The ‘Art of Research’ necessary for the entrepreneur

Editor’s note: Michelle Stockman works with Little Rock-based Arkansas Capital Corp. to promote entrepreneurship development around the state. Stockman earned a bachelor’s degree from Loyola University-Chicago in communications and fine arts, and earned a master’s in entrepreneurship from Western Carolina University. Her thoughts on business success appear each week on The City Wire.

To many, marketing is thought of as being the same thing as advertising or the same thing as sales. However, marketing is so much more than just putting some pretty ads in publications or filling the air with commercials. Marketing is more than sealing a deal or qualifying leads. In fact, you need marketing to get to advertising and sales. All three disciplines are related and connect at points.

However, marketing is where you engage in research to learn how to move forward with the business. Through market research, entrepreneurs will learn whether their business idea has an opportunity to grow or to flounder. Market research gives you information on where to locate, where the business can grow and how the organization can reach its customers.

While entrepreneurs are not known for patience, market research takes great patience and attention to detail. At a time when the business owner wants to get things going, market research slows the process down to ensure the ship is headed in the right direction. Research is not just for school papers and nerdy types, it is a critical aspect to any business.

Business owners need to ask the right questions about their businesses, industry, market place, customers and the economy, and then they need to seek out the answers to those questions. The good news is the internet has opened up a treasure chest of countless resources to assist in research. The challenge is to find the legitimate resources.

Market research can be as easy as asking your key customers what they like, don’t like, and more. Customers are a wealth of information, and business owners should not be afraid to use them. Other data can be found from local universities, trusted trade associations, business news sources like the Wall Street Journal or Investors Business Daily. Business owners can obtain good information from local economic development offices, business vendors as well as  accountants or lawyers.

Knowledge is power and is no longer a key held solely by Ph.D’s. Knowledge is at everyone’s finger tips. It takes discipline, attention to detail, time, patience and an inquisitive mind to find the information that will make a business well prepared to take the market place by storm.

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Stockman can be reached at [email protected]