Disney SBA National Entrepreneur Center

1
Disney SBA National Entrepreneur Center

• Part I
• Research Results
• Online Survey
• In-depth Interviews

2
Objectives

• Online Survey
• To find out the following information about
  current customer of the NEC
  
• Who the customer is, in terms of demographics,
  psychographics, and the benefits they seek from a
  small business resource provider
  
• Their experience with the National Entrepreneur
  Center, such as from which service providers they
  sought information and how they learned about the
  organization
• How individuals start a business, the resources
  required and information sought, and sources for
  finding these requirements
  
• In-depth Interviews
• To gain a more thorough understanding of
• Who the customer is, in terms of demographics,
  psychographics, and the benefits they seek from a
  small business resource provider
  
• Customary media habits of small business owners
• How individuals start a business, the resources
  required and information sought, and sources for
  finding these requirements

3
Online survey Methodology

• To provide more conclusive data, a sample of
  current users of the services at the Disney/SBA
  National Entrepreneur Center completed an online
  survey on Zoomerang (www.zoomerang.com). This
  part of the research study for the Disney/SBA
  National Entrepreneur Center was constructed to
  provide quantitative data as to the nature of
  their current customer, how to reach this
  audience through communications efforts, what
  services may interest them the most, and what
  their experience has been like thus far with the
  organization.
• 221 visits were made to the survey site and 134
  participants completed the questionnaire out of
  2,000 emails sent out. This represents a 2
  response rate, which is within a normal expected
  response range. The email list was provided by
  the SBDC and contained SBDC clients, many of whom
  are also clients of other service providers at
  the National Entrepreneur Center. This list of
  clients was emailed a link to the online survey
  by the SBDC. The survey consisted of 24
  questions, including both closed-ended and
  open-ended questions. A copy of the online
  questionnaire is provided in Appendix A.

4
Online SurveySummary

• Your customer or client is a college
  graduate
  
• Caucasian male and female (evenly split)
• Between the ages of 35 and 54
• With incomes above the national average
• Who likes to exercise and/or read during
  non-business hours
  
• Listens primarily to the Public radio stations
  during drive time hours
  
• Watching television is not high on their list of
  activities, although when the watch television it
  is during the evening hours.
  
• Our customers have access to the Web at home, and
  have the usual array of electronic convenience
  items such as cell phones, high-speed Internet
  connections.
• This client has sought out information about
  the Center
  
• Most likely because friends or professional
  acquaintances referred them
  
• The most effective way to reach this customer
  base is through referrals, second best way is
  through the Internet (but there is no clear cut
  favorite Web site)
• Or through newspaper advertisements (CoC, OBJ,
  Sentinel were mentioned).
  
• Once they have found the Center, the most popular
  search was for financial, marketing, and
  management information and
  
• Our clients did not find that searching for this
  information was too difficult.
  

5
Online SurveyResults

• Following is a synopsis of the survey question
  results
  
• Point 1 Half of the respondents did seek
  information from the Center (51), while 49 did
  not seek out information.
  
• Point 2 25 of the respondents were referred
  to the Center from either friends, co-workers, or
  other professionals. The second most common way
  that the respondents heard about the center was
  through either the Internet or newspapers both
  with 7.
• Point 3 44 of the respondents sought out the
  SBA segment of the Center, and 40 sought out the
  UCF Small Business Development Center. Other
  centers ranked as such SCORE at 24 and
  Enterprise Alliance with 14.
• Point 4 Most of the respondents (23) saw
  advertisements for the Center in the Orlando
  Sentinel while 22 were referred to the Center
  and / or found the center on the Internet through
  a Search Engine.
• Point 5 67 of the respondents searched for
  and were concerned about finding financial
  information and advise followed closely by the
  need for marketing (58), legal (52) and
  management (47).
• Point 6 The majority of the respondents (60)
  said that finding marketing, financial, or legal
  information was not at all difficult once they
  contacted the Center. However, 47 did say that
  finding production/manufacturing information was
  moderately difficult.
• Point 7 Other resources used by the
  respondents included professional business
  publications (71), business Web sites (66), and
  books (64).
• Point 8 95 of the respondents have Internet
  access at home 93 own cellular phones 83 of
  the respondents shop on-line, and have high-speed
  Internet access at home and donate to charities.
  
• Point 9 52 of the respondents read the
  Orlando Business Journal on either a weekly or
  monthly basis 35 of the respondents read their
  Chamber of Commerce publications (depending upon
  when these are released) and 29 of the
  respondents read the Orlando Sentinel on a daily
  basis.
• Point 10 31 of the respondents do not read
  any other newspapers not listed in the survey.
  
• Point 11 There was no clear-cut favorite
  television station listed, although the local NBC
  affiliate receive the most mentions at 0.09.
  
• Point 12 27 of the respondents tuned into
  National Public Radio by far the most common
  station. Z 88.3 received the second highest
  percentage at 1 of total.
• Point 13 There was no consensus on a favorite
  Web site, although Google receive the most
  mentions at 14.

6
Online SurveyResults

• Point 14 Of the 75 responses for their three
  favorite hobbies or leisure activities, fully 53
  favored some sort of exercise (walking, golf,
  running, etc.) followed by 1/3 or 33 who favor
  reading.
• Point 15 80 listen to the radio during drive
  time periods while 41 listen to the radio during
  the daytime hours.
  
• Point 16 45 spend only ½ to 2 hours on
  average watching television 30 spend 2- 4
  hours.
  
• Point 17 82 watch television between 7 p.m.
  and 11 p.m.
  
• Point 18 64 of the respondents spend over 5
  hours per week online for business / pleasure.
  
• Demographics
• 66 were between the ages of 35 54 20 between
  25 and 34 years of age
  
• 27 had annual incomes 50,000 - 74,000
  followed by 17 with annual incomes above
  75,000.
  
• 50 of the respondents were male 50 were female
  
  
• 39 had undergraduate degrees 25 had
  postgraduate degrees
  
• 64 were Caucasian 13 Hispanic 12
  African-American
  
• Following are the graphical representations of
  the data for all closed-ended questions.
  

7
Question 1
When you were starting your own business, did you
seek out information from the Disney/SBA National
Entrepreneur Center?
99 total responses to this question
8
Question 3
What service providers did you seek assistance
from at the Disney/SBA NEC (check all that apply)?
9
Question 4
Have you seen Disney/SBA National Entrepreneur
Center advertising for this center in any of the
following media?
10
Question 5
What types or areas of information did you search
for (or are you searching for) when starting your
business (please check all that apply)?
11
In-depth Interview Methodology

• Essential to the research process is exploratory
  research, in which a topic can be explored in
  great detail for preliminary information or to
  fill in the gaps that quantitative research
  studies do not answer. This particular part of
  the research study for the Disney SBA National
  Entrepreneur Center was constructed to provide
  qualitative data as to the nature of their target
  audience, how to reach this audience through
  communications efforts, and what services may
  interest them the most.
• The study consisted of 10 in-depth interviews
  conducted with prospective and current small
  business owners in the Greater Orlando
  metropolitan area. This convenience sample of
  participants were personally known by the
  interviewer and therefore accessible for this
  research project. The interviews lasted between
  10-45 minutes, and all were audio taped. The
  research was conducted from February 27 March
  19, 2005, primarily during the evening hours, in
  the comfort of the participants home. Each
  participant completed a short form prior to the
  interview to capture data about their business,
  as well as personal information regarding their
  gender, age, ethnicity, and education (sample in
  Appendix B). The results from that short
  questionnaire are listed below
• Although a list of questions helped to guide the
  discussion, the interviewer followed the
  participants lead on the topic and was able to
  uncover a greater amount of information as a
  result. Approximately 11 open-ended questions
  were asked to these individuals, plus a variety
  of probing questions to delve deeper into their
  feelings and opinions (sample list provided in
  Appendix B).

12
In-depth InterviewSummary

• Although exploratory data is not quantifiable,
  following is a list of trends noticed in the
  participants responses.
  
• Small business owners tend to have diverse
  recreational and entertainment habits and
  interests, although going to movies was
  frequently mentioned as a favorite pastime.
  Sporting activities, both organized and
  recreational, was also mentioned several times,
  as well as shopping, dining out, reading,
  spending time with family, photography, and
  collecting exotic items of interest. Most
  respondents felt that their was definitely a lack
  of spare time when owning a small business
  which prevented them from fuller participation in
  leisure activities.
• Media habits varied greatly. Although most
  participants watched ample television, the actual
  stations and program watched were very diverse.
  Reality shows, such as The Apprentice and Amazing
  Race were popular, as well as evening and daytime
  dramas. Sepcific programs mentioned were
  Desperate Housewives, CSI, Law Order, Las
  Vegas, ER, and Lost. Other programming that
  respondents listed includes sporting events and
  talk shows. Many participants listen to the
  radio in the car on the way to and from work, yet
  again the format varied significantly. The most
  popular stations were 106.7 (Top 40) and 105.5
  (light rock), however other specific stations in
  the local market mentioned O-rock 105.9, talk
  radio (Howard Stern and sports radio), Jazz
  (103.1), Party 95.3 and WMMO 98.9.
• Sources of information for their business was
  overwhelmingly the Internet, followed by books
  and trade and general business magazines/newspaper
  s (such as the Orlando Business Journal and
  Newsweek). Participants primarily searched for
  information relating to their specific
  industries, utilizing search engines such as
  Yahoo and Google. Books and magazines were
  utilized for business-related resources on the
  actual processes involved in owning a business.
  Other sources include the Yellow Pages
  (competitive information) and trade shows.
• Small business owners most often start a business
  for independence purposes to have a job where
  they are the boss. Other common reasons were to
  have flexibility with their schedule (stay at
  home with children more often) and to gain
  supplementary income for their household. A
  trend was noticed in that almost every
  participant remarked on thinking about beginning
  the business years prior to actually starting it,
  which means that entrepreneurs almost always have
  the idea in mind, let the idea incubate and
  slowly develop the ideas for the company. Also,
  many of these individuals did not stop with one
  great business idea, but rather expanded into
  other unrelated businesses thereafter.

13
In-depth InterviewSummary

• Basic information was initially sought out,
  like
  
• Tax I.D. numbers and occupational licenses
• How to become incorporated
• Competitive intelligence
• Legal information (patents and trademarks)
• Retail or virtual (WWW) storefront
• Finding suppliers
• Insurance (liability, medical)
• Industry related information on what products and
  services customers would want, pricing, and
  communications techniques, such as how to build a
  web site.
• Again, most people went online for this
  information, consulted with friends already in
  the industry or who owned a business, or read
  books purchased on the topic.
• The greatest challenge most frequently mentioned
  was marketing communications or how to get
  customers in a cost effective manner. The
  participants seemed to know a great deal about
  their industry and had great ideas, but did not
  know how to promote their products in order to
  obtain clients/customers. Human resources issues
  finding and keeping the right personnel was
  also a concern. Another big challenge was making
  the leap from a job with a steady paycheck to a
  risky venture into entrepreneurship, so financial
  considerations were important to them. Other
  challenges mentioned were understanding the tax
  system for a business, learning the sales skills
  necessary to seel their ideas and products and
  dedicating time to the business.
• Participants noted that marketing and human
  resources information would be useful, as well as
  the opportunity to learn from and network with
  other professionals in their industry would be
  useful for them. Some felt that a bootcamp
  where they learn about the basic issues involved
  with starting a company would be ideal.
• One of the ten participants had heard of the
  Disney SBA National Entrepreneur Center because
  she had briefly seen an ad for them in the
  Orlando Business Journal recently. She commented
  that the Center did not seem like something for
  her, meaning that it was not relevant to her
  company. The other nine participants had never
  heard of the Center but were interested in
  learning more about them. Rather than visiting
  the Center in person, participants said that the
  Internet was the ideal way for them to get more
  information because convenience was important to
  them.

14
Recommendations

• Online Survey
• Have an open house to showcase services
• Establish regional business sites
• Lectures / seminars at different locations around
  the city
  
• Maybe add a supplemental insert in the CFB
  section
  
• Have more publicity of what you offer to the
  public
  
• Follow-up with former clients maybe on-line
• Monthly newsletter, weekly short emails
• Offer more functional classes i.e. Quickbooks
• Target the older learner more adult learning
• Use direct mail i.e. send out postcards to
  small business owners
  
• In-depth Interview
• Since online activities were prevalent among
  these participants and since they expressed an
  affinity towards accessing the Centers
  information online, directly reaching them via
  this medium is important. Through relevant
  keyword search results or keyword-based
  advertising on favored search engines, the Center
  would be able to target entrepreneurs in a
  cost-effective manner.
• Due to the high costs associated with traditional
  advertising methods (such as television) and the
  fact that program and station interest vary
  greatly, more targeted forms of marketing
  communications are recommended to this group.
  Again, since they spend time online, perhaps a
  targeted email campaign would produce measurable
  results. At the very least, some form of
  targeted direct marketing campaign would be more
  measurable and cost-effective.
• The results for the question of why participants
  started their own company could aid in producing
  a meaningful marketing message to this group.
  Participants of the study wanted to be
  independent of a 9 to 5 job and pursue their
  own creative ideas. However, since many
  prospective small business owners are unsure of
  how to go about starting the company, they often
  feel a conflicting sense of insecurity. This
  customer insight can help in developing an
  advertising and promotional message that has both
  an emotional appeal of excitement and
  independence, yet responds to the rational need
  for business information that will alleviate the
  fear of failure.
• The results from this study imply that
  prospective small business owners do not
  typically have the business expertise to
  understand what needs to be done to set up and
  market a small business appropriately. The
  information supplied in the interviews, which can
  be heard verbatim on tape, can be used to help
  develop relevant workshops, seminars and web
  tools in which these customers would be
  interested.