends that do the same. Yesterday I may have reacted to over 200 messages. 

It's a lot. 

The good news for her is she has a birthday coming up. Every spring, another birthday. The tulips are coming up, the daffodils are poking through, and our last blizzard is probably past. (Yes. Blizzard. We had a bona fide whiteout on Wednesday. Tuesday was almost 70 degrees. It started raining around 4am, hailing at 5am, then 8 inches of wet snow came down. This one was mixed with dirt from a dust storm originating in Texas. Crazy weather.) 

The birthday day should have good weather. Not that she's limiting the celebration to a day. Yesterday was a facial and there's talk of a massage needing to happen. There's a bread class at the culinary college with her daughter-in-law this weekend, and a lunch with friends. I have gifts. One of which she's already received because it wasn't what I thought I was buying. (it's a story for another time. . .the pic of the gift is up top)

Her celebration stretches over days. Always has. 

I'm guessing it has nothing to do with my borderline obsessive basketball behavior each March.

That's just a coincidence, right? Has to be.