One thing, I have found at some recent networking events I have been too, is that business owners don't realise that there is loads of data already living in your business. Answers are along the lines of 'yeah, I don't look at mine', 'do I have any data?', 'where would i get data?'
Most people picture data as spreadsheets, dashboards, or complex analytics tools. But data is simply information that tells you something about how your business is performing. It doesn't need to live in a system to count.
If you run a business, I have no doubt you have data, whether it's website analytics or email stats. Just some simple metrics can identify issues throughout your business, and help your business grow. If your business is not growing, are you looking at your data?
I put together the following posts for a recent instagram carousel, to give you an idea about different data points you might have in your business already:
Data isn't just useful for making decisions; it is also useful for spotting problems you didn't know you had. If your most popular service always fills and your least popular never does, that's data telling you something.
If people ask the same question in DMs over and over, that's data telling you something. You don't need a dashboard to start noticing patterns, you need to start paying attention.
Finding the data is step one.
Step two is making sense of it, looking for patterns, asking what is driving them, and deciding what (if anything) to change. This doesn't need to be complicated. It can start with a notebook and a weekly habit of looking at a few numbers. The goal isn't to become a data analyst, it's to make slightly better decisions slightly more often.
The data already living in your business is already yours for the taking without doing too much legwork, so why not get some insights out of it.
If you want more data, or if you are not sure what it's telling you, this is where one of my data audits can help.
This is where we discuss what you already have, and I produce an easy to understand document, to help you implement and understand more.