Start Your Own Business (17 page)

NETTING INFORMATION

 

I
f your market research budget is limited, try CenStats. A free service from the Census Bureau that’s available on the internet, CenStats allows you to access the bureau’s most popular databases and information.

 

 

Search by county or ZIP code under “County Business Patterns,” and you’ll get business profiles for an area that include payroll information and business size by industry. Click on “USA Counties” to get counties’ economic and demographic information, including personal income per capita, population size and more.

 

To test out CenStats, visit
censtats.census.gov
.

SURVEY SAYS ...

 

“A
recent survey shows ...” just might be the most overused, misused and abused phrase in modern life. Try hard enough, and you can find a survey to prove that four out of five Americans have been aboard a UFO, think they can flap their arms and fly to the moon, or believe Elvis is alive and living in their spare bedroom. With all the half-baked surveys out there, how do you know what to believe?

 

 

First, consider the source. Many surveys are conducted by trade associations, which inevitably are biased in favor of good news. This doesn’t mean trade association surveys are necessarily inaccurate; just keep in mind that they are likely to play up positive results and downplay negative ones. When looking at any survey, consider what the source has to gain from the information presented. Then you’ll have a better idea of whether to take the information with a grain of salt.

 

Meaningful surveys generally share the following characteristics:

•
Short-term focus
. In general, respondents are more likely to be accurate when they make predictions about the next three to six months. When it comes to predicting the long term (a year or more ahead), they’re usually guessing.

•
Adequate sample size
. What constitutes adequate size depends on the topic you’re surveying. In general, the broader the topic, the larger the number of respondents should be. If the survey talks about broad manufacturing trends, for example, it should survey 1,000 companies or more. Also consider where the respondents come from. If you’re starting a small regional business, a large national sample may not be relevant to your needs because the sample size from your area is probably too small to tell you anything about your region.

•
Knowledgeable respondents
. Asking entrepreneurs in the electronics business to forecast the future of the industry obviously carries more weight than asking the same question of teachers or random people on the street.

•
Continual replication
. The best surveys are repeated regularly, using the same methods, so there is a good basis for comparison from survey to survey.

•
Specific information relevant to your business
. In a nutshell, the best surveys are those where respondents answer questions that are narrowly targeted to your region and niche.

 

TIP

 

In addition to surveys conducted by trade organizations, businesses and D&B, universities are an excellent source of objective survey information. Another place to look for survey data: Many large newspapers and radio stations do surveys to learn about their markets. These surveys are usually easy to obtain and packed with up-to-date information about demographics and potential customers.

“The time when you
need to do something
is when no one else is
willing to do it, when
people are saying it
can’t be done.”

—MARY FRANCES BERRY,
GERALDINE R. SEGAL PROFESSOR
OF AMERICAN SOCIAL THOUGHT
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
PENNSYLVANIA