Playing with Simulations, and More

Remember a few weeks ago when I wrote a little bit about the AI-enabled business simulation software I’ve been exploring?

Now I have a “Profit Acceleration Simulator? Lite” version that I can let people play with on my website, too!

It’s summer, so let’s engage the principle of Curiosity.

First, I’ll give you the simulator link so you can play a bit. We’re going to cheat here, and I’ll explain why in a moment.

LearningSim Profit Acceleration Simulator: https://smb.learningsim.com/simulator

To use this, you have to be or put yourself in the shoes of a business owner. (This is a business simulator, after all.) If you don’t have your own business figures to use, then pretend you have a small tech industry company with these characteristics:

• Annual Revenue: $500,000
• Gross Profit Margin: 80%
• Net Profit Margin: 10%
• Employees: 4 (this simple version of the simulator doesn’t ask for this, but it will help you visualize a small business)

This simulator, as simple as it is, has twelve profit strategy sliders. These let you try out various combinations of the underlying business revenue and profitability levers. For some levers, like number of leads or conversion percentages, there are multiple strategies you could apply. (To learn more about the underlying principles and strategies, you can go to this earlier training page we skipped. See the 12-minute training video there. But this is where I’m “cheating” by sending you directly to the simulator for the sake of curious play!)

Challenge Questions!

Use the simulator to discover the answers to these questions:

1. What would you have to do to grow your business to $1,000,000 in annual gross revenue?
2. What would you have to do to reach $200,000 in new annual profit?
3. How could you reach $100,000 in annual profit WITHOUT increasing revenue?
4. How many improvements of just 5% would it take to double your profits? Which strategies would you choose? (Hint: Cut Costs and Increase Prices are “special” strategies with regard to profits. Maybe you already know why.)
5. Given that small changes are easiest to implement, what is your preferred set of strategy values to achieve a “doable” result you favor?
6. What would you do with those profits?

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Profit Acceleration Training Video: Why am I “Cheating?”

Quite frankly, this training video is a very helpful educational and sales tool. It does a great job of explaining how the financial numbers behind business revenue and profit work together. However, if you are reading this newsletter, you don’t need me to sell you on this. Also, that training video assumes you are a business owner. Many of my readers are in other roles, so I don’t want to “gate” that content from you.

Plus, we’re all about learning through play! I want you to get the opportunity to play with the simulator, first, and you can explore some background if you’re interested. That’s a better strategy for self-directed learning.

Note: If you are running your own business, do watch the video. And do schedule a quick meeting with me to learn more after you’ve played with the simulator. As you know, I am always happy to help and this information really can be of huge benefit to the health of your business.

Speaking of curiosity… In your own work, business, or personal life, get curious! What have you wondered about? Pick a topic. Today, take a few minutes to go explore that topic. This act of curiosity gets you into the Sage region of your brain and activates other positive stress-reducing powers.

For the next week, try asking curious, open-ended questions. Here are some examples:

• What is this particular thing like?
• How does this really work?
• What is the connection between this thing and that other thing?
• Why does it work this way?
• How did this come to be the way it is now?
• Who else is exploring this?
• What kind of contributions could we make by exploring this?

This works for just about any topic!

What will you explore that can help you? Maybe it’s playing with the simulator I shared with you. Maybe it’s something else. As always, let me know what you think.

Stay curious,

–Steve