Data doesn't have to be a scary thing.

In this video, we will simplify data, as well as talk about how to use data in your marketing, and how to use it in your life.

Going from a stable job at a power company to starting your own educational company teaching people beer brewing and beer tasting online doesn't seem like a common career trajectory, but that is exactly what this entrepreneur did. Why? Because the data told him that he could.

What does being data driven mean?

Being data driven begins with knowing the numbers that are important to your business, and knowing what will drive growth in your business. There are only three ways to grow your existing business: you either need to get more customers, get larger order values from those customers, or you sell more things to existing customers. Every action that you take needs to tie back to one of those metrics.It's very easy to get lost in the weeds with data, but if you always tie each of the metrics back to those three objectives, then you will always be in good shape.

How can you think about your data to make it more manageable?

Start by asking yourself questions. Don't start by looking at tools that you think that you might need, start by figuring out what drives your business forward.One question that every business needs to figure out early on is: how much can I afford to pay to acquire a new customer? Once you figure out the questions like that, the questions that will drive your business forward, then you can start looking for platforms that will allow you to track the information that will drive you to those answers.Once you have the platforms chosen, you will need to verify the data that they are passing back to you. You will need to determine a platform that you trust and make that the final word on what data you trust; we call this the single source of truth. You need to have one place that has the final say when it comes to important data points for your business: for your money, it can be your stripe account, for your leads, it can be your CRM. Find that one place that you can turn to and trust whatever it says for each of the important KPI's that impact those key questions.You will find as you progress in your data journey that there are redundancies in your data tracking, and sometimes the data will not line up between platforms; that is why it is important to figure out for each one of your most important KPI's what is going to be your final source of truth.

It's not about how many metrics you have, it's about having the right ones and then having an action tied to it.

Whenever there is a data anomaly, you need to figure out what happened to cause it. If it was a good anomaly, you want to figure out how you can replicate it; if it was a bad one, you want to figure out how to avoid it in the future.The key to finding those anomalies is to be in your data, or to have alerts set up so that you are aware when something changes in your business.

You can't manage what you don't measure.

Your output is only as good as your input, so if your data is inaccurate or if you are tracking the wrong things, then you may end up making decisions that will impact the success of your business off faulty information.If you're not tracking your data properly from the bottom up, you are not going to be able to have the data that you need.

From relationships to health, data is everywhere.

Data surrounds us in every aspect of our lives, it's like the Matrix. And like the Matrix, once we learn how to see and understand that data, we can do remarkable things with it.People and data together can do anything.My name is AJ Yager at PraxisMetrics.com and thank you for investing your time here with me today. Please connect with Praxis on Linkedin and Facebook for more resources to help you scale. We love to help companies like yours grow and achieve their goals faster, so please reach out to me at my email as well if you have any specific questions.Good luck on your journey!