Small Business Research GuidesArlington Public Library

Online Link > https://library.arlingtonva.us/explore/small-business/

We can use various databases to help develop the Business Plan and Financial Plan for Java Joe’s Coffee Shop in Arlington, Virginia. This document provides some examples of how we can use this free resource.NOTE: If you reside in Montgomery County, Maryland, several of the same databases are also available online through Montgomery County: https://montgomerycountymd.libguides.com/smallbusiness

Before using these online guides, you will need an Arlington Library Card. You must enter your library card number and your four-digit pin number to access the databases.

We will work through eight examples for Java Joe’s Coffee Shop:Determine Your NAICS Code (Page 1)Example 1 – Use the Legal Forms Database to help us form an LLC (Page 2)Example 2 – Understand your industry by reading specialized articles (Pages 3 – 5)Example 3 – Understand your industry by reading the 10-K for a public company (Pages 5 – 8)Example 4 – Generate a list of Potential Competing Coffee Shops in Arlington (Pages 8 – 10)Example 5 – Use the Small Business Research Database to analyze a key competitor (Pages 11 – 12)Example 6 – Generate a list of Potential Customers (Pages 13 – 18)Example 7 – Identify key suppliers related to coffee (Pages 19 - 20)Example 8 – Review a business plan template for a coffee shop (Pages 20 - 22)Additional Helpful Links (Page 23)

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Before using the databases, you should determine the most appropriate NAICS code for your business. The official website for maintaining NAICS codes is the U.S. Census Bureau > https://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/ Every business has a NAICS code that specifies the type of business. For purposes of Java Joe’s we determined and validated our NAICS Code as 722513. This will help us filter through and focus on our specific industry.

Example 1 – Legal Documents to Form the BusinessJava Joe’s Research - Obtain Articles of Organization and modify for registering the business in Virginia: Legal Forms Link > http://library.arlingtonva.libguides.com/aboutlegalforms

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As a first step, register your business in the State where you plan to conduct business. For most small businesses, SCORE recommends forming an LLC – Limited Liability Company.

Example 2 – Understand Your Industry (Articles)Java Joe’s Research – Read trade publications and articles related to your industry. Try and understand trends, best practices and other keys to your future success. From the main menu, select Research an Industry. Scroll down and click on Business Insights Essentials:

Click on the Advanced Search link below the Search button:

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We will use the keyword coffee and limit our search to the year 2018:

Click the Search button to generate a listing of articles. Scroll down the list and read articles of interest. For example, we come across an article published by Tea and Coffee Journal titled: On a Relentless Pursuit of Coffee Perfection:

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Click on the article and see how you might leverage some of this knowledge in how you brand and market your business. The article talks about how “shade grown” coffee is better quality and helps protect the bird population. These practices might help us in how we market our coffee:

Example 3 – Understand Your Industry (10-K Report for a Public Company)Java Joe’s Research – See if you can target a publicly traded company in the United States that is considered a market leader in your industry. By reviewing their annual 10-K report, you can gain insights into key risk and success factors. In the case of Java Joe’s, an obvious choice would be to look at Starbucks.

From the Research a Company selection, click on the link: U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC):

Within the EDGAR Filing search box, enter the name of the public company you want to review:5

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From the list of filings, you want to look at the annual 10-K Annual Report:

For the selected public company, click on and load the 10-K Annual Report:

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The first page of the 10-K Annual Report will come up as follows. Scroll down the report and click on the Risk Factors link:

Review the Risk Factors section of the 10-K to understand your industry and keys to success:

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In the above example, we learn that branding of your name can be very important to the success of a coffee shop. Having solid relationships and partners is also a critical success factor for a coffee shop. These important drivers of success need to be part of our Business Plan!

Example 4 – Generate a list of Competing Coffee Shops in Arlington, VirginiaJava Joe’s Research – Select Small Business Research and then select ReferenceUSA from the list:

NOTE: To access the ReferenceUSA databases, enter your library card and four digit pin number:

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From the listing of databases, select the U.S. Businesses database for our search. Once we have the specific database, we need to filter through the records. Click on Additional Filters since we need to reduce the database records down to our NAICS Code and Arlington, Virginia. Check off these attributes on the left side panel and complete the filters on the right side. Once done, click on the blue button – UPDATE COUNT to apply the filters. The total database records should drop significantly:

Now click on the green button – VIEW RESULTS after you have applied the filters (UPDATE COUNT)

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Click on the blue Download button to export to an Excel Spreadsheet. You can also click on Charts to generate a breakdown pie chart.

Example 5 – Identify and Evaluate a Key Competitor10

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Java Joe Research – Search for a coffee shop (NAICS Code 722513) that is very similar to your type of business within the zip code 22204 (Arlington, Virginia) where you think there are few authentic coffee shops.

Just to recap, there are four key steps for doing our research:

1. Click on Small Business Research from the main menu2. Select the ReferenceUSA Database you want to use3. Enter Library Card and four digit pin number to access the database4. Click on Advanced Search and enter the NAICS Code under Business Type and enter the Zip Code under

Geography

From the list generated, we see only one private, local coffee shop - Rappahannock Coffee & Roasting. Click on this key competitor to extrapolate key data for our business and financial plan.

Scroll down the report. We can get a quick read on the size of this business in terms of number of employees and total annual sales:

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Continue to scroll down to obtain a breakdown of their expenses and sales trend since opening:

We can see that this business has good long-term growth over an extended period of time which helps us confirm that there is solid demand in this target market.

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Based on our research, we have isolated a zip code that seems very viable for launching the business and we have a good baseline of customers and demand based on a review of sales trends for existing businesses by NAICS Code and Zip Code.

Example 6 – Create a Lead Generation List of Potential CustomersOne of the most important steps with any business is identification of potential customers. You should try and develop a profile of the person who will most likely purchase your product or service. We can get some insights from certain websites. Once we “profile” the customer, we can then use the database to create a list of potential customers.

Java Joe’s Research – Customer ProfileFor our coffee job, we will start by visiting www.sbdcnet.org and find a market report that relates to our specific business type. Review the report and summarize key attributes of the ideal customer:

Our targeted customer is: Young, Single, well-educated with an income of $ 100,000+ per the market research report. Now that we have a basic profile of our customer, let’s go back to the ReferenceUSA database to create our lead generation list. We will apply three filters using the ReferenceUSA database:

1. Where do they live? – We need to focus on zip codes or geographic locations that we think align directly with where our customers reside.

2. Income Level? – What household income levels align to our most likely customer?3. Life Style Category(s) – What unique life style characteristics fit with our most likely customer? This is

one of the more important filters.

Let’s take a closer look at Life Styles – these are things that your customers have an interest in and it influences their buying habits. Listed below is a screen shot from the Advanced Search query page showing us some of our Life Style options:

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Click and check Lifestyles on the left panel to bring up the Categories and Sub Categories in the middle. Click on the + box to expand on each Category. For example, under Books / Magazines, there is a Sub Category Book Buyers. You need to study all of the Life Style options and select those that fit your Customer Profile.

IMPORTANT POINT:The one Life Style category to pay particular attention to is: Purchase BehaviorIf possible, try and select a sub category from this category where applicable – this will help produce a very targeted list of your potential customers for your business.

Once again, study all of the categories and sub categories. Select those that you think represent the best fit. For our coffee shop, we notice that one of the Sub Categories is Internet Purchaser. We also notice that under the Category Technology / Entertainment, there is a Sub Category: Internet User. See screen shot below:

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Once again, we want to filter on three criteria in our Advanced Search for Java Joe’s:1. Select our targeted zip code 22204 within Arlington County, Virginia2. Select people with household incomes between $ 90,000 and $ 150,0003. Select people who are heavy internet users (they frequent coffee shops a lot)

Here is a screen shot of the Advanced Query screen before we apply the filters. Notice that before we apply the filters, there are 322,027,895 records – way too many records for our marketing campaign. We want to filter this way down to a very targeted localized list.

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Now click on the blue button UPDATE COUNT to reduce the records that we want to focus on:

This drops the record count down to 3,489 households and 754 email addresses. Click on the green button VIEW RESULTS for a detailed list:

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The above listing includes all contacts per household – there are duplicate records. We can go back and revise our search, reducing it further to one contact per household. Now check One per Household and Update the Count by clicking on the Update Count button:

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Here is our final Lead Generation List for our marketing campaign – 2,456 households and 546 email addresses:

Click on the Download blue button to export the list and use this for our marketing campaign to attract customers to the coffee shop.

Because the Customer List is so important, let’s recap each of the critical steps:

STEP 1: Go online and start from the home page > https://library.arlingtonva.us/explore/small-business/ Select Research Consumers by clicking on the respective image.

STEP 2: Select the ReferenceUSA Database

STEP 3: Log in using your Arlington Library Card and Pin Number.

STEP 4: From the available database, select U.S. Consumers / Lifestyles.

STEP 5: From the main query screen, click on the Advanced Search tab or select Additional Filters

STEP 6: Final step is to setup your filters and apply them, creating your detail listing of potential customers.

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Example 7 – Identify Key SuppliersJava Joe Research – Search for major suppliers that can support a coffee shop. From the main menu, select Research a Company and select ThomasNet:

Put in the keyword coffee and see what kind of suppliers come up. We will select Coffees (48 suppliers):

Scroll through the list and identify some key suppliers that we might want to use:

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Example 8 – Business Plan TemplateJava Joe Research – Review a template for a coffee shopFrom the main menu, select Find Business Plans Scroll down the page and select the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh - Business Plans and Business Profiles Index:

Scroll down the industry types and find the one that fits the best for your business. We will select Food, Beverages and Restaurants:

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From the industry type listing, we will select Additional café and coffee shop business plans:

Select the specific template you want to review. We will select the Coffee Shop called Java Culture:

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We can now review an 8-page template for Java Culture Coffee Shop:

This concludes our online research using databases available through the local public library. If you need additional assistance, please contact the following:

Arlington County: Montgomery County:Arlington Public Library Rockville Public Library1015 N. Quincy Street 21 Maryland AvenueArlington, VA 22201 Rockville, MD 20850Business Librarian: Senior Research Librarian:Alexandra Schulz (aschulz@arlingtonva.us) (1) Ann Cohn

(1): You can schedule a one-hour appointment with this librarian for direct assistance with how to use this document. Please make sure you obtain an Arlington Library Card before meeting with this librarian. Anyone in

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the tri-state area can obtain an Arlington Library Card > https://library.arlingtonva.us/services/accounts-and-borrowing/get-a-free-library-card/

Learn how to use the ReferenceUSA databases > http://resource.referenceusa.com/learning-center/

Additional Helpful Links for Research:

Business Plan Templates > https://planningshop.com/ | https://planbuildr.com/ | https://www.liveplan.com | https://www.teneric.co.uk/ Marketing Plan > http://www.mplans.com/ SBA Online Plan > https://www.sba.gov/starting-business/write-your-business-plan One Page Canvas > https://strategyzer.com/canvas/business-model-canvas Online Market Research Support > https://aytm.com/ | https://www.marketingsherpa.com/ | Mailing List > http://www.infousa.com/ Census Data by Location > https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml USA Business Directory > http://www.akama.com/ Analyze Competing Websites > https://www.ispionage.com/ Search Public Records > http://publicrecords.searchsystems.net/ Google Patent Search > https://patents.google.com/ Trade Publications > www.tradepub.com Trade Shows > www.eventsinamerica.com | https://10times.com/ | www.clocate.com/ Trademark Research > http://www.trademarkia.com | https://www.uspto.gov Find a Manufacturer > www.mfg.com | http://makersrow.com | www.made-in-china.com Export Globally > https://www.export.gov/welcome | https://www.usa.gov/import-export | https://www.cbp.gov/trade/basic-import-export Magazine Research > www.allyoucanread.com Newspaper Research > www.highbeam.com Online Library Research > https://www.questia.com/ | https://www.worldcat.org/ Local Government Research > http://www.statelocalgov.net/

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