Today, big data is a very essential tool that many organizations use to retain competitive advantage. Data mining has been used to help organizations achieve their goal, however there are some challenges that one must bypass. Data mining comes with technological advancement but there also could be ethical problems in the way. Companies like Facebook and Amazon use big data. In this paper, I will discuss the industry standards for data mining best practices, describe pitfalls in data mining, including practices that should be avoided, the steps and precautions to take to ensure the success of the company's data mining