A Long Month

Well, we spent four weeks ... four long weeks ... talking about how to fix a business. At minimum, we talked an awful lot about measuring what is wrong and what to do about it.

When I speak with you, I frequently hear a common line of logic.

• "Your ideas are good, but our business is unique, and our business is special. It will take unique solutions to fix our special circumstances."

Let's assume that is true.

Who better to solve your unique and special challenges than you?

If your business is truly unique and special, then you, the individual who works at the unique and special business and knows it better than anybody else ... you are the person that can "fix it" ... right?

And YOU CAN FIX IT!!!!!

You have the tools. I've given you free tools for more than a decade. Use them! Or buy the booklet (click here). Who else in the industry has consistently given you free tools to fix your business every business day for more than a decade? So use them, please.

You have the Professional Knowledge of your area of expertise, right? Nobody knows more about merchandising at your company than you, or marketing, or analytics, or creative. Or maybe you are the CEO. You certainly know where you need to take your company, right?

You have the People Skills necessary to motivate people. It takes a lot of people to make change happen, and you have the skills to get people to do things that they typically don't have an interest in doing, all because it is what is best for your business.

You have Strategy Skills. You may have an advanced degree. If you do, put it to use, ok?! That's why you are being paid a credible salary.

In project after project, there's a consistent theme.

1. What We Do To Our Business > What Amazon Does To Our Business.
2. We are mis-managing our merchandise assortment.
3. We are not measuring how we are mis-managing our merchandise assortment.
4. This causes us to make marketing decisions that sub-optimize the future trajectory of our business.
5. We are not forecasting where our business is headed, so we aren't aware of the potholes we're about to hit.

At minimum, you can use the booklet or the free advice from this blog to figure out what is happening, right?

Or write me (kevinh@minethatdata.com) and we'll get busy solving problems. We can "fix it" together, right?

Ok, enjoy the long Holiday weekend. I'll join you on July 5 as we fix our problems this summer, so that we can impact Christmas and beyond. Who's with me??