By Patrick Lee, President of Chesapeake Think Tank and CEO of Spark Business Institute
I was recently working with a business owner in Annapolis who had been experiencing cash flow issues for months despite showing a profit on paper. When I asked to see their financial reports, they proudly showed me their P&L statement showing healthy profits, then threw their hands up in frustration saying, “But there’s never any money in the bank!”
This disconnect between financial reports and business reality is something I encounter frequently. It represents a fundamental gap in understanding that can derail even the most promising businesses.
Business owners typically have a preferred lens through which they view their operation’s health. Some live and die by their profit and loss statements. Others obsessively track client acquisition numbers. Still others focus primarily on customer satisfaction metrics or employee productivity.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a primary focus area—but problems arise when owners lack even basic understanding of the other critical areas of their business.
I’ve seen owners in Queen Anne’s County who can recite their sales figures down to the penny but have no idea how to interpret their balance sheet. I’ve worked with successful professionals who track every customer interaction meticulously but couldn’t tell you their labor cost percentages if their business depended on it (which, ironically, it does).
What I typically recommend to clients is developing what I call a “business dashboard” approach. This means having visibility into key metrics across all major areas of your operation:
You don’t need to be an expert in all these areas—that would be impossible for any single person. But you do need sufficient understanding to know when something requires attention and when to bring in specialized expertise.
The most dangerous position for a business owner isn’t lacking expertise in certain areas—it’s lacking awareness of where their knowledge gaps exist.
I often tell my clients: “You don’t know what you don’t know, and that’s what will sink you.” The solution isn’t becoming an expert in everything, but rather developing enough baseline knowledge to recognize when you need help.
This baseline understanding serves several critical purposes:
One of the most important skills for successful business owners is knowing when and how to bring in outside expertise. This might mean:
The key is recognizing which areas are most critical to your specific business model and ensuring you have appropriate expertise in those domains—whether internal or external.
Even in areas where you consider yourself knowledgeable, it’s crucial to maintain that expertise. Markets evolve, technologies change, and best practices shift over time. The understanding that served you well five years ago may be outdated today.
This is particularly important in your core competency areas. If you’re a marketing expert who now runs a marketing agency, you can’t afford to let your marketing knowledge stagnate while you focus on business operations. Your expertise is your product—it must remain current.
At Chesapeake Think Tank, one of our most valuable services is helping business owners identify what should be on their dashboard and how to interpret the readings. We help you:
The goal isn’t to transform you into an expert in every domain but to ensure you have sufficient visibility across your entire operation to make informed decisions.
Remember, you don’t need to know how every component of your car’s engine works to drive safely—but you do need to understand what the dashboard warning lights mean and when to call a mechanic.
If you’re finding areas of your business consistently mystifying or if you’re experiencing disconnects between different performance indicators, it might be time to revisit your business dashboard. Understanding what you’re measuring—and what those measurements actually mean—could be the difference between thriving and merely surviving.
Copyright 2025 | Chesapeake Think Tank
