When the Data Wasn’t the Problem - Interpretation Was

The Challenge

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A six-person digital marketing agency was thriving creatively but struggling financially. Despite a full client roster, the team was missing profit targets, and the founder was frustrated. He believed the problem was productivity: “People just aren’t spending enough time on value-adding work.” He asked me to help make the team more efficient.

But when we looked closer, time tracking wasn’t the problem - understanding value was.

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The Discovery

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The agency used an industry-specific app to manage everything - projects, time tracking, invoicing, and expenses. The data existed, but it was buried inside the system’s generic reports, offering little real insight. When we cleaned up the time-tracking categories and exported the data, the picture shifted completely.

I redefined time into two categories:

• Invoiceable: work directly charged to clients (e.g. campaign hours).
• Billable: everything that supported earning revenue but wasn’t invoiced - proposals, internal meetings, invoicing itself.

By reframing the data this way, the issue became obvious. The team wasn’t under-working, they were over-servicing. They were spending huge amounts of time writing proposals they didn’t win and managing admin for large clients whose fees didn’t cover the effort. Once we applied hourly cost rates to that non-invoiceable time, it was clear some clients were being served at a loss.

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The Solution

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The data didn’t need to change, how it was viewed did.

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1. Redefined the categories within their time-tracking tool so activity types truly reflected business value.
2. Built a management-level dashboard in Excel that pulled weekly exports from the app and transformed the raw data into:
   • Invoiceable vs. billable time ratios
   • Profitability by client and project
   • Proposal-to-win ratios
   • Admin hours and cost leakage
3. Automated the update process - export, paste, and everything refreshed automatically.
4. Educated the team on how to track consistently and why visibility mattered. Clear tracking targets were set, and the results were shared with everyone.

The dashboard became less about monitoring and more about shared understanding, how time translated to profit.

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The Outcome

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The business gained the visibility it had been missing, and the confidence to act on it.

• Invoiceable time increased significantly.
• Pricing was adjusted to reflect true delivery cost and admin load.
• Proposal processes changed - opportunities were pre-vetted before investing time.
• Profitability improved month on month.
• Morale lifted - the founder stopped blaming “inefficiency,” and the team felt trusted and valued.

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The same data that once caused tension now built alignment.

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What We Learned

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You don’t always need more data, you need to look at it differently.

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• Data only has value when it’s framed in context and aligned with how the business truly creates value.
• Visibility isn’t about volume of reporting, it’s about clarity that leads to better decisions.
• When teams understand how their work connects to profit, accountability and motivation follow naturally.

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The 5Ps in Action

• Profit: Clarity, the business could see where they had margin and where they didn't
• Person: Reframing output into meaningful visibility everyone could clearly see how they individually contribued
• People: Shifted leadership mindset from blame to insight; engaged the team in financial awareness.
• Process: Improved how time and proposals were managed, ensuring admin and pre-sales effort were accounted for.
• Performance: Turned hidden data into actionable profitability metrics.

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In Reflection

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The biggest blind spots in business often hide in plain sight. The data you already have can tell powerful stories, if you learn how to read it. True productivity isn’t doing more work. It’s doing the right work, for the right clients, at the right price.

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Call to Action

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If your business feels busy but the numbers don’t reflect it, you may not need more effort, just better visibility.

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