Bad Analytics is “Ignorance on Fire”

Had a chance to attend a “Motivating Your Network” workshop by Tiffanie Kellog last week and it was very, very empowering.

I met Tiffanie a few months back and really admire her style as a speaker. She commands the stage and makes it look easy, while sharing dozens of useful tips about how to ingnite your business.

During the recent training I attended, I wrote down quite a few notes, but she said one thing that really jumped out at me.

“Ignorance on Fire”.

For me that perfectly describes something I see all to often when it comes to using data analytics to make business decisions. Ignorance on fire is an entrepreneur or small business owner who grows their business on gut feel.

They look successful and sound like they are doing awesome, but when you look behind the curtain, you see a lot of guess work and often a fair amount of luck.

What you don’t see robust data, a disciplined use of data analysis, and a team using data to guide their efforts towards business growth.

This is Ignorance on Fire!

When you look at the origin story on the big tech companies, you see a lot of commonalities that people try and replicate. One that is often overlooked though is their deep devotion to analytics. They constantly find new ways to use data to better understand the competitive landscape.

For them Knowledge is what is on Fire! And it grows and grows and grows as their mastery of using data deepens.

Over the years I have learned a lot about what it takes for a small business to really benefit from a good data analytics strategy. Many people think of analytics as an added expense, if they think of it at all. It’s a big challenge to find time to set up and maintain analytics. But is an even bigger challenge to run around as an example of Ignorance on Fire.

Which reminds me of another pearl of wisdom, Tiffanie dropped on the class was “How can you build a house with just a hammer?” You need to have a variety of tools in your tool belt to build your business.

If you don’t see analytics as a tool to go along with sales, marketing, accounting, etc then you are going to end up with a house with no windows and you won’t see the fire coming.

I highly recommend taking a class with Tiffanie if you are in the Tampa area as she is one of my favorite speakers and will empower you to be a much better networker. To register, check out tampa.asentiv.com