Numbers that are very difficult to change

It’s hard to help someone out of a well when it’s 100 feet down. It’s also hard to help folks move forward with data when they’ve dug their own very deep well and jumped in. 

As in signing a lease that’s way too expensive. 

Or taking on 3 million dollars in long term debt instead of solving the ongoing budget issue.   

Or staffing for growth that isn’t coming. 

When you have major issues like this, any kind of modeling – about customer retention, more effective selling, better fund raising, is beside the point.   Because, when you have such big issue, not only does it cause a lot of stress, it means that everything else you do must be perfect to just survive.  

I once rented office space and wound up with much less business than I expected.   Luckily, I was able to sublet most of the space until things turned around. 

And honestly, if I come in and see these kinds of issues, I’m probably not going to be the right fit.  Because data can help when your fundamentals are OK.  But data can’t resolve previous bad decisions.