Tag: book review

Being A Great Analyst > Key Attribute #4 > Be Enchanting

If you are a good analyst or a decision-maker that uses analytics, being enchanting makes your job much, much easier.

One key to using data and analysis effectively is understanding how to enchant people by being likable, trustworthy and using data and analysis to further a great cause.

A few years back, I came across a book by Guy Kawasaki called Enchantment. It is my all-time favorite business book.

5.5

Guy Kawasaki is a marketing expert and used to be Apple’s Chief Evangelist (aka Chief Marketing Officer). At Apple their goal is to convert customers to being loyal to Apple products for life.

In Enchantment, Guy talks about how Apple and other successful companies are able to create enchantment in their customer base that fuels passionate and long lasting relationships.

As an analyst there are many lessons that you can draw from Enchantment to being an incredibly impactful member of your organization.

One of the pillars of Enchantment is being Trustworthy. As an analyst, you have to be trustworthy for people to want to follow the direction your data and analysis point.

Your data has to be clean, valid, and accurate.

Your analysis has to be easy to understand, easy to replicate and easy to boil down into a few bullet points.

When you accomplish these things you are creating trust. Getting decision-makers to listen to what the data is telling them comes when the analysts have their trust.

That’s just one part of Enchantment. I use many examples of how to apply Guy’s concept to data and analysis in my training classes and in my company.

If you are looking for a way to add value to your company, which in turn can make the business more successful then this book is a must read.

Analytics Culture – The key to using analytics in a business is like a secret sauce. It is a unique combination of analytics talent, technology and technique that are brought together to enrich and empower an organization. A successful analytics culture is not easy to create, but DMAIPH can show you how. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly so we can build a strategic plan to turn your company into analytics driven success story.

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Data-Driven Cultures

Inspired in part by Bernard Marr’s 2010 book, The Intelligent Company, my goal these past several years has been to build and/or be part of data-driven business cultures.

In his book, Bernard advocates for using Evidence-Based Management, that is using the best available data to inform decision-makers. In parallel to this, I have been empowering companies and professionals to empower decision-makers to use more data as well. I call it data-driven decision-making, but at their cores, they are very similar approaches to managing success.

Over the next several blog posts I will share my thoughts on the steps Bernard published. I will be giving my own spin towards more analytics and data-science, two things that I think have accelerated in importance since the book went to print six years ago.

The cornerstone of the book is the five steps to more intelligent decision-making, which are:

  • Step 1. More intelligent strategies – by identifying strategic priorities and agreeing your real information needs
  • Step 2. More intelligent data – by creating relevant and meaningful performance indicators and qualitative management information linked back to your strategic information needs
  • Step 3. More intelligent insights – by using good evidence to test and prove ideas and by analyzing the data to gain robust and reliable insights
  • Step 4. More intelligent communication – by creating informative and engaging management information packs and dashboards that provide the essential information, packaged in an easy-to-read way
  • Step 5. More intelligent decision-making – by fostering an evidence-based culture of turning information into actionable knowledge and real decisions.

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As information and data volumes grow at explosive rates, the challenges of managing this information is turning into a losing battle for most companies. In the end they find themselves drowning in data while thirsting for insights. Combine this with an increasingly severe shortage of talent with analytics, data visualization and good communication skills, things look bleak for companies not adhering to lessons like those suggested in the Intelligent Company.

I get this stuff. In response to a quickening demand for knowledge and know how, I have developed training materials to address these decision-making challenges. The reason I founded DMAI in the first place was to empower more data-driven Decision-Making through the use of Analytics and business Intelligence. I’m happy to help you enable better decision-making in your business and turn it into an Intelligent Company.

Analytics Culture – The key to using analytics in a business is like a secret sauce. It is a unique combination of analytics talent, technology and technique that are brought together to enrich and empower an organization. A successful analytics culture is not easy to create, but DMAIPH can show you how. Contact DMAIPH now at analytics@dmaiph.com or connect with me directly so we can build a strategic plan to turn your company into analytics driven success story.

Book Review > See-Saw-Sell by Jonathan Petalver

My good friend Jonathan “the Sales Champ” Petalver has just authored a book for both seasoned sales professionals and first time sales people. The book’s tagline… Killer-Instinct Mindset to Sell More and Win More, says it all. In short the book is about 50 pages of easy to understand and even easier to implement sales strategies that make sense to anyone familiar with sales or not.

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One of the very first things the author does is establish the belief that sales is as much a science as an art. For most sales professionals, being good is just not something you learn but something you are born with and nurture. By showing both the art and the science behind sales, Petalver blows past that myth and shows how anyone can learn sales is they devote as much time to studying data and analysis as they do to talking.

Throughout the rest of the book, readers are empowered with a number of very memorable sales strategies that stick in your head. My favorite is the concept of “ness”… everyone has a “ness” about them that is unique to themselves. Learning how to channel this “ness” into a sales tool is something truly eye opening. My “Dan-ness” harnesses my love for analytics and my passion for teaching and can make me a very powerful and persuasive sales person for the right audience.

Another of my favorite things about this book is Jonathan’s promotion of analytics… using the data in and around a sales process to make more data-driven decisions. So few sales pros really get how data can be a powerful tool… but the ones who do are much more successful. Having seen firsthand how Wells Fargo’s top sales people are constantly looking at sales data and market analysis to find opportunities taught me the value of really paying more attention to the science side of sales.

Overall, the See-Saw-Sell is a great read, full of easy to digest strategies that will add a lot of value to not just sales pro and newbies to sales, but just about anyone who is in a customer facing position who wants to do more than just close a deal, but to build a deep and long-lasting relationship with their clients.

If any of you followers or readers of this blog need some sales guidance, Jonathan Petalver is the Sales Champ you need in your corner.