THE COLD HARD TOOTH

Because nobody cares about my feelings.

After losing six years and five teeth, my son concluded that tooth fairies aren’t real. It just didn’t make sense.

He gets $2 per tooth while his kindergarten buddy gets a dollar. One lucky bastard receives $10 per gnasher. And a few other kids didn’t even know there was payout for fallen enamel.

So with all the data bursting the conspiracy, he eventually wised up and requested money directly from me after each tooth fall.

The tooth fairy is as real as the Easter bunny. Photo by burmistrovaiuliia.

Just like my firstborn, cold facts and hard numbers excite me. And because nobody cares about my feelings, I rather be seduced with empirical, irrefutable data. Data that disagrees with my gut instinct and exposes my depth of knowledge.

Every business knows that data is essential in telling them what to do next. It establishes benchmarks and goals, and reveals inefficiencies and obstacles. Yet, many businesses rarely use them. Or maybe they just don’t know how.

1. KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER

If you run a business, any business, the first thing is to get your customers’ name and number. It’s precisely what my local fish shop does. That Aquarium<https://www.facebook.com/thataquarium/> gives me a 10%-discount whenever I key in my mobile number into their cash register. That’s valuable data right there as the shop now has my purchase history.

It’s the same approach with an increasing number of restaurants who (annoyingly) force diners to download their menu from a QR-code, order online, and pay upfront before being served. These eateries have a potful of their customers’ info.

And yet, That Aquarium and Coexist Coffee never exploited my data for Pareto Principle — the 80/20 rule that states that around 80% of a repeated business can be garnered from 20% of existing customers.

2. THE POWER OF PERSONALISATION

Our mums say we’re unique, but most businesses just pigeon-hole us into generic consumers.

Except for Duolingo. This language-learning app made me go from counting one-to-10 to ordering chicken quesadillas in Spanish. “¿Puedo tener una quesadilla de pollo extra picante, por favor?”

Duolingo employs data analytics to tweak the difficulty level of each customer, so that the user does not give up if she/he finds it too hard or too easy. It’s brilliant data analytics using behavioural science!

Likewise, if you’re selling homemade muffins, you could text your chocolate-loving customers about your new cocoa-flavoured danish (the pastry, not Scandinavian). Or if you’re selling legal advice, you could email your latest family-law court victory to your non-corporate clients. At the very least, this personalised/segmented marketing reminds your customers that you’re winning.

2A. THE POTENCY OF PATTERNS

On a broader scope, data analytics is great at identifying patterns, trends and relationships that would not be visible to the naked eye. And it works for both internal and external analyses.

Internally, you could learn how many billable hours it takes for a particular service; track how much it costs to acquire a client; and figure out how frequent your repeat clients return.

Externally, you could spot trends of consumer-preference. Which was what my company went through over the last decade, pivoting our creative services from print, to web, to video. Although we still offer all three, we focus on video as it is our highest-margin and fastest-turnover service. And lately, we’re seeing more demand for “Interactive Videos” as gamification seeps into consumer behaviour.

3. START TALKING TO YOUR CUSTOMER

So how can you start your data analytics?

Begin with what you have, which is free.

1. Sales Receipts. Check with your accounts and see which is your best-selling or highest-profiteering product/service. And exploit it like how Ikea does with its $1 hotdog.
2. Website Analytics. Make sure you have Google Analytics installed, and see which page users are landing on your site. If the views are low, tweak your image or copy, or change your meta description.
3. Email Marketing Reports. This email you’ve received was sent via MailChimp, and it allows me to know if you’ve read my post, if you’ve forwarded it to a friend (why aren’t you?), and how many times you’ve clicked on the hyperlinks.
4. Social Media Analytics. If you’re big on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok, use their native analytics to track performance and engagement. You’ll know which posts work and which doesn’t.
5. Publicly available data. Lastly, you can find industry data from government sites, industry newsletters, and even trade shows. Seek and you shall find.

But if you’re raking in ≥ $1 million annually, just pay for data analytics and focus on what you do best.

Smart people in small businesses can create big impact using data analytics. It gives them the ability to see into the future and make better decisions.

It certainly has opened the eyes of my now-teenager, braces-wearing son. From aspirations to be the next Joseph Schooling, then a YouTuber like MrBeast, and then a platinum-selling guitarist, he now realises that the rate of success in all the three occupations is soberingly low.

Of course, he could defy the odds and chase his dreams! But the numbers won’t care about his feelings.