Information Management - What Do You Need to Know?

Matrix Key: Financial Viability - Resource Management - Information

 "Knowledge is power." - Sir Francis Bacon

Take a look at all of the Financial Viability components on the WholeLife Matrix. When you run a business, you quickly learn that you must manage all kinds of information if you want to remain financially viable.  It helps to break that information into two distinct categories - internal and external.  Internal information are all the performance metrics your company produces that tell you where you stand financially and productively.

Just as important are external reports that highlight how your business is performing compared to the marketplace.  How do you stack up?  How are you perceived?  How can you track your influence on the market?

Here are four key pieces of external information that you should be tracking:

1. Market Research - what is the appetite for your product or service?
2. Prospect Research - who buys that product or service and where can you find them?
3. Client Database - who buys that product or service from you?
4. Competitor Research - who does as good a job or better at selling your product or service?

 Imagine if a company started up today and tried to sell covered wagons to young families.  A ridiculous example to be sure, but one that shows the importance of keeping your finger on the pulse of what's happening in the market, and how it impacts your potential customers.

Are you ready to win?

Creating Community

Matrix Key: Personal Awareness - Community

"What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” ― Kurt Vonnegut

With all of the technology buzzing around us today, in some ways we are more connected to others than at any other point in evolution.  But some would say the connections are shallower, and focused on ourselves rather than the people and world around us. 

How often do you move straight from your car through the garage to plug into an electronic device at the end of your day?  When is the last time you stopped and chatted with your neighbor?  What helps you take a break from yourself and do something with and for others?

With the WholeLife Matrix, we have identified four key elements to connecting with and building community:

1. Participation

2. Service

3. Beautification

4. Legislative

Consider taking some kind of action to reengage with your community.  Get out and do things with other people.  Get to know your civic and community leaders.  Find a place to belong.  Share your ideas and concerns.  As you engage in conversations and activity with others, you may be surprised by the possibilities that open up for you.

For conversations specifically focused on the WholeLife Matrix, join the community taking a Deeper Dive into the WholeLife matrix.  The group meets every other Tuesday from 11am - Noon Pacific time for a group phone conversation.  Email me to sign up - Ralph@Consulting2Win.com.

Are you ready to win?

Fueling your Engine

Matrix Key - Health and Wellness - Nutrition

"You are what you eat.  What would you like to be?" - Julie Murphy

GIGO.  Garbage in, garbage out.  We are careful about the choice of fuel we put in our cars, the air we breathe, the downloads we make on our computers...but sometimes we overlook the input to our most precious asset.  Ourselves.  

We cannot escape the fact that food is our fuel.  We clearly see the connection between quality inputs in other items in our life, but sometimes overlook the connection of garbage in/ garbage out with respect to our bodies.  We can have the best of the best in the other three quadrants of the matrix, but a poorly functioning body slows down even the best efforts in those other quadrants.  

With the WholeLife Matrix, we have identified four facets of the Nutrition quadrant:

1.   Lifelong Eating Plan

2.   Professional Support

3.   Emotional Impact

4.   Weight Management  

No matter what conditions you want to place on the food you consume, there is an abundance of advice and opinions out there.  The noise of all that advice can be overwhelming.   Enlisting professional support is a great way to design a lifelong eating plan appropriate for your body.  And people who have a balanced approach to their food often note the weight management takes care of itself. 

What is fueling your life?