Real Versus Government Data

Interviewing Art Cerimele for this issue’s cover story affirmed some common traits I’ve observed in small business owners in the industrial distribution space. He started with nothing but came into entrepreneurship with everything required for success: determination, readiness to work hard, smarts to build good partnerships, emotional intelligence to build good culture and customer service, and maybe most important of all, optimism.

Art is a master in the art of positive thinking, but not wishful thinking. His confidence is rooted in a strong belief in self, but to compete with the big dogs, small businesses also need good data. So naturally when I recently heard a conference speaker mention small business optimism as well as where you should look for trustworthy data, I was all ears.

Gene Marks (not to be confused with Mike Marks) is a nationally known weekly columnist and media personality for Fox News, The Guardian, The Hill, Forbes and other well-known platforms where he covers public policy, the economy, workplace, business management and technology — he’s also a Philadelphiabased business consultant. He said, “When I write about the economy and when I advise my clients, I don’t depend that much on government data.” That’s because of the enormous variance between first-released data and their final revised versions. “You’re running a business here,” Marks said. “You need to know what the numbers are.” Here is where he points his clients:

1)  The Institute of Supply Management. We publish this report every month in our Industrial Supply Weekly e-newsletter, which you can subscribe to at: subscriber.directbusinessmedia.com/edit-my-account.

2) National Federation of Independent Business’s Small Business Optimism Index. The January Index he shared in February showed optimism remaining above the 52-year average of 98.

3) American Institute of Architects Billings Index. “If architects are busy and billing, that’s a good sign six to nine months from now for the construction industry, both commercial and residential,” Marks said.

4) Baltic Dry Index. Marks calls this an index of the global economy — in February, it was trending considerably higher than a year ago.

5) Key Earnings Reports. Marks looks to the top three largest banks for real numbers on consumer spending, lending, and credit card debt. He also goes to Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, and other leaders, which all report real numbers that don’t lie or get “adjusted.”

6) ADP National Employment Report and Paychex Small Business Employment Watch. Better than the DOL’s jobs report, which has had major misses in the hundreds of thousands, these two sources “provide real data from real companies and real employees – not a survey or something that can be politicized,” Marks said.

According to Marks, these are the metrics you need if you want to understand where the economy is going. Hope this is helpful. And as always, thanks for reading!