When Tad Martin first joined Overstock.com in 2000, he entered a company with a lot of valuable data waiting to be used, but lacking the technology to use it. As COO, Tad led a lengthy and pricey big data overhaul to get the company up to speed.

After he left Overstock, Tad wanted to empower other organizations to harness the power of big data in an easier way. He started Collective[i] for a profession that he thought was underserved in big data solutions: sales professionals. Using predictive analytics based on their network of sales professionals, Collective[i] makes recommendations to its users on things like which buyers to target and when.

In this episode, we explore:

-How sales professionals can make more money while doing less work using predictive analytics.-What it means to create network effects with data.-The strides big data technology has taken over the past two decades.-And the things sales professionals get wrong when they don't rely on the data.

Deciding by Data is hosted by Jeremy Levy, the co-founder and CEO of Indicative. This episode was produced and edited by Lauren Feiner. Our music is by Chris Zabriskie and BoxCat Games.

This podcast is sponsored by Indicative, the leading behavioral analytics platform. Go to www.get.indicative.com to learn more.

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Read more about the podcast and Tad Martin at decidingbydata.com. Follow us on Twitter @decidingbydata.