10 questions you should always ask once a month

Though the original blog article is meant for entrepreneurs (read here), I believe that a few of the questions would apply to you if you are a manager as well. (Of course, only IF your organisation gives you the liberty to take decisions and implement initiatives. 🙂 ) I have split it up into two parts. The first set applies better to the “managers” but the entrepreneurs would have the tougher job of answering both the sets! 😛

Set One:

• In one sentence, what does your product do and who buys it?
• In one sentence, why does someone buy your product?
• What one thing is most responsible for preventing sales?
• What’s one thing you could do to get more feedback from customers, potential customers, or sales you’ve lost?
• If you were forced to hire someone today, how would you define her job such that she would contribute enough revenue to cover her expense?
• What initiatives could be done half-assed without significant impact?
• If you could get one solid hour of advice from a guru you respect, what would you discuss and what would be the goal of the meeting?

Set Two:

• If you had zero revenue from now on, on what date would you run out of money?
• If someone handed you $100,000 today, how would you spend it to maximize future profits?
• Which of your business operations do you hate?

These are a brilliant set of questions which brings clarity of thought and clarity of thought is something which is at a great risk always when you are dealing with a highly fluid situation like building a new organisation or spearheading a new product launch.