Tuesday, September 23  

It's coming up to summer here in the land Down Under, so...

* Summer traffic increases by about 4 times on major highways - buy highway billboard space

* Domestic holiday air travel increases by 15% - start a car hire business in December

* People visiting shopping centres increases by up to 50% throughout December-February - you have to capitalise on this window of opportunity of heaps more customers (start advertising in October)

They're 3 pretty decent strategies for what happens coming into summer. Sound decisions based on relevant info.

And you should always have a look at the numbers. Do your research. It's not hard and could be the difference between success and failure.

His reasoning seemed sound

I remember a few years ago speaking with a guy who wanted to open a 'basketball only' store in my home town of Hobart, Tasmania. His reasoning seemed, at first glance, to be solid.

Basketball was the fastest growing sport in Australia at that time.

But a quick check of the numbers showed that he was heading for disaster.

You see, in Tasmania at that time hardly anyone played basketball. Whilst participation might have increased 80% in a year and the traditional football increased by just 5%, 80% of 1,000 is a lot less than 5% of 100,000 (they weren't the numbers - just an example).

Visit your local library. Get onto your local statistics department. Jump online and start searching. With some pretty basic information you can be in the position to make a well-informed and successful decision.

Cheers.

Brendon