Can You Answer These Five Questions About Your Organization?

Most organizations are operating based on assumptions and intuition, which is perfectly normal. We need to make educated bets to move forward, but without data to validate those assumptions, we expose ourselves to risk in how decisions are made and built upon each other.

Because every organization is different, it’s easy to dive into idiosyncrasies when discussing a specific business process, team, or project.

However, let's cut through that complexity with five simple questions that reveal whether your organization truly understands its operational reality:

1. Where is your team actually spending their time?
Beyond the RTO vs hybrid vs remote debate, many organizations struggle with delivery because they don't track how time is spent. What percentage of your team's hours go to meetings, emails, and chat versus producing tangible outputs? Having this data lets you optimize for productivity.

2. Are you investing in the right marketing channels?
Your budget is spread across paid ads, content, events, etc. But do you have concrete data showing which channels drive qualified leads and revenue? Without this insight, you're essentially spending in the dark.

3. What is the actual length of your sales cycle?
From first touch to closed won, how many days or months elapse? More importantly, can you identify where deals stall and accelerate? Understanding these patterns reveals opportunities to speed up conversions.

4. Do you know which of your customers (or donors) are profitable and by how much?
Revenue alone doesn’t tell the full story. Some folks require significantly more time and resources to acquire, then service after closed won. Have you calculated the true cost of serving different segments, factoring in team time and varying cost rates?

5. Does your strategy match reality?
Your organization’s special sauce should flow from its overall strategy through business processes down to how it uses systems (i.e. the digital transformation hierarchy). But can you measure whether this alignment actually exists, or is there a disconnect between strategic vision and operational execution?

If you struggled to answer those questions with concrete data rather than anecdotes or swag estimates, you’re not alone.

On the plus side, this presents itself as an opportunity to tighten operations and gain efficiencies by looking into the areas where you don’t have clear visibility.

TLDR: Do you know how time and resources are being spent across your people, marketing, sales, servicing revenue, and whether your strategy matches reality?

P.S. I'm curious how many of these you were able to answer. Hit reply and let me know!