Getting Comfortable with Data Adds Value and Revenue
It’s funny. As long as we’re talking about storage arrays, we have no trouble talking data. People in our line of work deal with data all the time – gigabytes and petabytes and whatnot – and it doesn’t scare us a bit (warning: that won’t be the last pun in this column – spot them all and win – well – a satisfying chuckle, at best).
But ask us to provide a statistical basis for our sales forecasts, and we just might regress to the tantrums of childhood. The data that we sell is just fine, but the data about that data scares the hell out of most of us.
But the really funny thing is: that kind of data could actually help us sell a whole lot more of the other kind. It’s one thing to guess – or hypothesize, as the statisticians say – about our customers’ business problems, but in the real world, sometimes we only have part of the picture without data. And sometimes, we have to have hard, cold numbers to convince our customers and ourselves that we’re on the right track.
Imagine the power you could have – and the value you could add – if you could show your customers a pretty picture, based on data, that proved that buying just one piece of equipment from you could solve 80% of their biggest problems. Yeah, that’s pretty cool, isn’t it? And by “cool,” we mean nerdy, but profitable as all get out!
We don’t have to become statisticians, but if we can get comfortable with a couple of simple data analysis techniques, we can wow customers, add value to our partners and leave the competition in our eraser dust.
One of the simplest and most powerful data analysis tools you can learn to use is the Pareto chart. This clever variation on a basic column chart was named for Vilfredo Pareto, the Italian economist and philosopher who is probably best known for the Pareto principle. Before we get to the chart, it helps to understand the principle.
While studying land ownership and the distribution of wealth in his native country during the early 20th century, Signore Pareto discovered that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by only 20% of the people. Since then, economists, statisticians and quality control experts have found this phenomenon to be true in all kinds of contexts.
In sales, you might see the Pareto principle at work when you see that 20% of your customers account for 80% of your revenue. In quality control and business process improvement – which is the business you’re in, if you really want to sell more by helping your customers solve problems – you might see it when 80% of the things that go wrong are the result of about 20% of the possible causes. 80% of the time that the data center overheats, it’s caused by only a couple of the dozen or so possible issues.
As always, talking about data like this makes it sound way more complicated than it is. It’s like dancing about architecture. So next time, we’ll get into specifics, with real data, real numbers and real pretty pictures. We’ll use a Pareto chart to help figure out why I just can’t seem to get to work on time. Until then, I’m not going to give you any homework. I just want you to promise that you’ll be brave. The data won’t hurt you. Its bark is worse than its byte.
Eryc Eyl / Freelance Writer and Business Consultant
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