Running a small business is a lot of work. It's typically a lot of hard work. Really hard work. Seeing the fruits of your labors is sometimes elusive. I know. I've started businesses as a kid, tried starting two different companies in college which failed, and then after a stint in corporate America for a while, found myself owner of a Five Star Painting franchise. After a year of building that business in northern Virginia into a success, I sold it to my parents who continue to run it, while I moved to Ohio to assume operation of several larger territories. Ohio posed a whole host of challenges, causing me to have to really double down on my analytics to make sure we were profitable and every decision we made was strategic.
I figured some of my challenges and some of my learnings, particularly as it relates to obtaining data and making data-based decisions, might be of use to my fellow Five Star franchisees and to other small business owners.
I'm a visual learner and I believe that information and insight are two different things. If data can be obtained, visualized so that real insights become instantly apparent, and then be acted upon, that is when you can really start to create something you are proud of, and something we are working very hard at in both Ohio and Virginia.
As such, this blog seeks to accomplish the following with every post - call it a manifesto.
The Vizness Manifesto
- Good Data: Businesses need data to make good decisions. I will highlight ways to use and improve data you already have, as well as find data that isn't readily at your fingertips.
- Visual Analytics: Data by itself often can cause more frustration than help as you aren't sure what to look at or how to use it. Data that is visualized is easier to understand. Each post will show how I'm visualizing data and how you can too.
- Actionable Insights: Just as a visual is easier to understand than straight text, answering a specific question is better than making people guess at your answer. Each post will answer a specific question in a visual format.
- Structured so you know where to begin: Blogs always seem to be a random collection of people's thoughts. They aren't numbered or structured in a format that helps you know where to start. Just jumping in makes you feel like you might be missing something, but the sheer magnitude of information makes it tough to know where to start. This blog will have structure, starting more simple and moving towards more complex, but always with an eye to running a better business.