How using running data can impact your business (and life).

I've been a runner my entire life. At school, when we did our bi-annual fitness tests I had held the best record for a 1km run, but my potential was never fully realized as we did it around the basketball gym instead of a track. Later, when I ended up at Wills Point High School in Texas as an exchange student running has earned me the reputation of a true fighter. I still remember how on the first day of summer training camp, in 35-degrees Texan heat (read it as 45-degrees Celsius), we ran 200-meter sprints twenty times, that's half of your track stadium. First thirteen starts I finished first- not sure if it was out of fear or out of a desire to make a statement. Surely, the effort was noted and earned me a spot on the Cross Country varsity team where long miles of countryside running became my daily habit. Ever since then I've been a runner, but never considered competing or tracking any data. Recently everything changed.

While a lot of what I do to drive value for my clients relies on data, traffic, costs, reach, creatives, and millions of other little variables that can play a role in whether new customers or visitors will arrive at the site, I have never thought of using my running experience as a metaphor to explain how businesses can grow (run faster), but at the same time how running faster can ruin your business, should I deliver that fast pace of new user acquisition. Runners use the term "pacing", and in business this could translate into a question, "Are you ready to service all the leads that will come in at 3-5x the rate you are getting them now? Do you have the resources to pace the growth? To process all the shipping in time? To follow up with all the clients? To deliver the services to all of them when they want them?" When data becomes available to you in real-time, which is the case with many running apps, you as a runner can learn how to use the splits and your pace to advance to your goal- it can be completing the same distance in less time, or being able to run longer at the existing pace. All of a sudden, you can apply decomposition tactic and break your goal into smaller mini-goals. To be able to hit the same distance in less time (let's call it become more efficient), you need to step up the pace on certain stages of your run. Knowing the terrain and elevation at those stages, you could now focus on training your pacing just at those crucial stages. By improving your timing there, your overall time for the full run should also improve in theory.

But isn't it the same in business? You want to grow from $10,000 in sales per month to $15,000 in sales for the same month. If you are the runner, then you already know what to do- decompose your goal of incremental $5,000 in sales into concrete variables which you need to tweak or improve. There aren't that many if you think about it. If you generate your revenue through your website or by driving most of your leads via digital marketing, then your $5K goal can be achieved by either:

1. increasing your traffic to the site by trying new sources or increasing the budget in channels that already deliver well
2. increasing your conversion rates on the website by playing around with web design, site loading speeds, positioning of your most important lead or sales forms, and sometimes by setting few opt-in purchasing buttons to default 
3. raise the average cheque per customer by offering additional services, bundles, or by creating membership cards providing customers with future discounts on all purchases. Memberships cost nothing, so it's an immediate boost in sales. Now you running!
4. dedicate more time working with your existing customer base thinking of new creative ways to deliver exceptional services. Encourage your most loyal customers to write a review, to share your first-purchase discount code, or become your brand ambassadors in exchange for company products or exclusive opportunities. At the end of the day acquiring a new customer will cost you more than keeping your existing one. If you can, keep them happy!

Many times we think in big and broad terms when we set ambitious goals, but the decomposition exercise I demonstrated above illustrates that growing your business (or personal) bank account is nothing but a game of LEGO with a closer look at the bricks that make up that structure. Business, just like running, is a set of stages with only a few critical processes that have any meaningful impact on the result, while the rest is just destructions and wasted energy. This explains the constant advancements in running shoes and clothing. 

If this article made you think about the concept of goal decomposition, or simply made you go for a run to measure your time, this would be great to know as any feedback is appreciated. I promise to think of more practical ideas that can better your daily life during my next run.

Follow my runs on Nike+ Running App or Instagram @melnik_chosen