Interesting isn’t it how we see numbers. I was reflecting on this yesterday after someone made the point that whilst all of us would agree that words tell stories, we tend to forget that numbers tell stories too.
Instead, we class numbers as facts or patterns or targets or science. We use them to add logic, objectivity, reinforcement. We make them a goal in themselves. We ask our people to report to them.
But the numbers are not the business. They reflect what’s happening in, around and for the business. And they won’t fix themselves.
They are a storyline – of growth or decay, belief or disbelief in the on-going value of something, levels of demand, people coming together … And what I always try and do is to link them that way. This isn’t a 5 year sales comparison, it’s a movie script. What is this P&L telling me has happened so far – how, why, and where were the turning points?
I find that when you do that, you’re soon looking behind what’s in front of you to what is going unsaid. As marketers, it’s easy to overlook the fact that so much of life goes unannounced. People don’t always tell you much. But they do leave crowd markers – collective surges and ebbs that serve as the emotional evidence that something has happened for them. Some are more obvious than others.
Often the fastest and most effective route to the solution lies in finding the humanity in the problem.
