How to not Fudge the numbers

The art of not fudging the numbers.

The way for you to be honest is to have a benchmark.

Let's say you are looking to start a new business. What you have to know is the average of sales of similar businesses in the same circumstances. This will give you a number that represents what other people that have been in business for longer are doing.

If you stand from a position of knot knowing, when they are doing it for a long time, and you do your forecast with results of outliers, meaning, companies that do disproportionately well in that segment, you are shooting yourself in the foot, because unless you know something no one else does, you are not going to get their results. you are going to get the average results.

It doesn't mean you can't improve stuff down the line, but just make sure you are not fudging the numbers to work from the start when if you are honest with yourself, the deal doesn't work.

You have your criteria, and need a certain margin of safety regarding your assumptions. Just say to yourself: "Just in case i might be wrong, let's just approach this from the worse case scenario". If you feel that the worse case scenario is too close to a loss, you have your answer.

On the other hand, even if you discount your assumptions ad deal still makes sense, you are coming from a different place.

Know what you are getting into, before you get into it, that would be my advise.

Be great, nothing else pays

DM