A Business Start-up (Chapter Two)-Educating for Success
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Are you ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work? The first place to start is acquiring knowledge. You need to know all you can about business in general and your product or service specifically. And there are many ways to find this information, some of which will only cost you your time and energy. But before you invest any money in your new business you need to invest in information.
So what do you need to know? First and foremost is whether your product/service is unique or if not can your company provide a better, more reliable and/or less costly version of your competition’s version. Know who your competition is, the market area they cover, their price points, warranty coverage, marketing campaigns, etc. And then ask “can I be a worthy competitor?” “Will my product/service stand up and exceed what they provide to their customers?” To be successful your company must stand out in the crowd in the areas of quality and customer service. And to stand out in the crowd you need to know just what the “crowd” is doing.
Once you know you have a viable, sellable product/service, than you need to ask “who will be my customers and where do I find them?” This is where demographics can help. Demographics in its simplest form is knowing the answers to who, what and where and how much. Who will purchase from my company, what are they most likely to purchase, where are these customers likely to shop, and how much are they likely to spend on the type of product I wish to sell. The answers to these questions will help you make decisions regarding your business location, marketing plans and pricing formulas.
And finally, you need to educate yourself in the fine art of running a business. This includes financing your business both for the start-up and for growth later on, professionals you will need to rely on, marketing strategies, employee laws, state and federal laws, tax planning and compliance, financial statements and record keeping. And this is the short list.
Don’t get discouraged, there are many ways to accumulate this information and I will be giving you some straight forward solutions in the next chapter. In the meantime, buy yourself a deck of index cards and a container to keep them in. I found some brightly colored plastic boxes that are only slightly larger than a 3×5 index card and are only 1” deep. The have built in dividers and I also purchased multiple color index cards. The bright color of the case enhances my imagination and the narrow size allows me to take the cards everywhere. I use the dividers and different colored index cards to break down my projects into segments. So off to your favorite office supply store because we will be using the index cards in the next chapter.