How did we do last month?
If answering that question takes you more than 30 seconds, you’re not alone. Most small business owners I talk to in Florence, Darlington, and Hartsville have the same problem: the data exists somewhere, but getting to it feels like archaeology.
Here’s what I see when I sit down with small business owners:
Sales numbers in one spreadsheet. Customer info in another. Inventory tracked somewhere else — maybe on paper. Expenses in QuickBooks. Appointments in a calendar app. Employee hours on time cards or yet another system.
Each piece of data lives in its own little world. None of them talk to each other.
So when you want to answer a simple question — “Which customers haven’t ordered in 3 months?” or “What’s our busiest day of the week?” — you’re stuck copying and pasting, scrolling through old files, or just… guessing.
Gut feeling isn’t bad. You know your business. Your instincts are often right.
But gut feeling has limits.
You might feel like Tuesdays are slow, so you cut staff. But what if the data shows Tuesdays are actually your highest-margin day because certain products sell better?
You might think your best customer is the one who comes in most often. But what if someone else spends three times as much per visit?
You might assume a product isn’t selling well, so you stop ordering it. But what if it was just out of stock during your busiest weeks?
Guessing costs money. Sometimes you never even know how much.
Forget the corporate jargon. Data analytics for a small business just means: getting answers from the information you already have.
You don’t need a data scientist. You don’t need expensive software. You don’t need a 47-page report with pie charts.
You need someone to:
That’s what I do.
By day, I’m a Level II Automation Engineer at Nucor — one of the largest steel producers in the country. My job is turning raw manufacturing data into reports and dashboards that help supervisors make decisions.
I’ve built systems that track production across six process lines. I create reports that answer questions like “where are we losing time?” and “which shifts perform best?” I work with messy, real-world data every single day.
The same approach works for your business. Actually, it works better — because your questions are simpler and your data is smaller. What takes months in a factory takes hours for a local business.
For retail and restaurants:
For service businesses:
For any business:
Example 1: The restaurant owner who felt like weekends were profitable but wasn’t sure. We pulled data from her POS system and found that Saturday lunch was actually her lowest-margin period — high sales, but mostly low-margin items and high labor costs. She adjusted her staffing and menu focus. Now Saturday lunch is profitable.
Example 2: The contractor who couldn’t figure out why some months were great and others were tight. We looked at his job history and found that jobs over a certain size consistently went over budget by 15-20%. The estimates were wrong. He adjusted his pricing formula. Problem solved.
Example 3: The retail shop owner who thought her loyalty program wasn’t working. The data showed loyalty customers spent 40% more per visit — she just couldn’t see it because the numbers were buried in different reports. Now she invests more in keeping those customers happy.
Step 1: A conversation. You tell me what questions you wish you could answer. What decisions would be easier if you had better information?
Step 2: I look at what you have. Spreadsheets, point-of-sale exports, whatever. I find where the useful data lives and what shape it’s in.
Step 3: I connect the pieces. Sometimes that means cleaning up existing spreadsheets. Sometimes it means building a simple dashboard. Sometimes it means setting up a better way to capture data going forward.
Step 4: You get answers. Not a 50-page report. Just the information you need, in a format you’ll actually use.
$100/hour. Most small business analytics projects run $300-$800 depending on complexity.
A simple “let’s clean up your spreadsheets and build a basic dashboard” might be 3-4 hours. A deeper dive into multiple data sources with ongoing reporting might be 8-10 hours.
I’ll give you a clear estimate before starting. No surprises.
Free 15-minute call: Not sure if this is right for you? Call me. I’ll ask a few questions about your situation and tell you honestly whether I can help.
Good fit if:
Not the first step if:
Every business is different. The questions that matter to a restaurant are different from the questions that matter to a contractor.
Call me and tell me what you wish you knew about your business. I’ll give you an honest take on whether I can help — no sales pitch.
Call or text: 854-204-7526 Email: [email protected]
Learn more about my tech consulting services.
