Imagine a roofer in Minneapolis bidding on jobs blindly, only to lose out to competitors who know exactly which neighborhoods have aging roofs and high-income homeowners. That's the power of data in action.

Data is more than a string of numbers—it is the lifeline to untapped opportunities. When running a business, you are constantly making investments in marketing, sales, operations, and even the culture of your team. Each investment is critical, and a positive return is expected. Transforming those expectations from hope and prayer to high-probability outcomes is a significant strategic shift, and this is where data comes into the picture. Research from McKinsey Global Institute (2016) shows that companies that leverage data effectively outperform their peers by a wide margin—being 23× more effective at customer acquisition, 6× better at retention, and 19× more likely to be profitable.

Data is Accessible & Essential 

Data isn’t just for Fortune 500s. Public and private sources are available to guide your decisions. Start by identifying the data you’re currently collecting within your CRM. These data points could include customer records, types of jobs, property insights, and financial data that highlight your highest-profitability jobs. By combining this internal data with external sources, you can gain rich insights that drive growth and reveal opportunities that you may be unaware of.

Strategy Requires Choice 

You cannot serve everyone. The Where to Play data set helps narrow your focus so resources are directed toward high-ROI opportunities. Each community has unique elements that are sometimes overlooked. Yes, you can drive around and gain insights, but there are many hidden data points waiting to be unlocked—such as the trending age of homes, volume of roofs available for replacement, current income-to-debt ratios, customer profile matches, and, most importantly, your historical success in closing these types of opportunities. If the opportunity exists, but you have historically been unsuccessful in closing these jobs, you need to ask yourself why and make the necessary changes.

By analyzing her community’s composition, Wendy Marvin of Matrix Roofing identified an opportunity to add a new service line and strengthen her presence in a new geographic region. This data-driven strategic shift increased her revenue and business stability!

Related: Dear Anna: The Retention Playbook: Never Lose a Customer Again

Context is King 

National trends are interesting, but hyper-local data (customer insights, permits, income, housing stock) drives profit. Focusing on functional, actionable, and stable data is far more powerful than relying on flashy data points that can easily distract. For example, session speaker Elizabeth La Jeunesse from John Burns Research & Consulting notes that diversification into commercial roofing may offset residential market softness in the coming year, based on national data.

Differentiation Wins 

In a crowded market, use insights to build a "moat" based on quality, service, and reputation—not price. Understanding your customer is critical: What are the trigger points that drive them to take action? What makes them choose a roofer? These are questions that can and should be answered. Those answers enable you to speak authentically to your customers with a message that resonates—you aren’t just another roofer; you are a trusted provider.

Systems Scale Success 

Data is useless without action. Implement management systems to track, measure, and adjust your strategy. Data-driven organizations can achieve EBITDA increases of up to 25% through improved decision-making and operational efficiency (McKinsey & Company, 2022). Get involved, ask questions, define your goals, and most importantly, help ensure your internal data is properly documented. If you’re just starting your data journey, it can feel overwhelming. Research shows that small and mid-sized businesses that adopt data-driven strategies report measurable increases in efficiency and productivity compared with less data-focused peers (Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS, 2023).

You drive the vision and success of your business. Take action and be part of your data story!

McKinsey Global Institute. (2016). The age of analytics: Competing in a data-driven world. McKinsey & Company. 

McKinsey & Company. (2022). Insights to impact: Creating and sustaining data-driven commercial growth. 

Forrester Consulting on behalf of AWS. (2023). The competitive advantage of data and analytics for SMBs (Report).