Mark Twain had a lot to say about statistics. He famously said: “there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.” He also said: “facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.” And he said: “data is like garbage. You’d better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.” With those thoughts in mind, I still think statistics can be helpful in making many business decisions. Statistics can aid in fixing salaries and benefits, setting prices, managing inventory, developing your marketing plan, and predicting future results.
Here are some of the best places to find the data you need:
Government sources
- Bureau of Labor Statistics provides facts and figures to use in setting wages and benefits.
- Census Bureau has 2020 census information that’s helpful in marketing. There are more than 2.5 million tables of raw data, maps, profiles, and more here.
- IRS has tables, articles, and data related to taxes for businesses and individuals.
- SBA’s Office of Advocacy has links to various sources of data on small business. The Office of Advocacy also produces an annual small business profile for the states. The 2023 profile is not yet available.
- Department of Labor provides data on employment, wages, inflation, productivity, and other topics.
Commercial sources
- Chamber of Commerce provides numbers on the number of businesses started and those that failed (and the reasons for failure), how many people work for small businesses, and more. It also offers data on The State of Small Business Now.
- Forbes offers “small business statistics 2023.”
- Fundera offers 19 essential numbers for 2023.
- SmallBizGenius provides 41 statistics for 2023, which are comprised of data from other sources.
Final thought
Getting the numbers is only step one. It’s up to you to analyze data so you can put it to use in your business. There are different data analysis techniques, and I’m no expert in this. And there are AI tools to help you analyze data. What I know is that you better understand what the numbers mean to you.
As American mathematician John C. Baez said: “Why speculate when you can calculate?”
The data is there for the taking…so do it!
More information about small business statistics found in earlier blogs.
The post Using Statistics and Where to Find Them appeared first on Barbara Weltman.
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