Читать книгу Finance & Grow Your New Business - Angie Mohr - Страница 52

The first step in planning your new business is to define what your business actually is. What will it provide to its customers? For example, if you want to open a hair salon, you must first define the range of services it will provide. Will it simply provide haircuts? Or will it be a full-service spa with high-end services like massage and facials?

The next planning step is to define your market. Who will your customers be? This will help you to target your marketing and promotions to be able to get at your potential customer base. This planning step will require some analysis. You need to make sure that the people you are targeting would really purchase your product or service. For example, if you have a car dealership that sells bmws, you would more likely target wealthy business owners than penniless students. This may be a new concept for you if you have never run a business before and you may feel uncomfortable making generalizations about people based on their income or social stature. But you are simply trying to identify the group of consumers who are most likely to be interested in what you have to sell.

The third planning step is to identify where you want to be in your industry. If you are a massage therapist, do you want to be the least expensive? Be the most knowledgeable? Have the most flexible hours? This information will translate into your vision statement for your business: An all-encompassing statement about what your business stands for and what its mandate is. We will address developing a vision statement for your business in Part 2 of this book.

Once you have decided on the overall direction of your new business, it’s time to start the detailed planning process.