Formal education will make you a living. Self education will make you a fortune.
Jim Rohn

As the business world twirls at a shockingly fast pace, there is something that hasn’t changed and that’s the importance of business fundamentals. Your baseline benchmarks are still the foundation of your business: profit margins, conversion rates, product mix, merchandising. But we do need to add a new metric and that’s digital presence.

Yet, most of us aren’t running solid, well-rounded businesses – but won’t admit it. We lean into our strengths and try to avoid the things we dislike or don’t know and in doing this, you’re missing pieces of your success puzzle.

There’s absolutely no shame in not knowing everything but if you’re going to have a successful business, you need to be able to properly track and analyze its performance. If you just want to do what you like, you’ve got a hobby, not a business.

I talk people every single day who want to hire a social media company, for example, but never even taken the time to learn how social media works or what to expect in ROI. They hire someone and three months later say, “It didn’t work.” What did you expect? Or they get P&L’s from the accountant each month and only review the bottom line results. Or spend the money on a robust POS but never bother to set it up correctly or pull and evaluate reports. You have unprecedented access to data that is invaluable in elevating your business!

To take a self-assessment of your business proficiencies and take the time to educate yourself. Whether it’s through YouTube videos, a mentor or reading books, education on the fundamentals will help you build a solid foundation for success.