The Data You're Sitting On
Every business generates data. Sales transactions, customer interactions, website visits, employee activities - it's all being recorded somewhere.
But for most businesses, that data just... sits there. It's in spreadsheets nobody opens. In systems that don't talk to each other. In reports that take too long to create, so nobody bothers.
Meanwhile, decisions get made based on instinct, anecdotes, and whoever speaks loudest in meetings.
There's a better way. When you can actually see what's happening in your business - in real-time, in formats you can understand - you make better decisions. You catch problems earlier. You double down on what's working.
This isn't about becoming a data scientist. It's about getting the information you need to run your business well.
Finding the Right Metrics
The first challenge isn't getting data - it's figuring out what data actually matters.
Too many dashboards show everything but highlight nothing. Fifty charts nobody looks at. Numbers that go up or down without anyone knowing if that's good or bad.
For any area of your business, you probably only need 3-5 key metrics:
**For sales:**
- How many new leads came in?
- How many deals closed?
- What's the average deal size?
- How long does it take to close a deal?
**For marketing:**
- How much traffic is coming to your website?
- What's the cost to acquire a customer?
- Which channels bring the best customers?
**For operations:**
- How quickly are orders being fulfilled?
- What's the error or return rate?
- How productive is the team?
**For finance:**
- What's the cash position?
- Are we profitable on each product/service?
- What do receivables look like?
Start with a few metrics that directly tie to business outcomes. You can always add more later.
Making Data Visible
Data that lives in a spreadsheet somewhere might as well not exist. You need to see it regularly and easily.
This is where dashboards come in - screens that show your key metrics in a way you can understand at a glance.
Good dashboards have a few things in common:
They update automatically. Nobody should spend time pulling data together. It should flow in from your systems.
They show trends, not just numbers. Knowing you had 50 sales yesterday is less useful than seeing that sales have been climbing for three weeks.
They're visible. A dashboard nobody looks at is worthless. Put it where your team will see it - on a TV in the office, as a browser homepage, in a daily email.
They drive action. Every metric should suggest something you could do differently. If a number doesn't prompt any possible action, you probably don't need to track it.
When Your Systems Don't Talk to Each Other
The biggest obstacle to good data is fragmented systems. Your sales data is in one place, marketing in another, finance in a third. Getting a complete picture requires manual effort that nobody has time for.
There are a few ways to solve this:
Integration tools: Services like Zapier or Make can connect different systems without custom development. Good for simpler needs.
Data warehouses: Pull data from all your systems into one place where you can analyze it together. More complex to set up but powerful.
Unified platforms: Sometimes the answer is consolidating into fewer systems that work together natively.
The right approach depends on your situation. But the principle is the same: you need your data in one place to see the full picture.
From Analysis to Action
The point of data isn't to have pretty charts. It's to make better decisions and take better actions.
Every time you look at your metrics, you should be asking:
- What is this telling me?
- Is this good or bad compared to what I expected?
- What should I do differently based on this?
If marketing costs are up but lead quality is down, that's a signal to investigate what changed. If one salesperson is closing twice as many deals as others, that's a signal to understand what they're doing differently.
Data should trigger investigation, then action. If you're just collecting numbers without ever changing anything based on them, you're wasting the effort.
Need Help Getting Your Data in Order?
We help businesses build dashboards and analytics that actually get used. Let's talk about what you need to see.
Discuss Analytics SolutionsFrequently Asked Questions
It depends on your size and complexity. Small businesses can start with Google Analytics and simple spreadsheet dashboards. Growing businesses often benefit from tools like Google Looker Studio (free), Tableau, or Power BI. Very large businesses might need custom data warehouses. We can help you figure out what makes sense for your situation.
Start by making it easy and visible. If people have to go searching for data, they won't bother. Put dashboards where they'll see them. Talk about the numbers in meetings. Celebrate decisions that were driven by data. Culture change takes time, but it starts with accessibility.
This is extremely common. Most businesses have messy, inconsistent data when they start. The solution is usually to start fresh with better tracking going forward, while gradually cleaning up historical data where it matters most. Perfect data isn't the goal - useful data is.