Monday Morning Data Dives: A Gamechanger for My Business

One of the biggest takeaways from my three years working at eSpark Learning (my first edtech job after leaving teaching) was the importance of collecting, analyzing, and acting on data. I had incredible leaders like David Vinca (founder and CEO), Luke Shepard (CTO), and Scott Shepard (Data Analyst), who taught me that if you use data correctly, it can have a significant impact on your growth.

There are two essential activities that I have implemented as an entrepreneur that have allowed me to skyrocket to success: my Friday morning financial roundup and my Monday morning deep data dive.

On Monday mornings, I fill out a spreadsheet I built to track l data and growth for my websites, podcasts, YouTube channels and courses, and memberships.

A skill for teachers leaving the classroom

When you’re thinking of leaving the classroom, you might not know where to start as far as building skills for the corporate world. One place you can start is data. Almost every role requires it, or is even based on it, and it can help you feel that much more successful once you know what to read it and act on it.

My Monday morning data dives give me an opportunity to:

• Reflect on my content creation and activities from the previous week to identify what’s working and what isn’t working

• Realign my energy with the activities that have an impact on my bottom line

• Celebrate the people I’ve helped

• Let go of the things that aren’t working so I have the energy to enjoy my personal life more.

What do I do in my Monday morning data dives?

Every Monday morning, I gather data from various tools for both Classroom to Boardroom and educators 2 educators:

• Squarespace analytics for both websites (traffic, traffic sources, search keywords, site content clicks, and form and button conversions)

• Podbean analytics for both podcasts (Downloads for last day, 7 days, 30 days, and all time + Most Downloaded episodes in last 30 days)

• YouTube analytics for both channels (views, watch time, subscriber increase, top videos)

• Kajabi analytics for Revenue (courses and membership purchased, opt-ins to pipelines)

How do these data dives drive revenue and success in my business?

• Most importantly, I look at my previous week’s activities (emails, social posts, etc.) to see what drives traffic to my website.

• I use those success stories to repeat and iterate the activities that drove traffic and conversions.

• I let go of activities that had little or zero impact on my business (for instance, I see very little conversion from Facebook and Twitter, so I don’t bother to post on those social media outlets).

• I look at my week ahead and ensure all content and activities align with my past success stories. I cut back on even the most minor tasks with little impact to spend that extra time doing what I love (family, cooking, tennis, friends, etc.).

For instance, last week, I had a TikTok go completely viral (135,000 views in a few hours). You could see the impact in that one video across all of my data during my Monday morning data dive. The video worked and converted BIG time across all of my channels. I had been shy about using TikTok, but I quickly realized that I’d been missing a huge opportunity for growth. I’ll keep testing my Tik Tok strategy over the next few weeks to ensure it continues to produce.

Finally, people often ask me how I do it all. How am I so productive with such a small team behind me?

I use data and past trends to inform me about short-term and long-term projects and products. If I didn’t listen to the data and just created content and threw it out into the universe to see if it worked, I’d be spinning in circles. Instead, I shed myself and my business of busy work that has little impact.

Bottom line: I say no more than I say yes

I built the course Finding Your Focus to help others say no and focus on what has an impact. In this course, I help new, and struggling entrepreneurs find their focus by diving deep into the problem they are solving for their audience. I see many new entrepreneurs trying to do it all, finding little success. Focus for six months on your ideal customer, and your data will show improvement; I guarantee it.

One last thought

Notice that I do not spend any time looking at social media follower growth. I used to obsess over how many Instagram followers I had. Over time, I realized that the number of followers does not matter if they are not converting into content consumers or customers.

Now, I look at data to determine which social media outlets are driving traffic to my website and focus on those outlets in my content creation. Every once in a while, I peek at my followers, but I don’t always trust social media to put my content in front of my followers. Lesson: Don’t let how many followers you have to fool you into feeling safe and secure in your business. Think about where you are driving those followers and what journey you are helping them take side-by-side with you as their guide.

There are so many amazing jobs out there for teachers leaving education. You can give yourself an edge in your job search and help prevent being ghosted by interviewers by learning new skills, like understanding data and being confident with it.

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