Robert Gerrish, Sam Leader and Peter Crocker have developed www.flyingsolo.com.au from an e-zine and website with articles to an online community with forums and directory.

Understanding Micro Business Survey

In reference to the first Flying Solo ‘Understanding Micro Business Survey’ in 2008, Flying Solo founder Robert Gerrish said:

“Kate and the team at Tribe Research helped us with our ‘Understanding Micro Business Survey’ earlier this year. We were mightily impressed with the service and look forward to working together again in the future.”

In 2010 Tribe Research was again requested to setup the backend of ‘Understanding Micro Business Survey 2010-2011’ and analyse the data. The backend support included designing the survey, and the generation and maintenance of the survey online. Following the distribution of the survey to their community via their weekly e-zine and promotions on their website, we analysed the data and prepared the report.

You can download both reports yourself, just head to: flyingsolo.com.au/understanding-micro-business.

The report assisted Flying Solo in positioning themselves as experts in the anatomy of Australia’s micro business owners, and provided valuable statistics that they can use when talking to potential advertisers. They now understand their existing tribe better.

The Instilling International Entrepreneurship in Emerging Enterprises program started in 2008. After the first time the program ran, ABITS wanted to get feedback about the program from the participants.

Gaining feedback from participants for program development and marketing

Christine Gibbs Stewart, General Manager said:

“Tribe Research did an excellent job for us.  They put together the research so it was easily understandable and helped us to draw valid conclusions.  The project was delivered on time and was great value for money.  We will continue to use Tribe Research for our research needs.”

Explore | Development of a survey to understand the level of business development, international business focus, business interests and mentoring needs of participants in the IIEEE program. Development of the survey online using Tribal Tool-Kit software.

Uncover | Analysis and reporting of the participants’ level of business development, international business focus, business interests and mentoring needs.

Drive Change | The results will be used to improve the IIEEE program by tailoring to the interests and needs of participants.

How do you turn your tribe into raving fans? Most small businesses know they should be doing things like feedback forms, identifying trends, understanding your best and worst customers… but they often find it’s still on the “to do list”. Song Division knew they needed to do these things, and enlisted our help in developing a Know Your Tribe Strategy.

Song Division is a unique employee bonding experience where people – usually a group of employees – get to work with real musicians in professional venues.

Their clients bond by composing and recording their own song: no musical experience is required, but all employees get to act like rock stars!

Their first year focused on getting themselves out there, bringing in clients and coming up with ideas. However, Song Division soon realised that they needed feedback systems and procedures to ensure the continued growth of the business.

This is a common realisation in small business! While Song Division is a unique company, their business issues aren’t.

First, we had a great day at a Song Division session with staff from a large corporate. After reviewing the existing systems and procedures with Andy Sharpe (Managing Director), we discussed where he wanted the business to go, and who Song Division’s important stakeholders were. These are all crucial steps in developing a plan for collecting meaningful data.

Next, we set to work developing a strategy that Song Division could implement immediately. We went through the following steps:

• analysed how their clients moved through the buying cycle (looking at both the client company and their employees who participate, as well as event companies on-selling Song Division)
• designed separate surveys to collect relevant and usable data from each important stakeholder group
• developed a plan of when and how to conduct surveys for each of these groups
• designed a database plan to match the strategy so the data could be recorded in an easy and practical way

Song Division can now set up a database to be sure that their data will be collected and recorded in a consistent way. Now they won’t overlook changing client needs, and their knowledge will be continually updated.

Building a data strategy into your ongoing systems and procedures means you won’t have to go out of your way to get important information about your tribe – you’ll already have it!