Episode 67: Harnessing Business Intelligence to Grow Your Service-Based Business

Unlocking Growth: Leveraging Business Intelligence in Service-Based Industries

Harness the power of data to grow your service-based business.

With the right business intelligence solutions, you can gain insights into customer preferences, trends and growth opportunities. Make smarter decisions to ensure your success and maximize ROI.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Collab with Kiva.

See you next time!

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Podcast Transcript:

Kiva Slade 0:01

Welcome to Collab with Kiva, where we let our inner nerd geek out on all the non sexy parts of your business. I'm talking data and operations. Neither as flashy or glamorous, but both are foundational to your business growth. I'm your host, Kiva Slade, your strategy and analytics guide here to break down what feels complicated, so it is understandable and executional. Let's dive in. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Collab with Kiva. I'm your host, Kiva Slade, and today we are going to talk about how service based entrepreneurs can harness business intelligence data to grow their businesses. Business intelligence or BI is a crucial tool that can help entrepreneurs make informed decisions and drive growth. A recent article on cio.com (Chief Information Officers) was titled our SMBs invited to the business intelligence party, and it was by a Dipti Parmar. And it says that most small and midsize businesses SMBs haven't fully adopted business intelligence BI analytics. They've cited various reasons such as lack of scalable technology infrastructure, or skilled human capital. They're also hesitant to invest in BI because of the perception that it doesn't align with budget and operational constraints. But check this out. Fortune Business Insights predicts that the global BI market will grow to 43 billion with a B by 2028, up from 24 billion in 2021. However, the overall adoption rate of BI is just 26% compared to 80% in companies that have over 5000 employees, just so you know, small business, small and midsize businesses or SMBs. Typically small is defined as someone who has less than 100 employees, whereas a midsize is between one and five. So the author of this article had the same question I asked myself daily, like yo, what's stopping everybody? And there's really no single answer to the question.

Kiva Slade 2:31

And they found that one issue that small businesses really don't have enough resources to set up a dedicated data science team, nor can they afford to bring in temporary consultants. And I know that that is something that I've seen in the work that I do, because basically, again, it kind of goes back to it's hard for someone to have like that level of income to have a data science team. And to have someone who specializes. If we're talking Google Analytics and things of that sort, the new GA 4 has SQL. So you're talking database languages, and programming languages and things of that sort that normally aren't a skill that's present in team members. So you need to have outside consultants. In addition to that, it's Levy, a CEO of a small business management software company, he said they're frequently forced, they being business owners, to make difficult trade offs when it comes to priorities. Nobody has time to learn a new specialized skill. Exactly. For many companies, it is hard to have someone who is totally going to be that person who focuses only on data. Because in many instances, people are wearing different hats. They also found though, that mindset is a problem. The main limitation of many small and midsize enterprises to implement analytics is the fact that they think that these new approaches are really just reserved for large companies. And in all actuality, they're not. So I've touched on this topic before on the podcast. But I feel it bears repeating as we've seen a jump in AI technology that's available to the public. Chat GPT and now Bard and there's another startup out of Canada that I've read about. There's a lot that's happening. Data in AI are going to be trends, not only for 2023, but also beyond. And as I've shared previously, resilience in business, especially in your operations, is imperative and data gives small immediate midsize businesses that opportunity to gain a leg up on the competition. So I show that to say, let's dive into some business intelligence stuff.

Kiva Slade 4:48

Okay. So business intelligence refers to the technologies, tools and practices that organizations use to analyze data to make informed business decisions. Informed business decisions, okay involves collecting data from multiple sources, cleaning it, transforming it into a usable format, and then analyzing it to gain insights and identify trends. Key components of BI include data warehousing, data mining, data visualization, and reporting. So nerd out with me for a minute, data warehousing, just simply where the data is stored and organized, okay, that for some businesses is a spreadsheet. For others. It's a database like SQL, it can be a lot of things, but let's not get complicated. It's where the data is stored and organized. Data mining is involving statistical machine learning algorithms to identify patterns and relationships in the data. Data visit visualization process of presenting that data in a visually appealing way charts and graphs, dashboards, all the things that are pretty, but also should not just be pretty, they should help the person understand. Like, super quickly, if you're looking at a chart, you're looking at a graph, you should within I think they say five to 10 seconds, actually be able to pick out what is that about? If you can't, that means the person who created it needs to go back to the drawing board. Okay. Finally reporting. And obviously, that's a process of summarizing and presenting the results of the analysis to to the decision makers, and all the data in the world means nothing without that last step. So you can have a pretty dashboard, if it's eye candy, unless someone in your business or consultant like myself is coming in alongside you to actually before you analyze the data and tell you, Okay, this is what it says, This is what I propose. And then you get to be informed to make a decision about do I go this way? Or do I go that way? Based on that analysis?

Kiva Slade 6:57

So how can you as a service based entrepreneur, harness this business intelligent data. And the first step, obviously, is you have to start collecting it, or you don't have it you can, you need to start. And that might be different sources, such as your sales, your marketing, customer service, obviously, there can also be employee productivity, there's different things that can fit into what you determined to collect, it's based on what kind of data you need to make the decisions that you need to make in your business, what kind of goals that you have set up. So those things need to be closely related and tied together. But it's also important to clean and transform the data. And I've talked about this before, like you, no one really wants dirty data. We don't want dirty anything. So with that being the case, but maybe I think, what's that, there's a drink. Anywho, keeping it PG. So we want to keep things clean and usable. And so you really want to clean your data sets, you want to make sure that the data that you're using, all of that is in the right format, you'd be surprised at something as small as a an extra space in a cell that throws off some of the data because it's not formatted properly. So therefore, it's not even included in any of your calculations and or analysis. So having a clean data set is super important, which because that clean data set is what's used for the data mining and the visualization process, which obviously leads to the reporting process. So you want to make sure you have those things. And again, you can use business intelligence data to include customer behavior patterns, market trends, and we're going to dive into some of those. And let's be clear, data in and of itself is not the end all be all for any business or heck life situation if we're honest. However, having the data, good, clean data, allows us to be informed. Being informed helps us to make better decisions. Obviously, that goes without saying for anything that we do in life. So the less information we have, the less likely our decision may not be very firmly rooted, we may not feel very confident in our decision, or like I'm gonna sit over here and wait just a little bit longer until I have more information. Data is that. It's your information.

Kiva Slade 9:21

So here are some ways that business intelligence BI can help you with decisions that actually move the needle. Okay, because again, every business has data, you could track so many things, but are they the things that you need to track in your business in order to move the needle? That's a conversation. So identifying market trends, managers, analysts, you can use data collected from various sources to identify upcoming like maybe you have ecommerce maturing products for some people, but for service based businesses, really thinking about what are your service offerings. Okay. Is the market changing? And what kind of consumer consumption patterns are you seeing? We have high ticket coaching programs, maybe. Are people still buying those? What are they looking for to have in those high ticket coaching programs? I see people post these questions all the time on Facebook. Do you want more one on one time? Do you want more hot seats? Do you want this? Do you want that? It's important to understand and identify market trends. What are people buying? What does it look like people are going to wind up purchasing. And these things are important. So you can use this data to measure the company's sales, sales performance and predict future outcomes. That's important because sales is oxygen, it is what our businesses need to breed, you can track the performance of your business. Business performance goes way beyond, as I've shared, revenue and profits. So you can help set your goals, map out tactic tactics to meet them, understanding how you're performing visa vie those goals, and what changes you can make stay on track.

Kiva Slade 11:02

And I love this one, because just last week, I was in a workshop, I guess, I'm not really sure what it was called. But I was in this and we had a guest speaker. And her business actually focuses on people using data and in how to interact with their marketing in a way to find like really find, as she said, if you want it to find customers who like pink elephants on Tuesdays from four to 8pm, she could help you find that like her in her company. This is like the stuff that they live and breathe off of. And I found that so interesting, because she showed an example where she used Chat GPT to in real life. Like she picked someone in the audience who shared what kind of business she has. And she used Chat GPT to map out a I think it was a three month marketing sales cycle for this woman on LinkedIn, based on the product, the service offering that she had. And having used Chat TPT for other things, I was just like, oh, whoa, do we get a copy of this because I need to watch this again. And I think that that is really important to understand, especially for those that fall into their small business, you have less than 100 employees, many of my best clients are those that have less than 15 team members. And as we look to embrace, you know, technology and understand that there's different ways we can utilize it, how can we do more with it for our teams and for our businesses. So you can also use big data to compare yourself to your competitors, like competitive and analytics is like, huge, you know, understanding if you are in a field like I had a client who was a finance blogger, understanding who her competition like she had a long standing SEO because of her long standing in the industry. However, new people were coming up, obviously SEO terms change, understanding, like, what her competitors were ranking for, for SEO purposes. How much competition there was, for those SEO words, was really helpful in helping the blog writer, figure out what content needed to be created. And so understanding like, how your competitors are doing, we all have competitors, even though we love to say that, yes, we all have our own secret sauce. And we come to the table with our own this that and the other fact of the matter is there's still someone else out there who's doing what you're doing.

Kiva Slade 13:58

Okay, so you can track competitors, like their strategies performance, let's be honest. Yeah, no, yeah, I'll be signing up for people's launches in this and the other just to see what they're doing. So it's another way for you to also do some stocking and compare data with your competitors. Increase your profit margins. Obviously, you can identify plug gaps in different areas of operations, whether it's like your sourcing your marketing your delivery of your product, so that can help you save $1 here, $1 there that adds up over the course of 12 months, okay? Predict the success of your business, like if you know where your market is going, and you know what your competition is doing. And you know how much you're selling over time. Hello, that improves your forecasting accuracy completely. So we can also dive into providing a better customer experience because let's be honest, that's sometimes an area where things can get a little messy. But for those businesses who are focused on customer experience, we all know like, we will shout it from the rooftops, when we have had this like good customer, well, we will really shout it when we've had bad customer service, i.e. Yelp. But when we've had good customer service, I like to believe that people will also share that. And that's important. So you can gain valuable customer information using BI analytics. Okay, help you understand your customers demographic, obviously, age, gender location, what are their shopping habits, interests, intense preferred communication channels? And you can take that all like a step further, how are they engaging with your brand? And what are their likes, their dislikes, and to help improve like the efficiency of your marketing campaigns? You know, so demographics, what products? Did they buy more of? Like? Do you have people who, whatever it is that you might sell, maybe they are ClickUp templates, and you have them and they're using those and you see that people are coming back, and they're buying the next one in your series of whatever's, okay. Which products received the maximum complaints? What new trends do you see your audience gravitating towards? All of these things are different dynamics that play into your marketing.

Kiva Slade 16:17

And we know that data also helps you improve like not only customers experience, because you can provide personalized recommendations, targeted campaigns, automated messages, all of those different things based on someone's buying behavior. And we see that every day if we go look at something on Amazon, and then we're on somewhere else. And we might see that ahead, or that other thing that popped up, it's because they're using that. They're using that data in order to figure out, Hey, these are some things that you like, maybe you might also like this, and we want to use that same kind of information. If you have people who have purchased your free opt in, okay, are you what are you doing to engage with them? Get that zero party data from them? That's right, you're asking them directly, you don't need anybody else. They're telling you directly zero party data that you can utilize to enhance their experience. Yes, they've gotten your freebie. But you know that there's an upsell to that freebie. What is it? Are you actually communicating that to them in a way that they want to hear if they came to you learning about you through video. And now you're constantly sending them something via audio, and they told you they like you via video? Listen, listen, okay. And we see this also taking place in the ad space, like Facebook has been hit hard with their ad spending, ad revenue. And so obviously, iOS changes, made some tweaks like you can target like you're used to. And that's been frustrating for a lot of people. But also a lot of companies have found that, hey, Google ads, even Amazon ads have been more profitable for them. So they're shifting their ad budgets to Google, to Amazon. And they're finding that this is actually I'm not investing as much as I was on Facebook, but I'm actually getting higher return on investment. So let's be honest, though, that if those customers businesses didn't have customer data, wouldn't matter where they chose to spend their money, they would risk you know, losing it by chasing the wrong customers, because they didn't have actual information.

Kiva Slade 18:27

So there's other ways like improving workforce productivity, you can also leverage it to fine tune your strategy. Like there's a new thing, self service, business intelligence, SSPI, like really having to for a lot of companies put together a DIY approach. The reality is, and I had this conversation last week with a potential client was, unfortunately for some of us small business owners, there is not yet a SAS driven tool that combines and we can pull our financial data out of QuickBooks, and we can build our operational data out of ClickUp. And we can do this. And plus, so many small businesses utilize many tools. But that does not mean that you cannot work with someone to put together again, you're based on your goals and your KPIs and your metrics, what data you need to be collecting. And in many cases, some of that data can be pulled by a Virtual Assistant, and then it's ready for an analyst to actually analyze it. The key is, again, you have to start collecting the data. So the when you have those kinds of things in place, you can start to do so much. And I think that we're just scratching the surface of understanding what we can do and obviously you can hear I get excited and passionate about this stuff. But monitoring your marketing campaigns, like at a granular level, like analyzing performance and tracking things, according to your KPIs, there's so much power that exists in data. And it's really about learning how to harness that to once again, be informed and make better decisions in your business.

Kiva Slade 20:15

So when I, as we just getting ready to wrap up, I think that, you know, if I go back to the article, I think it brings up an interesting point, which is mobbin, small business owners need BI to look for those parts of the business that are driving the most growth, which might be drowned out, by all the noise of getting things down. I'm gonna repeat that small business owners need BI to look for those parts of the business that are driving the most growth, which might be drowned out by all the noise of getting things done. And when you can take that really look at your your coaching programs, maybe you have a 1:1 in a group program, and you also have this membership. And you actually look at what where's the money coming from? What kind of level of productivity is our team having put forward to, to move these things forward to deliver these things to make this program be what it is. Which of these really is driving growth? Which of these gives us a better ROI? And do we need to focus more of our attention on one of those things to actually increase our profit margins, and do some things differently in our business?

Kiva Slade 21:38

So, again, here's the wrap up tips. Okay, business intelligence is a crucial tool that can help entrepreneurs make informed decisions and drive growth. That's number one. Number two, the key components of BI include data warehousing, don't complicate it. It's just where the data is held and looked at data mining, data visualization, and the most important reporting. Three, service based entrepreneurs can harness big data to gain insights into customer behavior patterns, market trends and areas for improvement in their operations. Four, best practices for gathering, analyzing and using big data include setting clear goals, having a plan, choosing the right tools and technologies and working with a team with the right skills and expertise. Hey, number five, by harnessing big data service based entrepreneurs can increase customer satisfaction, drive growth and achieve their goals. I will tell you this, that I've said this before, I've said it on this podcast, there's actually a report out now that says the same thing, which is for small businesses, operational resilience is going to be key. BI gives you that operational resilience data gives you operational resilience, so you can know where to spend your money, how much to spend, and what outcomes you can expect from those vendors expenditures. So if you're ready to harness the power of big data and drive growth for your service based business, book a call. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about what's going on and what exactly it is that you're looking to find out. So we can help you get started and provide some guidance to you along the way. So if you're interested, you can book a call at the516 collaborative.com. We'd love to have a chat with you. And again, do not be afraid of it. Data is your friend and we want to be able to use it in a way to grow your business, and also just enhance what you were doing. So I will talk to you next time with an operations focused podcast. See you then. Bye. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Collab with Kiva. I'm wildly cheering you on as you go forth and execute data and operational efficiencies in your business. If you need additional support, connect with me via my website, the 516 collaborative.com your reviews on Apple are appreciated. See you next week.

Meet Kiva Slade - the Founder and CEO of The 516 Collaborative. With a unique background in high-power politics on Capitol Hill and sixteen years as a homeschooling mama, Kiva found her calling in the online business world as a trusted guide for entrepreneurs looking to build the business of their dreams.

Kiva's work began behind the scenes, orchestrating the back end of businesses and managing teams. But her inner data diva couldn't help but notice that small businesses needed help harnessing the power of data for growth. So she and her team set out to uncover and tidy up the data required to enable clients to grow their businesses confidently and easily.