Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Can you tell us some more about your product and your business so that we can help you better?

What sort of product is it? Detergent? Tires? Software?
Where are you located?
Who is your target market? Consumers? Businesses? Senior citizens? Pet owners?
Is this an established company introducing a new product or a brand-new business?

Meanwhile, here are some business plan links that may help (these are geared toward the USA, since you didn't say where you were):

https://www.biztoolkit.org/about.cfm

https://www.score.org/index.html

https://www.toolkit.com/small_business_guide/index.aspx

https://www.bplans.com/


Jodi

Dear DaveTw,

Before you get all bent out of shape about a business plan you need to answer a really important question; a question that will make the difference between success and failure.

Ready?

Are there buyers for this new product. Is there a genuine need to which your product is the solution?

If no one wants to buy the thing, you'll be wasting your time, energy, resources, money, and effort.

Personally, I'm weary—no, scratch that—I'm sick to death of hearing about businesses in an all fired hurry to change the world through the delivery of this or that, I'm sick of hearing about some outfit hell bent on making a killing with this or that, but that hasn't asked out loud "Is anyone interested in buying this thing?" and thereby saving themselves a world or pain and debt.

So yes, your first step is market research: to see if there IS a market. To find out if there IS a need that your thingy (whatever the heck it is) can solve, a pain your do-dad can salve, a desire your what's-it can can make real.

There are readers of this forum who won't like this next bit, but that's just life.

Anyone who tells you "Buyers? Buyers? Don't worry about buyers! You produce it, we'll find the buyers!" is an imbecilic nit wit.

There's no point in launching anything if you don't have pre-qualified, eager buyers with a problem to solve.

Why?

Because they are hundreds of times easier to market to by virtue of them being pre-sold on curing their problem. This means your marketing dollars work harder and bring you a higher return on your investment.

And as for business plans? Google the term and you'll find dozens of offerings on the first two pages alone.

I hope this helps and I wish you the best of luck. Now, go and find your buyers, THEN craft your product around a need.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Hello Dave
I completely agree with the responses above-do not proceed to business plan without doing market research. There are several ways to do research-survey your current customers, create some customer focus groups, use social networking sites to get product feedback etc. With all the online tools available, market research can be conducted fairly economically and there is no excuse not to do it. It just doesn't make sense these days to launch a new product without understanding if there is really a need for the product.

I have a good business plan outline if you get to that stage. You can email me for it if you need it, it is not posted online.

Hope this helps,
Linda Whitehead
Zuz Marketing

I'd recommend that you get a market research professional to give you some advice. The hour or two of their time you buy will be worth many times the cost.

If you need a recommendation, let me know. Just click on my screen name and use the email address shown there.

Don't bother starting on a business plan unless your goal is to get investors. Start with a strategy plan (which incorporates some of the suggestions from about: who you're targeting, what problem they have, how you solve their problem, why they should trust you, etc.). While the strategy plan does incorporate some revenue guesstimates, the business plan focuses on revenue projections and touches upon some strategy.