Internet World Stats > Internet Coaching > Tracking and
Stats
Telling
Your Story By the Numbers
Quality Data Helps Tell Your Story
Entrepreneurs and small
business owners need hard data to create and tell a story –
to understand the competition, identify opportunities, or to take
to a bank or investor. Valuable data is of two main types:
financial analysis that benchmarks your operations against
industry peers, and statistics that paint a picture of
competitive trends in your specific line of business.
Beware of
“free” data available on the net and elsewhere. Poor
quality or poorly defined information can cost you dearly, in
your planning and with your investors. By contrast, detailed,
quality data helps you identify strengths and weaknesses in your
line of business, offering insight and the chance to address
troublesome trends.
Consider these three
critical issues before selecting industry data:
1. Does the data
analyze your specific line of business? Your specific marketing
area?
Irrelevant or overly
broad industry classifications diminish your analysis and your
story. While several providers offer industry financial analysis
benchmarks for 300-900 major industries, BizMiner
publishes balance sheet and
financial ratio profiles on over 10,000 lines of
business.
Make certain that
marketing research data is specific to your market area and
industry. Many manufacturers and traded service firms can utilize
national data effectively. But if you are sell rare or used books
from a storefront in Boston , national data on bookstore trends
in general won't tell you much – although it may tell
investors that you don't have the facts you need.
Bizminer's marketing plan
research profiles report on trends in every
state and 250 metro areas – in over 16,000 lines of
business.
By the same token,
financial analysis numbers are generally available at the
national level only, due to the limited number of firms willing
to share complete industry balance sheet information. As a
result, national data is the only financial (as opposed to
marketing) research that banks will expect.
2. Is the data
timely?
Quality data – good
numbers developed from a large pool of analyzed firms –
takes time to develop. Financial information is available from
most firms near the beginning of each year for the prior year;
Only then can data providers begin to collect, analyze and
publish reports. As a result, detailed industry financial
analysis doesn't usually appear until 9-12 months after the end
date of the analysis itself, and then has a reasonable
“shelf life” of 6-9 months. Marketing research data
should be more timely, but you should still expect it to lag by
9-15 months, depending on the measure. If your data lags more
than two years (real time, not by sometimes misleading
“publication dates”), it's time to look
elsewhere.
3. Does your data
provide insight that helps tell your story?
Quality statistics help
you create and tell your story. Good data creates a backbone of
competitive knowledge that lets you seize on positives and
identify potential obstacles like high failure rates, low sales
growth in your market, or relatively low efficiency levels in the
local industry. Your recognition of both – and your
explanation of how you plan to overcome problems you identify
– is a powerful tool to bring to a bank or investors
– or just to have in your internal planning
arsenal.
Look for hard-to-find
measures that sharpen your understanding of trends in your
industry: survivor sales, sales per employee, failure rates, and
concentrations of high growth firms in your market area. These
and other analytical advantages help you understand the current
picture of the line of business you are in – and where it
may be heading over the next few years.
Help yourself understand
what to expect from a small business by analyzing the experience
of others in your situation – in your line of business and
in your market area. BizMiner local and national
industry analysis includes special
“survivor” measures that help you assess where
successful businesses with your characteristics usually land in
three years.
For more details, visit BizMiner
