Compounding Knowledge
“Those who keep learning will keep rising in life.” — Charlie Munger
What was the MOST impactful thing you’ve learned recently?
The truth is that you will never “find” time to take a step back from your business to learn, reflect, and improve.
Instead, you’ll have to force yourself to make time for these things. What’s fascinating about them (learning in particular), is that the return on investment is probably 10x higher than simply knocking out your to-do list.
Here’s a ridiculously simple approach to improving your learning skills when it comes to the financial side of your business (this same practice + learn approach likely works elsewhere too):
1) Practical application (practice)
- Spend 30-60 minutes weekly looking at reports and take notes – these are the key short-term drivers in your business like cash, sales activity, people management, etc.
- Spend 60-120 minutes monthly in financial review (ideally with a trusted advisor) – this is your chance to zoom out, reflect on what happened, and steer the ship
2) Technical training (learning)
- Every 4-6 months go learn something new – read articles or books, watch videos, take a course or class, meet 1:1 or group, etc.
- Take notes – bring those learnings back to your practical application sessions, tinker and try looking at new things to see if they give you new insights (this is like adding tools to a toolkit)
Here are some of our recent write-ups to get your learning muscles moving:
- Pulling levers — the power of operating leverage
- An underrated financial metric — a look at the asset turnover ratio
- Planning made simple — straightforward guide to planning and tracking goals
- Books every business owner should read — a list of books to help you run, manage, and grow your business
- What to do when cash is low — a simple checklist for managing cash flow problems
- The intersection of sales & profit — 4-part series on combining sales with profitability