For this month’s Q&A, we sat down with Select Fulton’s Deputy Director, Samir Abdullahi, and Project Researcher, Alvin Darden, to discuss their new FREE business intelligence tool—SizeUp. We discuss the tool’s purpose, how to access it and the most popular and beneficial data functions.
For readers that are unfamiliar, can you explain the basics of the Size Up tool?
Samir: Size Up is a powerful yet user-friendly tool for entrepreneurs and business owners. It gives them the ability to access business and marketing intelligence that was previously only available to huge corporations. SizeUp is customized to your specific industry and location and is not limited to business—SizeUp helps private sector, government and nonprofit organizations alike. SizeUp helps answer the questions that an aspiring entrepreneur might be wondering such as, “How do I compare to other businesses?”, “Where are my customers?”, and “Where should I advertise?”
How do businesses find the tool and is there a fee to access the data?
Alvin: Businesses can find the tool on our website for free. There is no fee to access the data and businesses can use this resource as many times as they would like. All you need is 1) the city to locate your business and 2) the type of business to access the intelligence data. Visit our website and the tool here https://selectfultoncounty.com/sizeup.
What was Select Fulton’s motivation for engaging with a tool like Size Up for the business community?
Samir: Select Fulton’s motivation for engaging with Size Up is rooted in small business support. We are more than aware of the impact small businesses have on our local economy. Not only do they support financially but they create the cultural climate that makes Fulton County so unique and sought after for doing business. We wanted to ensure that our small businesses had a tool to access information that might have been inaccessible before due to financial constraints. Since implementing SizeUp we are more capable in assisting small business growth while also better serving disadvantaged small, minority, women and veteran-owned companies.
What are some of the most highly used functions of the Size Up tool?
Alvin: The most highly used functions of SizeUp include average revenue of a location, average number of employees and average salaries, with more detailed information on net job changes, turnover rates, and healthcare considerations. Another function that is widely used and automatically computed is a business scorecard which allows business owners to determine what percent of businesses they are performing in their industry.
What are some of the functions of Size Up that may not be as widely used but you think are beneficial for business owners?
Alvin: SizeUp is a powerful map based tool with rich locational information by zip code. This includes demographic overlays, location-based advertising intelligence and location-based competitive analysis. In addition, having a ready to print document with a detailed summary of performance, along with a better understanding of the competitive landscape, provides owners more confidence to make better business and marketing decisions in the future.
For business owners that may be intimidated by all of the features of Size Up, is there a tutorial or demo that explains how to easily interact with the tool?
Samir: We have an instructional video available on our website, but we would be glad to answer personal questions about SizeUp as well! Please find our contact us page on our website and send us an email for more information.