Try it, Refine it, Scale it! Takeaways From Our Discussion With Kirk and Candice Munroe

Kirk and Candice Munroe are data enthusiasts with extensive experience in data analytics and presentation. Both Kirk and Candice are Dalhousie Pharmacy graduates, and while those degrees may not seem applicable to their current positions in the data world, their science background gave them problem solving skill sets and inquisitive natures that they bring to every challenge presented to them in the business world. 

Kirk has a lengthy background in marketing and product management with 21 years in analytics. Most recently, he has become an author. Candice was a pharmacist, and transitioned through pharmacy data to her career now, where she is a 3x founder, including her startup: Paint With Data. Currently, they work primarily in visual analytics coaching, helping companies build a data analytics culture.

Their scientific natures lead a natural segway into the topic that they discussed with our cohort last week: using an experimental approach in business. Here are some of our key takeaways:

1. Use the Scientific Method

When analyzing your data, you should ask it questions. You can’t just wait for the data to tell you something, you need a hypothesis to test. Don’t just make a simple observation or apply a general rule either, ask yourself: what do you want to achieve? What are the things you need to know from your data? Then, use those questions as a framework to develop a hypothesis to test. Afterwards you can move forward with analyzing your data.

Getting started, you don’t need to wait to find out what your burning questions are either. At the start, come up with basic questions pertaining to your goal, and then those answers will lead to deeper questions as you move through the data refining process.

2. Try it, Refine it, Scale it!

There are numerous ways to run tests in business. No matter the type of test you do, you should set a goal you want to reach, and then try an experiment on a small subset of your business first. Then, after trying that and measuring its success against your goal, you can decide whether or not you want to scale it out.

Why should you do this testing? There are countless benefits, but primarily it gives you data to guide business decisions and back up claims. Marketing is a department that is often scrutinized for their spending. If you are going to be making a proposal of some sort, it will be better to have already done testing and have data to back you up.

3. ‘Paint With Data’

As a marketer, you can’t just distill your data and present it. You need to tell a story with the information you find in your data to whoever your audience is. Keep in mind, you are the one who knows your audience, and you will need to tailor your data presentation to suit their needs.

A practical application of this is “executive selling”. Many, more senior executives may be accustomed to going with their judgement. However, these same executives won’t ignore data when it is presented to them in a thorough, meaningful way. You can’t show a spreadsheet to individuals like this because it won’t sway their minds. Visually presenting your findings is more likely to do so, as it will cause an emotional response that will leave a greater impact than just numbers.

Thank you Candice and Kirk for your valuable insight!