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What’s Normal?

Managing business as usual

What is normal and how do you know whether or not your business is normal, below normal or above.  There are probably as many answers to this question as there are businesses, so let’s look at how you can actually define what normal is for you.  Unfortunately, in the light of the economic conditions we face, we may have had to change our definition of normal.  In the Encarta dictionary normal is defined as “usual – conforming to the usual standard, type or custom.”  Later is this article we will look at a more usable definition based on business statistics.

The definition above raises as many questions as it answers them.  The obvious question is what is usual.  The answer to that question depends on who you speak with, and even more importantly, during what time period.  The other aspect of normal has to include workability for you and your business.  And yes, maybe our standards have to change with time and circumstances.  The other element to consider is the phase or area of our business.  We can analyze our businesses in terms of the number of potential leads, sold work, produced work, referrals or profits.

Unfortunately, in the past many of us became complacent and were not concerned about continuing to increase our businesses.  It may have been that we had too many leads or too much work or not enough resources to produce the work we had.  For many that complacency lasted too long and we found that where we were once too busy, we now had too little.