Analytics Mentoring

If your reports cause arguments, mentoring is often the missing step

I’ve spent more hours than I care to admit in meetings where the agenda says “make a decision” and the reality becomes “debate the report”. Someone questions the totals, someone blames the data source, someone blames the spreadsheet, and before you know it the meeting ends with “we’ll sort the reporting” and nothing changes.

If you’re a business owner or manager, it’s frustrating because you’re paying for everyone’s time and you still leave without an answer.

If you’re an aspiring analyst, it’s frustrating for a different reason. You can build charts, but you quickly realise charts are rarely the hard part. The hard part is turning messy real-world data into numbers that stand up in a meeting, especially when people start asking sensible questions.

That’s where mentoring comes in. Practical help to get the basics right, so the work holds up in the real world.

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What I mean by mentoring

When I say “analytics mentoring”, I mean working through your real situation together, then turning it into something clear you can actually use.

In practice, that usually means getting the basics nailed down. What the numbers mean, where they come from, how often they update, and who owns them. Once those are stable, dashboards and reports become useful rather than something people argue about.

For aspiring analysts, it means learning how to deliver analytics in a way businesses are willing to pay for. Requirements, stakeholder conversations, definitions, scoping, and building work that doesn’t fall apart the moment someone asks “hang on, what does this include?”

If you’re looking for a simple foundation first, start with what business intelligence is. If you’ve ever wondered why reports go wrong even when people try their best, fix reporting mistakes is a good companion piece.

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Who this is for

Business owners and managers

This is for you if you’ve grown past gut feel and “the spreadsheet only one person understands”, but you’re not ready to hire a full-time data person yet.

Maybe you’ve got multiple systems now. A CRM, accounting software, a booking tool, spreadsheets, maybe a stock system. The business is moving, but the reporting can’t keep up, and it’s starting to slow down decisions.

You might also be thinking about hiring someone for reporting, or you’ve even caught yourself saying “maybe we need a data team”. If that’s where you’re at, you’ll probably relate to my other post: Do You Need a Data Team, or Just Better Reporting?

If you’re still working out what to track, start with what a small business should actually track and essential SME KPIs. Mentoring helps you narrow that down to what matters in your business, not a generic KPI list that looks good but changes nothing.

Aspiring data analysts and freelancers

This is for you if you can build dashboards, maybe you’ve done a course, maybe you’ve built a portfolio, but you haven’t yet built the skills that make businesses trust your work and pay for it.

The big shift is moving from “I can make a dashboard” to “I can help a business answer questions and make decisions with numbers they trust”.

Most people underestimate how much of analytics is communication, scoping, and definitions. That’s the difference between a dashboard that looks nice and a dashboard that survives contact with real stakeholders.

If you’re brand new to tooling, Power BI for beginners will help you get your bearings, but mentoring is mainly about what comes after the basics.

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Track 1: Mentoring for business owners and teams

Common situations I see

You have multiple versions of the truth.
Sales reports one number. Finance reports another. Operations has a spreadsheet “because the system is missing things”. Nobody knows which one is right, so you spend time debating rather than acting.

Monthly reporting takes too long.
Someone is stuck doing exports and clean-up for days. Often it’s one capable person holding it together through sheer effort. That works until they’re on holiday, off sick, or they leave.

You’re making decisions without a clear view of profit.
This shows up in trades and service businesses a lot. You feel busy, you feel booked up, but profit is not where it should be. If you haven’t already, read the true cost of a job and what causes low profit margin. Those two topics are often the first time someone sees the problem clearly.

You feel profitable, but cash is tight.
This is one of the most common and most stressful situations. It often has simple causes, but you need the right numbers to spot them. Profitable but no cash explains why this happens and what to look at first.

You’re not sure whether you need dashboards at all.
Sometimes you do. Sometimes a simple reporting pack is better. If you’re unsure, do I need a dashboard? will help you decide before you sink time into something nobody uses.

You have plenty of data, but it’s messy or scattered.
This is where business data basics matters. Mentoring helps you turn that into a practical plan rather than a pile of theory.

What we work on together

Mentoring for business owners usually comes down to five things.

1) The decisions you actually need to make

Not “more reporting”. Decisions. Hiring, pricing, which services to push, which customers to say no to, where time is being wasted, where costs are creeping.

2) A small set of numbers that support those decisions

This is where most businesses go wrong. They track too much and use none of it. We choose a small set that reflects how you run the business.

3) Definitions that stop arguments

What counts as revenue. What counts as a lead. How you treat refunds. What you consider “delivered”. When a job starts and ends. These sound obvious until you try to write them down in one sentence.

4) Ownership and rhythm

Who owns each number, and when it updates. Weekly, monthly, whatever suits your business. The goal is to stop reporting being an emergency and make it a routine.

5) An output you will actually use

Sometimes that’s a dashboard. Sometimes it’s a weekly scorecard. Sometimes it’s a monthly pack. If spreadsheets are still the reality, we can still make them clean and reliable. My post on small business spreadsheets explains the difference between spreadsheets that help and spreadsheets that quietly control your business.

If customer feedback is part of your world, we can also tie that into reporting so you’re not only measuring revenue. Here’s my approach to analysing customer feedback.

What you’ll have at the end

Mentoring should end with something tangible. Depending on what you need, you’ll usually leave with a mix of:

• A one-page definitions sheet for your key numbers

• A simple reporting layout (weekly or monthly) that fits your business

• A short priority list (what to tidy first, what can wait)

• A plan for who owns what internally

• Clear next steps, whether that’s improving spreadsheets, building a dashboard, or hiring someone

The aim is that your next management meeting can focus on decisions, not arguing about the basics.

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Track 2: Mentoring for aspiring data analysts and freelancers

The gap between “I can build a dashboard” and “a business will pay for this”

These days, plenty of people can build a dashboard. Templates exist. Tools are more accessible. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just where the world is now.

The part businesses struggle with is everything around the dashboard. Working out what they actually need, agreeing definitions, dealing with messy data, and ending up with something that still makes sense when someone asks a perfectly normal question like “what’s included in that?”

That means you need skills that most courses barely touch:

• Turning vague requests into clear requirements

• Handling stakeholders who disagree

• Writing definitions so the work stays consistent

• Scoping work so it doesn’t become endless

• Explaining results without waffle

If you want a simple tool reference, Tableau vs Power BI can help you understand the landscape, but the tool is rarely the hard part.

What we work on together

Mentoring for aspiring analysts is practical and grounded. We typically cover:

1) Requirement capture that works in the real world

How to go from “we need a dashboard” to “what decisions does this support?” and “what does success look like?”

2) Metric definitions and modelling basics

How to write definitions properly, spot gaps, and build a model that stands up when questioned. This is what separates portfolio work from paid work.

3) Dealing with messy data without panicking

How to approach inconsistencies, missing data, duplicates, weird category names, and “that’s how we’ve always done it”. This is most of the job.

4) Packaging your work so it doesn’t spiral

Not marketing scripts. Practical scope boundaries, basic pricing logic, and how to avoid being trapped in endless “can you just add one more thing?” requests.

5) Presenting work to non-technical people

How to explain what you did, what assumptions you made, and what the business should do next. This matters more than most people think.

What you’ll have at the end

Depending on where you’re starting, you might leave with:

• A simple requirements template you can reuse with clients

• A metric definition template (so you stop building on sand)

• A repeatable approach for taking messy exports and turning them into clean reporting

• A clear plan for what skills to build next, based on your goals

• Feedback on a real dashboard or report you’ve built, focused on what would hold up in a business setting

The goal is confidence based on competence, not confidence based on hype.

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How mentoring works

Mentoring works best when it’s tied to something real.

For business owners, that might be your current monthly report, or the report you wish you had. For aspiring analysts, that might be a dashboard you’ve already built, or a messy dataset you’re struggling with.

A typical flow looks like this:

• Quick context first: what’s your situation, what systems you use, what the pain is

• Define the goal: what you want to change, and what “better” looks like

• Work through the messy bits: definitions, sources, gaps, and practical fixes

• Leave with outputs: a plan, templates, and next steps you can actually follow

I also keep it honest. If you don’t need mentoring, or you need a different kind of help, I’ll tell you. Sometimes the best move is not analytics at all. Sometimes it’s sorting out basic finance processes first, or getting bookkeeping in order. If you’re unsure what falls where, bookkeeper vs accountant vs data analyst explains it in plain terms.

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Common mistakes mentoring helps you avoid

Buying tools before agreeing definitions
A new dashboard doesn’t fix disagreement. It just makes disagreement look more official.

Hiring without knowing what you want the hire to deliver
If you can’t describe the first 30 days of work in plain English, you’re not ready to hire. You’re hoping the hire will work it out, and that usually ends badly.

Trying to measure everything
More KPIs does not mean more control, it just adds to the growing problem of pretending to be sorting things out when you are not.

Building reports nobody uses
If the report does not support a decision, it becomes decoration.

Letting one person become the reporting hero
When one person holds everything together, the business is one sick day away from chaos.

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FAQs

1) Is mentoring only for bigger businesses?
No. It’s about complexity, not size. A small business with messy systems and unclear numbers can benefit as much as a larger business.

2) Do I need Power BI for mentoring to be useful?
No. Mentoring can start with spreadsheets and basic reporting. Tools come later, once the basics are stable.

3) I’m an aspiring analyst. Will you teach me how to get clients?
Not in the marketing-coach sense. What I will do is help you build the skills that make businesses willing to pay you, because your work holds up and your approach is professional.

4) What should I bring to a mentoring session?
For business owners: the report you currently use, plus a list of the systems you pull data from.
For aspiring analysts: a dashboard or report you’ve built, or a dataset you’ve struggled with, plus the type of work you want to do.

5) How quickly will I see an improvement?
If you keep the scope tight, you can see improvement quickly. Often the first win is simply agreeing definitions and removing the biggest sources of mismatch.

6) Can you mentor my team, not just me?
Yes. That’s often the best route because it creates shared understanding and shared ownership. It also stops reporting knowledge living in one person’s head.

7) What if our data is a complete mess?
Then we start where it matters most. We focus on the decisions you need to make and the few numbers that support them. You don’t need perfect data everywhere to make progress.

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Next Steps

If you’re a business owner, do this one simple test: pick one key number you use in meetings, like revenue, profit, leads, or job cost, and try to write its definition in one sentence. What is included, what is excluded, and where it comes from. If that sentence is hard to write, mentoring will help.

If you’re an aspiring analyst, do a similar test: take one dashboard you’ve built and write down what decisions it supports and what assumptions it relies on. If that feels vague, it’s not a failure. It just shows you the next step to level up.

If you want to explore mentoring, send me two things: whether you’re a business owner or an aspiring analyst, and the one number or report that causes the most pain. I’ll tell you what I’d fix first and whether mentoring is the right fit. Head over to the contact page to get started.