Some people say that numbers are just for sales guys. I say to them that if you're in business then you're in sales. Cold, hard measurements are central to serious business growth and it's usually the winners that know this instinctively. Here's a game you can play that will show how focused you are on the numbers in your business. Play it now and keep playing it. Go into a room every three months with your team and play it. As games go, it will be either terrifying or reassuring. It depends how well you've got the numbers going for you.
Hope for the best plan for the worst
I learned this game many years ago from a man who was incredibly successful. He taught me to play What If? It's a scenario-planning activity. You're supposed to imagine all kinds of events, likely and unlikely, and think about how they would impact your business, your marketplace and your position in it.
For example,
• What if the price of oil went to $200 a barrel?
• What if the stock market went below 5,000?
• What if your industry started to die?
• What if a natural disaster caused your client base to shrink?
You can't avoid disaster but you can prepare for it
Take each scenario and spin it out to see how it would impact your business and whether your numbers stand up. Personally speaking, playing "What If?" could have saved me a lot of headaches and money. I might have asked: "What if my biggest client, got bought out by a company that decided to start paying their bills in 120 days instead of 30?" I might have realized that my cash flow situation wasn't robust enough and remedied it. I might have realized I was over-reliant on one client and remedied that.
Bury your head in the sand and bury your business
Play What If? and you might realize your numbers aren't as great as you think they are. If I'd had this knowledge ahead of time, if I had been more forward-thinking, I might not have gone to the brink of disaster with New England Printing. Frankly if it was not for some great suppliers, some wonderful employees and a very understanding wife, this scenario would have bankrupted me in the late 80's.
The 'Kick Our Own Butt' game
A variation on the "What If?" game is the Kick Our Own Butt game. Take your senior management team somewhere for half a day and say: "If we were a start-up company competing with us, knowing what we know, what would we do to kick our butt?". Because the truth is that someone out there is thinking that way, and they just might actually do it of you are not forward-thinking about the numbers!
If you take just one thing away from this post, this is it, PLAY WHAT IF!