9 - Analysis is not your solution!

Lydia G. Miller, MBA

Welcome to the DAC Podcast! If you are listening, then I know you are an ambitious business owner who wants to grow her business and learn more about how business works. Thank you for joining me today!

DAC Happenings: If you are new around here, I wanted to let you know about a few things. First, if you aren’t following me on social media, please do! I mainly post on Instagram and on insta stories, so you can find me @dac_balance_llc. Also, please come and join our community! It is a group of female business owners who are looking to grow professionally and personally and are there to learn from each other. Feel free to join. You can join by going to my website at lydiagmiller.com and on the right hand side click ‘Join the DAC Community.’ We would love to have you!

Now let’s get into the content.

Today, we are talking about Analysis and how it is NOT the solution to the problems you are having in your business. When you are analyzing, know that analysis is the way that you find a solution, not the solution itself.

Many business owners can find themselves always analyzing, thinking about ‘what if’ but never actually working on something or implementing a solution to a problem. I can get like this. I love to plan and organize and sort through a problem, but I am not the best at implementing. If you know that about yourself, you can be more aware and fix the problem.

Don’t get me wrong, there are also businesses who need to do some analysis and really look at what they’re doing and decide if they are doing well or not instead of just going through the year and never changing anything.

I am hoping to share information that is for both groups today. If you are over analyzing, I hope to tell you what to analyze and when to stop and take action, and for someone who doesn’t analyze or doesn’t know how to analyze, then I hope to share what to analyze and what to do with those results.

First, let’s define analysis. Analysis is simply getting from raw data to information that you can use.

The good thing about living in the time that we are now, is that data is being collected and stored all the time. When you make a purchase, when you click on something, when you download something, it’s all being recorded and as a business owner, this is gold!

The format for data is it is collected, analyzed and then that produces the useful information that we need to focus our marketing and grow our business.

Now that we know what analysis is, let’s talk about what we need to analyze about our business internally. I have 6 things about our business that need to be analyzed. Here are the 6 areas we are going to talk about today. Objectives. Strategies. Company Performance. Resources. Corporate Culture. Mission & Vision.

First, our objectives. What is the goal of your business? Are you trying to, like we talked about in episode 8, be on the cutting edge of your industry, or are you trying to differentiate through one unique position and attract those types of customers? Does your business even have a goal? For those of you who don’t analyze, this is something to decide. What is the goal for your business? Not go under? Create a new special sauce and use that in your restaurant? Be a virtual bookkeeper have all online clients? After you decide this, for you over analyzers, stop! Take action on this and work on fulfilling that goal. You don’t need to come back to it every few days and decide if you still like it. Make a decision and move forward.

Second, we need to analyze our Strategies. A strategy is just a plan on how to reach a goal. This is the plan on how we are going to get something accomplished. If you are a runner and are wanting to run a marathon, there is a plan or a strategy on how you are going to build endurance to do this. If you are wanting to grow a social media following, you need to be on social media, be reaching out to others on social media and be posting content that would attract your ideal client every single day. We’ve already established the goal of our business in the last step, so after you do that, make content that an ideal client would appreciate and find helpful.

Third, we need to analyze our Company Performance. This is where it can get personal. How is your business really doing? Look at your financials (if you need help getting these together, I can help! Email me at [e-mail]). Did you make a profit last year? Did our services help somebody? Are we serving more people than we were last year? If your goal is to just keep the clients that you have and make them happy, are they happy with your services or product? I know this can be really hard to look at objectively because our business is so personal to us and an extension of ourselves in a lot of ways. We can think that a business failure is a direct reflection of our worth. It is not. It is not a reflection of our worth or our value as a human being. Looking at this honestly can help us in so many ways. It can help us see if something is working, and it can help us make a plan on how to get something not working to work.

Fourth, we need to analyze our resources. I did this a few months ago, I created a simple word document of all of the things that I had bought for my business. Book, programs, subscriptions, courses, free e-books, everything! An easy way to do this, if your bookkeeping is up to date, is to look at QuickBooks and go through your purchases to see what you purchased to use. This was eye opening! I had signed up for two email marketing programs. If you catch something like this, this would be a great time to un-subscribe to things you don’t need anymore. Since you know what the goal is for your business, let’s say you want to put videos on youtube of a tutorial. Maybe you need Camtasia, which helps capture things on your screen. Look at the goals you have created for your business, and make sure that every resource is helping reach that goal. If not, get rid of it. If you need something else, buy it.

Fifth, Look at your Corporate Culture. In this step, you look at the employees you have and on yourself as a leader. Are you leading well? What kind a culture are you trying to create? Are you trying to have an all work and no play environment? Are you trying to build team unity and friendships beyond the office? I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer here. You just have to know what you are trying to create and look and see if you are putting steps in place to create that culture. This is also where you need to evaluate people on your team. Are you being a good example and leader for them? Is everyone on your team at a place where they are performing their best and using their unique talents and abilities? If not, make some changes. If so, then move on to the next point.

The sixth and final thing you need to analyze is the Mission & Vision of your company. In episode 1 or 2, we talked about mission so I’ll let you go and listen to that when you’re done with this episode and I won’t go into too much detail, but is what you’re doing reflecting the mission and the vision of your company? Have you gotten off the rails and done something completely different? You need to look at this and your actions and make sure that each business decision fits through the mission. If an action isn’t fitting, either cut it or decide to broaden the mission. Neither way is right or wrong, just make a decision and stick with it.

Action Steps: Now for your action steps. Think about these 6 areas. Objectives. Strategies. Company Performance. Resources. Corporate Culture. Mission & Vision. If you are an over-analyzer, look at each area, make a decision and then take some action on what you’ve decided. If you don’t analyze, look at each area, and spend sometime this week evaluating your business. Let us know in the Facebook community what you are going to take action on and how your analysis helped your business.

If you are listening to this when it releases, I am about 1 weeks out from finishing another semester. I am taking economics and finance right now and am ready to move onto my summer classes and graduation in December.

I hope you heard something here today to help you focus in on what you should be doing in your business and have heard something that will help you move forward in your business this week.

Don’t forget, that I would love to work with you. I offer strategy sessions for business owners who are looking to grow, but need a second set of eyes on their business to help them see the big picture. If you are interested, please email me at [e-mail]

I hope you have a productive week.