Last week, I signed up for my last semester of my MBA, and I’ll be taking marketing analytics and a Capstone. In the Capstone I’m going to work on building a business plan and pitch it to investors for a Dia de Los Muerto Altar concept I’ve been dreaming about doing for two years as a side hustle.
Overall, I’m excited to finally be done with my MBA in December to have more time to implement the ideas from my analytic classes.
I have fallen in love with analytics, and I feel that there are many opportunities to combine this with the financial planning, business consulting, and personal development coaching that I do. I’ve already created an analytic cryptocurrency dashboard and I want to add other features to help me think of strategies to implement in this space.
If you’re not familiar with analytics, it’s taking data to do one of three things:
- Descriptive Analytics – Trying to find miss opportunities or threats that happened in the past, like knowing which cashier has the most voids, which can signal fraud and should be explored more.
- Predictive Analytics – Trying to predict what will happen in the future so that you can be better prepared for it, like knowing how many people will show up at a farmers market on the weekend when the weather is 80 degrees.
- Prescriptive Analytics – Using past data with criteria to optimize a situation, like creating the upcoming work schedule for employees by saying you can only spend $2000 but need these many workers for the week. Then the analytics will tell you if you can do it or not.
Even after spending 225 hours in June to pass my CFP exam on July 6th, I can’t stand still because I’m excited about these opportunities with analytics. Right after my exam, I enrolled in a bookkeeping class and Google’s Data Analytics certification program because of what I’m learning in my Syracuse Business Analytics class this semester.
How Using Business Analytics Is Helpful
From what I noticed, many small businesses don’t keep outstanding books, but if they do, they’re not using analytics to help them make better decisions, which can significantly boost sales and reduce costs. I wouldn’t be able to make this connection unless I took my MBA and then took accounting and marketing analytics by accident because the other electives were filled.
After I took these classes, I immediately made the connection to personal development. If you can get the right skills or insights, at the right time, it can really speed up your results or cause you to be on a growth path that you didn’t think was possible. If I can have the correct variables in place, I won’t be two times better. I can be 29 times better than the average financial planner and business consultant.
Two years ago, if you were to tell me to do the things that I can do now with business analytics, I wouldn’t know-how. I had the tools of excel and Access back then, but I didn’t know how to fully optimize them until I spent time learning them in my classes. Last week, I learned how to optimize my excel spreadsheets to save myself 8 hours a month of data entry, which saves me money and 96 hours a year.
Without tracking my time and looking on how I spend it, I could have wasted a lot of time. And if I can save myself time and make better decisions, then the analytical skills are the moderating effect that speeds up the results that I’m seeking.
How To Think About Moderating Effects With Your Personal Development
Think about moderating effects when it comes to your relationships, what are the skills, mindset, or frameworks you need to ten times the power of your relationships? But first you should ask yourself, what happens if you don’t seek out great relationships?
To get a great outcome requires having the correct variables at the right time to get that moderating effect. If you’re in a relationship, then going to therapy might be the moderating effect that increases your emotional intelligence to be a better communicator and makes you emotionally stronger to handle the conflict in your relationship. Now instead of having distress when it comes to communicating with your partner, you can have the power to make every conflict a five-minute problem that can get resolved.
With analytics and moderating effects, it’s not a one-and-done type of thing because things are constantly changing. Just continue to monitor the situation and realize that if you want things to stay the same, something has the change.
With constantly changing variables, you want to learn how to stay ahead of those changes. This will come from asking questions and then pondering those questions while you review the data to see what you need to do next to get the results you desire.
My original moderating effect with personal development was books. Without the 247 books that I have read, I would not be doing the things I’m doing today. These books add to my knowledge bank which creates a lallapaloosa effect where I can pull insights from different authors to make better decisions. And this is what analytics is all about, to get more results with less effort or make better decisions for your life based on the resources and capabilities available to you internally and externally. And if you have shortfalls, the data will show you what areas you should act on.
As a person, you get to decide what is enough, but don’t be fooled into settling and living the rest of your life in quiet desperation. Have the self-awareness to know what you need to do every day and what needs to be added or removed from your life to help you live your best life. It’s all we can do.
