REFERENCE USA
for
Local Business Rankings
How do you find local or state industry segment rankings when the company is not in the local Business Journal's Book of Lists? Often there are no industry rankings for a given small industry in Arizona or any other geographic area below the nation as a whole. Intelligent guesses can be made using the information found in online business directories. Here's a step by step example of how to do data mining in Reference USA, one of several online business directories. (Reference USA is especially good for this because it includes all locations for a company, not just headquarters.) Expect to spend at least an hour data mining Reference USA.
Below is a local example in the Beauty Salon industry from a search performed on September 19, 2000. We start in the BUSINESS DATABASE search category of Reference USA.
- SEARCH BY COMPANY NAME
Type name in entry box and click Search Now.
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The local salon chosen for this example, Taglio Salon, is listed. We note that the SIC given is 7231-06; the City is Scottsdale; the Zip Code is 85258; and the Sales Volume is $1,000,000 - $2,500,000. There are 8 other "Taglio" businesses, of that 7 are other salons that include the name Taglio. They all have different owners and are private enterprises but it is possible that some of them may be part of a small franchise (as in not many locations) of independently owned shops. Sales $ varies widely.
- SEARCH BY TYPE OF BUSINESS
Select New Search and then click on the Custom Search tab across the top. Checkmark Heading or SIC under the Yellow Pages section and click Create Search Form. Type the SIC code in the entry box and click Search Now.
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7231 SIC is a very broad category of health and beauty services, many also compete for the same customers.
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7231-06 is specifically Beauty Salons. Reference USA had 228,767 salons listed in its directory nationally at the time of the search.
- LIMIT SEARCH TO THE STATE AREA
Select Revise My Criteria at the top. Checkmark State down the left side under Geography Selects and click on New Search Form. Then highlight Arizona and run the search.
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--- 2879 beauty salons were listed in Arizona.
- SORT OUT ESTABLISHMENTS BY SALES VOLUME
Select Revise My Criteria at the top. Checkmark Sales Volume down the left side under Business Size and click on New Search Form. Highlight a sales volume range and run the search. Use the Back button to repeat the last step until all sales volumes are searched separately.
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--- 2503 beauty salons in Arizona made less than $500,000
--- 272 beauty salons in Arizona made $500,000 - $1,000,000
--- 79 beauty salons in Arizona made $1,000,000 - $2,500,000
--- 12 beauty salons in Arizona made $2,500,000 - $5,000,000
--- 3 beauty salons in Arizona made $5,000,000 - $10,000,000
--- 2 beauty salons in Arizona made $10,000,000 - $20,000,000
--- 6 beauty salons in Arizona made $20,000,000 - $50,000,000
--- 2 beauty salons in Arizona made $50,000,000 - $100,000,000
--- 0 beauty salons in Arizona made $100,000,000 - $500,000,000
--- 0 beauty salons in Arizona made $500,000,000 - $1,000,000,000
--- 0 beauty salons in Arizona made OVER $1 Billion
The numbers show that there were 78 salons in Arizona in the same sales range as Taglio, 272 salons at a lower sales range, and 23 at higher sales ranges.
Recommendation: Print out the list of companies that make as much or more than your company.
- FIND SIMILAR RESULTS FOR SMALLER GEOGRAPHIC AREAS
Repeat the steps above checkmarking Zip Code instead in step #3.
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--- 18 Beauty salons were in the same zip code
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-- 3 of these had sales of $1,000,000 - $2,500,000
-- 5 of these had sales of $500,000 - $1,000,000
-- 10 of these had sales of less than $500,000
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--- 285 beauty salons were in Scottsdale
--- 1780 beauty salons were in the Phoenix-Mesa MSA
--- 1685 beauty salons were in Maricopa County (the MSA is larger than just Maricopa County)
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