Top Tips for Planning your Business
- Research, research, research: Know your marketplace, know your customers, talk to people, work in your chosen industry, and find out as much as you can before committing any money to your business project!
- Be prepared to change your initial business idea to meet the expectations of your potential customers: Because it is pointless trying to set-up a company that is selling something that no-one (or not enough people) wants to buy. Make sure that you specialise and you will be the master of one specific thing rather than a jack of all trades so that you do not spread yourself too thin or over too large an area.
- Know who your target customers are: Outline who your target customer is. Put yourself in their shoes. What value do you offer them or what results can they expect from your service? How old are they, what gender, what industry, what turnover? What are they reading, where are they going, and who do they respect?
- Define your key message: What makes your business different from the competition, what is your product/service? What value do you offer? Can you communicate this in less than 30 seconds? If not, you’re saying too much!
- Have a reference point: It’s great that your business is so different that it creates a whole new industry category or is so innovative that it knocks spots off the competition but make sure you can benchmark yourself against existing categories, products or brands that people already understand.
- Set-up example packages: In service industries, people have a hard time understanding what they will get for their money. It is all very well that you provide a customised service but try to outline some example packages – what’s included, how much and what are the outcomes/results? You then emphasise that you prepare a customised service based on the packages to suit their needs.
- Budget appropriately: It is always a mistake to think that your business will communicate value all by itself and remember that Google adwords is not the Holy Grail. You do not have to spend a fortune on marketing but you need to have an idea of what things cost and factor this in to your plan.
- Understand the sales process: Create a diagram that describes the sales process for your product/service which indicates key stages your customer goes through in making up their mind about whether to buy from you. This will allow you to develop appropriate sales materials, anticipate/handle objections, create marketing initiatives that will influence them at key decision points and look for ways to accelerate them past the bottlenecks.
- Set-up the basics: Before you launch you must have good-quality logo, business cards printed and a website with an email address that relates to your URL – without this people will not take you seriously.
- Research, research, research: The market does not stand still, so make sure that you are abreast of any industry developments or changes in the market.
