Connecting the Dots in Your Business
November 3, 2010 by Cat Matson
By Cat Matson, Alito
My 5 year old successfully completed his first ‘join-the-dots’ drawing yesterday. By successful I mean, without any help. I thought he was just colouring in and he came back to me and showed me the dinasaur he’d just created by sequentially joining the numbered dots, 1 though to 18.
As I watched his excitement at having created a picture out of nothing, structure out of what was previously chaos, I realised that business isn’t that much different. Once we ‘connect the dots’ of our business we create a complete picture… a picture that provides clarity of focus. The problem is though, the dots in our business aren’t numbered. So, many business owners keep seeing only parts of the complete picture (or worse, just a random series of ‘bits’ that are somehow supposed to work together).
The challenge of course is to determine the right sequence of dots for your business. There are some fundamental ‘dots’ in every business; for example – brand, marketing, sales, product, service, and finances. But how do you know how they need to ‘line up’ in your business?
Business Model – The first determinant in how your dots need to connect is understanding your business model – how do you make money? Your business model is always the first dot, because it defines how the other ‘dots’ need to
come together.
‘The Plan’ – I see countless business owners spend far too long on the planning and strategising ‘dot’ without any ‘runs on the board’. Part of this is because they’re not in urgent need for the revenue (yet), and part of it is also based on a strong need to get it right. It is actually very hard to accurately plan without accurate data. So I encourage clients to get ‘selling’ sooner rather than later. From there you can correct and refine your plan.
Marketing Plan - This is another critical dot and is often more important that the business plan as it determines how fast you’ll generate revenue. That is, after all, the point of being in business isn’t it? To bring in revenue? Closely related to the marketing plan ‘dot’ is your sales strategy – how do you convert prospects to sales? You can have the best marketing in the world, and if you’re not selling anything it’s a waste of time.
Financial Management – This ‘dot’ actually guides all the other dots . You need to know whether you’re actually making a profit, what you’re margins are, how long your cash-reserves will last and ultimately whether your business model is, in actual fact, a ‘business’ model – or whether it’s a hobby. This ‘dot’ gets ignored for far too long all too often, and business owners wonder why they are ‘working so hard’ and not making any financial progress.
Of course, within each of these ‘dots’ are more ‘dots’ that need to be appropriately organised for any particular business.
The key insight here is, that unlike my son’s join-the-dots dinasaur, the same set of dots need to be sequenced differently for each business. There’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ join-the-dots pro-forma in some imaginary business rule book .
The only way to figure out the right pattern for your business is with informed insight and experience – yours and others.
Happy drawing 
MORE GREAT POSTS BY CAT MATSON
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Cat Matson - AlitoCat Matson ignites the performance of small business owners, their teams and ultimately their businesses through a range of robust mentoring, coaching and education programs. She is a strong advocate for practical, pithy and ‘real’ business advice and loathes the ‘one-size-fits-all’, ‘you-too-can-be-widely-successful-if-you-just-follow-OUR-system’ approach taken by many ’so-called’ business experts. Cat runs Alito with her husband Keith who provides synergistic and smart accounting expertise to their clients who enjoy having streamlined business advice across all key areas. When not working, Cat enjoys spending time with her two young boys and reading interesting business books and biographies.
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I love your analogy Cat of joining the dots ~ If only it were as simple as following a set route from 1-18 at which time the treasure is revealed
What a point:
“You can have the best marketing in the world, and if you’re not selling anything it’s a waste of time… how do you convert prospects to sales?”
That conversion in the end, ‘is’ the business -
You have to have a product or service that sparkles with delight –
Its like charisma…
Where’s my magic wand gone?
Thanks Linda … and yes, if only it was as ‘simple’ as following the steps.
Having said that, if you do have the ‘steps’ lined up correctly, it does become ‘simpler’ … not necessarily ‘easy’, but certainly simpler.
You know what works in your business … you know the sequence of steps that generate results for Journey Jottings … I know that from our conversations. However many business owners don’t … and instead they lose a lot of time, and energy, in random motion … hoping ‘something’ will work and wondering why they’re so tired for so little result.
And yes, the key question is, how do you make sales … the rest is ‘stuff’ that supports the end result.
As for that magic wand … it’s not far out of reach, you weave magic into your business all the time … it must be under that pile of orders you have