Business insights are far more than arbitrary facts gathered during your entrepreneurial journey. There’s a structured, valuable methodology to discover insights that can significantly improve your business operations and strategy.
Many of us settle for generic information, such as something we’ve read online. However, the real treasure lies in actionable insights explicitly tailored to your business—insights that often remain hidden until we actively seek them out.
Today, I discovered this about my business. _______________________
Here’s a brief guide on how to venture beyond surface-level knowledge and discover transformative insights:
Select a Focus Area: Start by deciding on an aspect of your business you wish to explore—something you suspect might be essential but have no solid data backing your belief.
Design a Simple Experiment: For example, if you’re uncertain about the effectiveness of your business guarantee, hypothesize that “Our guarantee is a key decision-making factor for our customers.” Test this by engaging with a group of customers directly.
Engage and Investigate: Contact at least five customers to discuss your guarantee, comparing it against competitors’. If these customers are business owners, inquire about their guarantees as well. To probe deeper, employ the “5 why’s” technique—asking “why” five times following each answer—to dive into the underlying reasons behind their perspectives.
Document and Analyze: Keep a written record of each conversation. Once reviewed, these conversations often yield unexpected insights not directly related to the original hypothesis, which are frequently the most valuable.
Summary of Key Insight: The key insight I learned today is “_______________________”. This insight emerged from systematically challenging what seemed like an obvious aspect of our business model.
Harnessing Business Insights: A Learning Curve
Approaching business with a methodical and almost scientific curiosity about ‘obvious’ assumptions can illuminate hidden facets of your business and lead to substantial improvements. Like any skill, mastering this takes practice but is essential for regular business evaluation and growth.
