There’s a scene in one of the Monty Python movies. The woman on the table is about to give birth. Frightened, she asks the doctor—a memorable John Cleese character—”Doctor, doctor, what do I do?”
The doctor, looking down at her with a sneer, answers “You? Nothing. You’re not qualified!”
It’s a very funny scene. I’m a man. I’ve been present for several births. I know who does everything. Not the doctor.
And the same strange hesitance shows up a lot when people in business need to forecast. They think somebody else, somebody with more schooling, knows better. They can run the numbers, do an econometric analysis, look at the data better, find the trends.
The truth, however, is that nobody is more qualified than a business owner to forecast her business. You’ve been there, you’ve lived through the ups and downs of it, you have the sense of it better than anybody.
For the record, I spent several years as a vice president in a brand-name market research consulting company. Our clients often thought we knew better, because that’s how we made our living. And most of the time we were just doing educated guesses, like you do when you forecast your own business.
You are qualified. Trust yourself.
Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software and Bplans.com. Follow him on Twitter @Timberry.
