I was watching the Six Nations rugby international between France and Wales last night. At half time, France were winning 20-0. The commentators pulled up the traditional statistics, showing possession, territory, line-outs won and lost, and so on. Looking at these statistics, there was very little between the two teams, and yet the most important facts, the score, suggested that France were doing something very different to Wales.

Talking this over at half time, the difference seemed to come down to two points, France had had two lucky breaks, and seemed to be passing the ball out of the tackle more than Wales. And yet neither of these were included in the statistics shown on TV.

If lucky breaks can change the result of a game, then they should be counted and analysed. Do lucky breaks just happen? Or can a team prepare and train to spot them and take advantage of them?

In business, do we look at the statistics that really tell us what is going on? The amount of cash in the bank, or profit, are easy to measure and give us one indication of how we are doing, but they do not explain why the result is what it is, or whether it is better or worse than reasonably expected.

Whether as a Finance Director, or the coach of a national rugby team, I always look for the information and data that tells me what is really going on. Traditional statistics tell one story, but is it the most useful one?

There are statistics and lies. Can a single number ever tell the whole story?

I appeared on BBC Radio Coventry and Warwickshire this morning, to give my views.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0062shx/Annie_Othen_28_01_2010/

I start to talk about an hour and 20 minuites into the programme…

None of us knows what is going to happen in the future. And yet we are constantly making decisions that are based on what we think is going to happen in the future.

I was talking to a client today about how they should structure their companies (they operate a charity and a trading company). The answer lies in what they want to achieve, and to work backwards from there. The answer may be wrong, but the premise they base the decision on will be right.

When faced with a difficult decision, I learnt a long time ago that the best way of deciding was to toss a coin, having decided what to do if the coin lands heads up (it works best if there are only two possible solutions!). The hard bit is to listen to the little voice in your head that tells you whether you are glad, or sorry, with the result. Rather than go with the coin, always trust your gut reaction to the result.

This would suggest that we know what to do all along; it’s just that too often other factors crowd our thinking, making decisions harder to reach.

Even in business, unless there are compelling reasons to take one course of action over another, there seems to be a lot of sense in going back to the reasons why you are in business, remembering what you want to achieve, and start from there.

If there is one radio show guaranteed to make me change channels, it’s the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2. Not because I have anything against Jeremy, it’s because, generally, the views of the public aired in response to the issues raised infuriate me. A couple of days ago, Jeremy conducted an excellent interview with a BBC correspondent about the Afghanistan non-election – a well informed, concise, detailed explanation of the issues. This was then ruined (for me) by uninformed points of view that added little or nothing.

Much has been written about the “demise” of the Birmingham Post, and the genuine concern at what will happen to the journalists who are losing their jobs. I sincerely hope that those skilled at writing will find new employment, albeit in a different market. I would far rather read, or listen, to someone who knows their subject and can present it well, than someone who writes and broadcasts just because they can.

The proliferation of Blogs, and the ability for anyone to write when, and on whatever subject they choose, has been cited as the end of quality reporting. I would disagree. I have more faith in readers and listeners exercising their choice to read and listen to what they like, and to switch off what they don’t like.

I also believe that there is a duty for those who know what is going on to share their knowledge and expertise.

As anticipated, my last blog about a simple web site related topic like the conversion rate between visitors to your web site and the number of potential customers engaging with you (for example by completing a contact form) created quite a bit of correspondence.

The vast majority of comments emphasised complex and (to be fair) quite interesting ideas about how to get the best out of your website. But I felt they missed the point. Most businesses are run by hard working individuals who have not got time to understand and implement subtle marketing ploys.

Which brings me to the question of how you eat an elephant. The answer is, of course, a mouthful at a time. To try and take too big a bite out of a problem leaves you with bad indigestion.

You need a website for two reasons, to increase your brand awareness, and to generate sales, and not necessarily both at the same time. Whatever tactics you use to achieve your goal need to be SMART (Google this if you can’t remember the acronym!).

I believe that life is complicated enough without making it harder than it needs to be.

The next time you want to make your business better, talk to someone who can talk to you about it in simple “plain English”.

Identify the problem, break it into manageable chunks, and deal with it! Life is hard enough, without it being taxing.

I was talking with a client about the amount of business they were generating from their website. The key interface between the business and the customer is the contact form, that tells the business about what the customer needs, as well as a contact name, number and email.

A brief look at Google Analytics revealed some interesting statistics:

• In the last month, their website had received just under 6,000 hits, and
• In the same period, only 54 click through’s to the contact form had been generated by the website, meaning that
• Less than 1% of visits had resulted in a request for a contact.

This was pretty depressing, but it explained why the business felt that it wasn’t getting much benefit from the website.

By looking at each page, it became apparent that there was no obvious “call to action”. Even if the visitor was keen to make contact, it wasn’t clear how they should.

I’m no web-master, but I do understand the importance of making sure the link between you, your product, your “shop”, and your customer, is seamless.

When was the last time you asked someone to give you honest feedback about how easy you are to locate, find out about, and to buy from?

Time is money. We all know that. But do you know how much your time is worth? I recently helped a self-employed client work out this cost, and thought I’d share the process.

The starting point is to work out how much it costs to “keep you alive” each month. This should include your rent or mortgage, your utility costs, average food bill, travel costs, a contribution to a small annual holiday, and a little contingency “just in case”. Let’s say, for example, that this amounts to £1,200.

You now multiply this cost by 12 to get your annual cost: £14,400.

Assuming an average working year of 220 days, you need to earn just over £65 every day to stand still. However, that’s after paying tax. So your gross earnings would need to be in the region of £80 per day.

So assuming an 8 hour day, it costs you £10 an hour to sit still.

It might not sound much, but every hour you don’t earn means you have to earn more in the other hours. Let’s say you only earn in 60% of the time. You need to charge about £135 a day, or £17 per hour.

So when you sit down to read or do something that you are not being paid for, ask yourself, is it worth £17 per hour?

I read this phrase in a book recently, and it has stuck with me. The context was not about where I was physically, but in time. Do I spend time thinking about the past, the present, the future, or some combination of them?

What kind of questions do you ask? Are they about the future:

What’s for dinner, What’s happening next, What do I want from…

Or about the past:

What was I doing when, Can you remember why, When did we…

There is no right or wrong. But the kind of questions you ask do reveal a lot about the kind of person you are. Are you a reflective person, who analyses the past to make sense of the world? Or the kind of person who is always starting from today, and thinking about the future?

Both types have their place in the world, and although they may have difficulties relating to each other (!), they need to understand the relevance of the other person’s point of view.

In business, everyone knows you must spend time thinking about the future. You have also got to be realistic about the past and present.

Think about the last meeting you were part of. How much time did you spend talking about things that happened in the past, and how much about what you were going to do in the future? Was the balance right?

I love asking questions. There is a streak of insatiable curiosity that runs right through me that means I always want to know more.

Here are some of my favourites:

• How do you know when you have done a good job?
• If you had to choose between a job well done, but late, and a job not done well, but on time, which would you choose?
• What was your worst decision, and what did you do about it?

While in a Trustees meeting of a charity I am Treasurer of recently, someone asked a really great question:

• What would the world be like without our organisation in it?

As a charity that prides itself on the difference we make to people’s lives, this ought to have been easy to answer. Our sticking point came when we needed to produce some evidence of what that difference was.

Questions are good, answers are great, but evidence is key.

As a school governor, I am aware of the move away from teaching, towards learning. It doesn’t matter how good the teacher is, if the pupils are not learning. Evidence acquired at the end of the year in the form of exam results, or course work, is too late to be of use to change teaching style and content. Governors are now being asked to look for evidence that pupils are learning.

Questions that have no right or wrong answer are a good start to finding out what people think and feel.

And businesses are made and broken by people, not numbers.

I’m willing to bet that your business has only got 3 problems:

1. Not enough money
2. Not enough time
3. Not enough good staff

I’m also willing to bet that no business has ever solved these problems. Like it or not, we only have the resources that we have. And it’s rare that we consider them enough. And yet every day businesses succeed and grow.

Not enough money
I once bought a one way ticket to Los Angeles, and landed there with just $50 in my pocket. I was young and naive enough to believe that I’d be ok. You don’t need lots of money to achieve your ambition, just pure bloody mindedness, and self belief.

Not enough time
Demands on our time have never been greater; everyone wants to grab our attention. Achieving a perfect work-life balance is a goal that always seems just out of reach. Life is, and always has been difficult. Have you worked out what’s important to you? Do you give your time to the things that matter most?

Not enough good staff
It’s tempting to believe that no-one does it as well as you do. No-one may do it quite like you do, but isn’t quality a judgement made by the customer, not the salesman?

All this sounds like a case of tough love, but in business (as in most walks of life) we need to make the most of what we actually have, not what we would like to have.

If you would like some help looking at what you have, and checking that you are making the most of your resources (money, time and staff!), let me know.