Q3 of 2022 is almost here, folks. Are you prepared? More specifically, does your business data tell you that you’re prepared?
If your first instinct when reading the word “data” was to run and hide, this blog is for you. And I understand that feeling! When math isn’t your favorite subject and numbers scare you, you might dread managing your data, or even avoid looking at it altogether.
But you know what? Once you take that leap of faith and start looking at your data, I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what you find. Data can do a lot of good for your business.
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What Is Data For Your Business?
My definition for data is simple: it’s information about your business, and it’s at the core of every decision you make as a business owner.
It can be quantities of things — your total expenses for the month or how many products you sold last week, for example. It can be metrics like site traffic or conversions or bounce rate.
It can also be qualitative data, or non-numerical (quantitative) data. Data like customer purchase histories, survey responses, and contact information.
As a business owner, I’m betting you’re familiar with your financial data, like assets, inventory, cash flow, or tax data, too.
Why Data Is So Important For Business Owners
Data is central to almost every decision you make for your business. It’s an area that many of us are uncomfortable with, as many of us didn’t grow up with a lot of education surrounding finances and applying math to real-life numbers!
When we’re less than confident about our skills in using data, it can affect our confidence in making decisions, too.
We may believe that we don’t really know what’s best for our business since we can’t use the data we have on hand.
This is a tough love moment here, but…you can’t improve your numbers skills if you don’t ever start. You can’t avoid something you don’t want to do forever, right?
The more you practice reading and interpreting your data, the more confident you’ll grow and the better you’ll understand your business.
My best advice is to take a deep breath and simply get started. Take things one step at a time.
How To Use Your Data Effectively
Not sure where to start? I suggest you make a list of questions you hope to answer with your data. Then, check that you’re gathering the data you think will answer these questions!
A lot of platforms and software already do the heavy lifting for you. In fact, you might have too much data on your hands, which doesn’t help our decision-making clarity, either. So be intentional and choose the client data, metrics, finances, or sales data you need to analyze to get the answers your questions.
Let’s say you’re experiencing lower than normal sales on a product and you want to know why. Your first thought may be to rework the product or adjust the pricing, but after digging into your data, you find that your sales page to purchase conversion rate is 8% and your traffic is down from the previous month. An increase in traffic means your sales numbers likely would increase, too.
See how this saves you from wasting time and effort on things that don’t need to be changed?
I also highly recommend that you ensure your numbers are accurate as well. Bad data is worse than no data. Bad data might lead you to make a decision based on information that isn’t true at all!
Grow and Improve Your Business with Data
Data isn’t all about big spreadsheets and pages and pages of numbers. And you don’t have to be a data analyst or lover of math to collect and interpret it for your business.
If your business data has intimidated you so far, it’s okay! You can grow your confidence and skills with your data simply by getting started and staying consistent.
Gather the data you want to analyze, ensure that those numbers are accurate, and have your goals in mind so you don’t get overwhelmed by the numbers.
Practice makes perfect, so take that first step now!
