Twice weekly, I share proven strategies to help data scientists get noticed, promoted, and valued. No theory — just practical steps to transform your technical expertise into business impact and the freedom to call your own shots.
Stop Selling Dashboards. Start Selling Decisions
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Imagine going to buy a house and the real estate agent just hands you a floorplan - without any photos or context. You’d see the number of bedrooms and bathrooms; the size of the house. All the important features. But would you buy it? Probably not. Because floorplans show features. People buy benefits. My parents’ neighbour recently moved house after 30+ years. For her new home, she chose a single-story house. The feature? No stairs. Real estate agents get this. But this is where many data scientists go wrong. When communicating with stakeholders, many data scientists instinctively lead with features:
But stakeholders don’t wake up wanting dashboards. They wake up wanting solutions to business problems. They’re thinking: “I need to increase revenue so I don’t have to lay anyone off” or “I need to reduce costs so we can expand.” So, stop leading with what you’ll build. Lead with what they’ll gain. Here’s what that looks like… Instead of: “Would you like me to build a churn prediction model?” Instead of: “I can create a dashboard for your sales data.” Features describe your process. Benefits describe their outcome. And nobody buys your process. They buy their outcome. What benefit are you actually selling? Talk again soon, Dr Genevieve Hayes p.s. I'm opening spots in my Strategic Expert Mentorship program starting in February 2026. This isn't a technical skills course. It's 1-on-1 mentorship for data professionals who want to make the move from technical executor to strategic expert. Between now and Christmas, I'm making time to talk with people who want to know more. Interested? 👉 Book Your Call Now |
Data Science Impact Algorithm
Twice weekly, I share proven strategies to help data scientists get noticed, promoted, and valued. No theory — just practical steps to transform your technical expertise into business impact and the freedom to call your own shots.
Data science bootcamps teach Python. They don’t teach you how to turn chaos into answerable questions. To this day, whenever I’m faced with a problem, the first thing I do is come up with a series of research questions - then I try to answer them. It’s standard practice in academic research, but I’ve rarely seen it done elsewhere. That experimental approach keeps me focused on what actually moves the needle. And it’s the kind of strategic thinking that gets you noticed by senior stakeholders....
After spending most of the year in front of a screen, at Christmas time there’s nothing I enjoy more than finally switching off my computer and relaxing with a good book. With only 10 days left until Christmas, here are my top picks for this year’s holiday break: Stakeholder Whispering by Bill Shander Data scientists are constantly told of the importance of understanding their stakeholders’ needs. Unfortunately, this advice is rarely accompanied by instructions on just how to do this. In...
My first month in industry as a data scientist, I drafted a beautifully structured email for my boss. What he actually sent was 1/10th the length. I’ve never felt more overeducated and underprepared. Fresh from my PhD, my boss asked me to draft an email for him. I spent 4 hours crafting what I thought was the perfect message: grammatically perfect, clearly justified, with every logical step meticulously explained - exactly how I’d been trained to write at university. When he CC’d me on what...