Analysing Your Business Data: Questions Before Numbers
The most common request after any system is “give me reports”. The question nobody asks is: reports about what? Data does not answer a question you did not ask.
$109Subscription — one-time, lifetime access
01 — Overview
Overview
Reports get built, opened once or twice, then never opened again — not because they are wrong, but because they answer questions nobody asked. So this course starts from the question and works back to the data, which is the reverse of how nearly everyone does it.
And what surprises owners most is that the data is already theirs: in their invoices, their order book, and their conversations with customers. The course computes the returning-customer rate, the natural repeat window, and the channel that brings people who never come back — all in a simple sheet, with no tool.
It is not academic statistics. No significance and no standard deviation — instead three practical checks that stop you deciding on noise, and a stopping rule that prevents the oldest analytical sin: splitting the data until it agrees with what you already decided.
02 — What you will learn
What you will learn
Starting from the question rather than the data — and cancelling any report with no decision behind it
Inventorying the data you already hold, and how far back each source actually goes
The two columns that turn a record into data — and why the identifier must be the phone number
The three things that cannot be recovered retroactively, and how to start recording them today
The four comparisons, and neutralising seasonality — the greatest deceiver in a small business
Three checks that separate a real difference from noise, and the single order that moves everything
Computing your returning-customer rate and your natural repeat window in a simple sheet
Splitting by product, channel, area and time — with a stopping rule and a trap to avoid
03 — The lessons
The lessons
- The Question Before the Data
- Inventory Your Data: What You Hold and Never Look At
- Comparison: A Number with No Comparison Is Not Information
- When a Difference Is Real — and When It Is Noise
- Where Your Customers Come From — and Which of Them Return
- Splitting: Where the Answer Hides
- The Data That Is Not Recorded: Ask
- The Capstone: Your Questions Dashboard and the Audit
04 — What you get
What you get
8 interactive lessons in short sections
~4 hours including hands-on tasks
A 32-question audit + a ninety-day plan
No analytics tool needed — a simple sheet is enough
05 — How subscribing works
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06 — Questions, answered
Questions, answered
Do I need an analytics tool?
No, and lesson one says plainly not to buy one for the sake of this course. Everything in it runs in a simple sheet: you need a dated record of your sales, something identifying the customer, and the order source if it is recorded. A year of data is better and six months is enough to start. The course never names a tool or a service — tools change, and the question “what do I want to know” does not.
How is it different from the business numbers course?
That course is about your financial numbers — profit versus cash, the margin, break-even, the cash forecast. This one is about your customers, channels and products rather than their profitability: where they come from, who returns, when a change is real, and where the answer hides when the total looks normal. The two readings meet in one place, and the course says so: a segment growing at a weak margin is a pricing problem, and a segment declining at an excellent margin is a demand problem — and you cannot tell which if you read only one of them.
Is there statistics in it?
No, and that is deliberate. Statistical significance is a correct instrument, but it needs counts most small businesses do not have, and computing it without understanding it gives false confidence. Instead the course gives three practical checks — how large is the count, how long is the period, did it repeat — plus a rule for removing the single large order that distorts everything, and a reversed-question test: would I have noticed this difference if I were not looking for it?
My data is in a paper book. Does that stop me?
No. Lesson one lists a dated sales record “even a paper book” as enough to start. What actually stops you is missing one of two columns: the date, without which there is no comparison and no seasonality, and something identifying the customer, without which you can never know who returned. Both are in the six items the audit never waives.
Does it deal with customer privacy?
Yes, as a constraint rather than a chapter. The course walks on people’s data throughout, so two lessons carry an explicit limit: analyse with the least necessary, strip what identifies the person when you do not need it, do not copy answers into scattered files, and ask only about what you will use. The full treatment — the inventory, the notice, retention and deletion — is the "Personal Data Protection" book, and the course defers to it by name.
How do I pay and get access?
There is no online payment on this site. Send the request form, I contact you personally, we arrange payment (cash or local transfer), then you get a one-time activation code for one device with lifetime access.
07 — Send your request
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