How often have forecasts been missed due to inadequate time being spent scrutinising the underlying assumptions. Often it seems to me that forecasts are exercises in optimism and opinion, rather than the outcome of rigorous analysis.
For good forecasting outcomes, spend more time on the assumptions, and considering the real impact of your activities on customers and competitors, and less on generating nice looking spreadsheets.
The old chestnut Keep it Simple Stupid was never more appropriate.
As confidence and with it activity collapses around us, simplicity is becoming ever more valuable.
Simplicity is, however, anything but simple. Simplicity takes time , effort, and a sufficiently clear understanding of the matter, that its essence can be communicated clearly in a minimum of words.
As Oscar Wilde put it “I wrote you a long letter because I did not have time to write a short one”
Marketing is not just the spending of money on some sort of media, it involves the development of the businesses “face” to customers, the development and management of the whole experience of interacting with the brand, and the organisation, or in the case of non customers, the promise of what the experience will be like.
Therefore the engineers, accountants, truck drivers, laboratory assistants, and the security guard, as well as the CEO, and sales and marketing personnel, all have a marketing job to do.
Few CEO’s would consider that marketing awareness should be a job requirement of many past the sales and marketing personnel, but success comes to organisations that are focused on their customers, in everything they do.
Marketing needs to be part of your commercial DNA
In all businesses, the canary in the hole is deterioration in the cash position, and it is particularly important for small businesses to be sensitive to changes in their cash position as they have less “fat” to fall back on when things head for the bin.
The largest variable item in most non service industry businesses is inventory. The usual accounting view of inventory is that it is a current asset, as liquid as cash, and there is little incentive to actively manage inventory to the lowest possible level, as there would be if it was seen as a “partial liability”.
How much better to see inventory as a brick tied to the legs of a swimmer, until such time as it is actually sold. A metaphor like this may encourage a lessening of the weight, rather than accommodating a buildup greater than the immediate demand, usually in the name of manufacturing efficiency, that can lead to drowning.
In difficult times, it would be a mistake to either make light of the difficulties you face, or to exaggerate them.
Generally people look for leadership, and honesty is a fundamental component, so tell it like it is, people will understand, and be grateful, even if they do not like the message.