Appreciate where you are coming from with your reply but statistics are something that you can do anything you like with really (the old lies, damned lies and statistics).
For example Quickbooks is the UK market leading accounting package in retail sales volume. Take that statement alone and you would think ok, that makes Quickbooks the market leader... Only it doesn't when Sage give away their software via the banks to new starts to gain market share.
When statistics are based on such a small sample the results are often at odds with if the population were viewed as a whole.
A good example that springs to mind was when working with a bank we populated a testbed with 500 accounts for initial testing of a new product. in that population there werre 15 cases (3%) showing that if extrapolated to the whole population performance would be seriously affected and that required a full redesign of the system in order to keep the processing working within the available window.
Before going forwards with the redesign we looked at the whole population and guess what... there were only 2 more cases in the rest of the population making the performance hit on the overnight batch run absolutely insignificant. (thinks, ok, saved the bank a couple of hundred thousand this week, earned my money).
There was also a case with a cosmetics company that they published a survey based on 6 out of 7 people recomended their product but the survey had actually only had 7 responders. That one is an extreme example that I think makes the point about population sizes.
All that I'm trying to say with those examples is that unless one looks at larger populations the results are rendered meaningless. In this instance I would assume that the minimum population size should be a market cross selection of at least 100 totally independant test cases (there would be no point asking 100 businesses all from the same area or even county).
kind regards,
Shaun.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
There was also a case with a cosmetics company that they published a survey based on 6 out of 7 people recomended their product but the survey had actually only had 7 responders. That one is an extreme example that I think makes the point about population sizes......................
Next you'll be telling me 'Whiskas' only surveyed 10 cat owners.
They don't say that Tim, they say 8 out of 10 cats, not the cat owners (ok, call me a pedant).
ok, you put brand x and brand y in dishes. The test surely is how many cats turn left as opposed to how many turn right.
When we had a cat (I'm actually a dog person not cat one) it might have truned left or right initially but when that one was gone it would have had no qualms about then moving onto the next one.
lol. What would we do without statistics to convince our clients that black is white :)
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I think that the likes of ourselves are birds of a feather when it comes to statistics Bill.
I signed up for an OU course on Quantitative Methods and Statistics but found myself disagreeing with the books so much that I retreated back to accountancy which makes far more sense from a practical perspective... Well, it did until paper P5 which I found full of the same statistal stuff that I had run screaming from with the OU course.
Great to hear from you matey. How are the semi permanent clients going?
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
It's been nice to be able to pop in for a while, albeit short visits.
Been working 7 days a week for the last couple of months (making hay while sun shines). Not sure how I feel about the semi's at the moment as I am starting to feel that I am not the master of my own destiny.
Congratulations on your award by the way. Very much deserved.
Just going to have a quick scoot round the forum to see what's going on. May even pose a question, if I have time
Speak soon
Bill
-- Edited by Wella on Monday 8th of October 2012 06:04:22 PM
Cheers Bill... And I'd bought you ketchup for your hat and everything, lol.
On the briight side at least you didn't move away from the rest of your clients as you originally intended so I'm thinking is there perhaps an option / margin to sub contract or even take on employees to do the big jobs if you need to?
Are you finding that the semi's are still respecting you as much as when they were simply normal clients or are you now being treated as a full time employee (except without employment benefits).
I read an interesting book recently by an American bookkeeper (Julie Mucha-Aydlott) who went through something similar and after less than a year she had to return to her normal way of working largely due to the change of attitude in the company between when she was outside the company as opposed to when she was within it.
The difference between yours and Julie's case though is that she gave away her old client base and had to restart from scratch whereas of course you have very sensible held onto yours.
Hoping that you find the good balance with the semi's soon Bill. But if it proves to be more than just teething problems at least this seems to be a clock that can be turned back without too much issue.
kind regards,
Shaun.
p.s. The book referred to above is definitely aimed at the American market but what we go through is not bound by national boundaries or regulatory systems. As such it's interesting to read Julies marketing approach espechially in relation to payroll bureau's which we may see a lot more of over this side of the pond post RTI.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
Are you finding that the semi's are still respecting you as much as when they were simply normal clients or are you now being treated as a full time employee (except without employment benefits).
They would if they could but I wont let them I get funny looks when the telephone rings (general enquiry number) and I wont answer it (very hard for me to ignore a ringing phone).
I think that the cessation of blogs is however down to success in the day job rather than failure of the practice so in this instance a good thing for the poster if not for our morbid curiousity into the trials and tribulations of a fledgling practice.
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Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
I get funny looks when the telephone rings (general enquiry number) and I wont answer it (very hard for me to ignore a ringing phone).
