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• Know your business
• Know your customer
• Know your customer's business
• Know your competition

• Mail surveys of customers and prospects
• Telephone interviews with key customers and prospects
• Personal interviews with a sampling of customers and prospects
• Focus groups conducted off-site with market movers and shakers
• Media reports of advertising impact
• Product demonstrations and product comparisons
• Brand recognition studies
• Customer panels or advisory groups

• Returns and Allowances reports. Consistent tracking not only of the dollar amount of returns and customer allowances, but also the number of occurrences and the reasons for the returns (using Pareto charts), will help you ferret out recurrent problems. This form of market research is nearly free, yet many firms fail to recognize their own accounting records as the source for good customer and market research.
  
• Top Account reports. Marketing and sales groups can report the activity of their Top Accounts on a periodic basis. Comparative research will highlight accounts showing significant positive and negative variances. Reports will also highlight major gains and losses versus prior period. Analysis helps management focus on better market knowledge and see competitive market trends.
  
• Variance reports. Accounting should provide marketing and sales with accurate monthly reports showing sales by customer and by product group compared with the same period of the prior year. Such reports highlight gains and losses, and quickly make marketing and sales aware of variances. Prompt, appropriate action may be enough to save a prized account. Without regular reports, sales people are flying blind! 
  
• Sales reports by product. Marketing and manufacturing groups study product sales reports to spot emerging customer and market trends. A clear picture of product groups that are declining in popularity and those on the rise have an important impact on overall company strategy. In one case, the firm I was with spotted two critical market trends in time to reverse our product mix and industry segment focus. Over a period of several years, our business grew rapidly in the products and in the segment we targeted. Three competitors failed to recognize the market signals. Two went out of business and the other sold to a more alert competitor.
  
• Credit department reports and bad debts. Customers who fall behind on payments are likely to fall off your customer list sooner rather than later. Timely reports of past due accounts and a close working relationship between credit and sales departments help keep customers open to buy. Today's past due accounts are tomorrow's lost customers and bad debts. Management can learn a lot from regular reviews of accounts receivable conditions. Slow payment may mean that a competitor is in the wings, or that your customer is in trouble and could use your help (for which the customer will be grateful later).
  
• Comparative product audits.  Firms often claim that their products are "the best in the market," but how do they know for sure? Here is a true story. At one firm, we pulled our own products, at random, from our warehouses across the country. We also went into the market and purchased similar products from a variety of key competitors. Our technical group then carefully examined everything about each product, including labeling and packaging. They measured dimensions, checked weights, examined product finish, and compared physical properties. Our technicians held each of our products up against competitive products and presented management with a comprehensive report.
  
  In most cases, our products were at the top of the category. In some cases, the comparison was not complimentary. We learned that our scales were off in one plant. We were putting more product in the box than the scale was showing (shorting ourselves). We also learned that two of our primary competitors scales were also off, but they were shorting customers. Now, that was a handy piece of information to gain! We quickly recalibrated our scales to weigh product exactly. We also improved some plant housekeeping. The audit helped us spot our own faults, but more importantly, it gave management and our sales force a very clear picture of competition and led them to better appreciate the quality of their own products. 

Amazing Facts!

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Marketing Facets is a practical resource for those involved in determining the current health of a company and gauging its future prospects. I designed my 103-page guidebook to be a supplement to other evaluation procedures and information normally gathered during a thorough due diligence or business valuation process. The workbook takes a holistic approach, assembling facts and management assumptions in key areas to help the analyst form and support conclusions. 

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