SMALL BUSINESS EVALUATE YOUR BUSINESS IDEA BC IS YOUR BUSINESS IDEA FEASIBLE? It is often difficult to figure out how to research your business idea, especially if you have never been in business for yourself. You will need to decide if your business idea has profit potential. Use the following twenty steps as a guide to help you determine if your business idea is viable. There may be some questions you are unable to answer or answer fully. This is an indication of the areas of your proposed business you don't know enough about and a great launching pad for your market research. 1 THE STEPS CREATE A CUSTOMER PROFILE Your customers might be consumers or retail stores, wholesalers or manufacturers, government or other institutions. List as many points as you can about who you think will buy your product. If you are selling to a consumer market, list their age, gender, marital status, and income, and try to describe their lifestyle. If you expect to sell to another business or organization, assess what industries they are in, what kind of company they are, how long they have been in business, how many employees they have, annual sales, what department would be interested in your offer, and who their customers are. 2 LIST AND DESCRIBE THE FEATURES AND BENEFITS OF YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES State how these features will benefit your customer. Define the features of your idea and determine what these features do for your customer. You will create a list of the selling points that you can use in your advertising, your brochures, and in your sales presentation. This will help you establish why your customer might buy your product or service over that of your competitor. 3 DEFINE YOUR GEOGRAPHIC AREA Are selling to your neighborhood? British Columbia? Globally? By defining where you are going to sell, you will likely be able to figure out how many potential customers are located in this area. If you are selling to a large geographic area, you will likely need a good deal of money, marketing, and resources. Defining this area makes it much easier to figure out what your needs are going to be. It will help focus your area of concentration when conducting market research SMALL BUSINESS EVALUATE YOUR BUSINESS IDEA BC IS YOUR BUSINESS IDEA FEASIBLE? It is often difficult to figure out how to research your business idea, especially if you have never been in business for yourself. You will need to decide if your business idea has profit potential. Use the following twenty steps as a guide to help you determine if your business idea is viable. There may be some questions you are unable to answer or answer fully. This is an indication of the areas of your proposed business you don't know enough about and a great launching pad for your market research. 1 THE STEPS CREATE A CUSTOMER PROFILE Your customers might be consumers or retail stores, wholesalers or manufacturers, government or other institutions. List as many points as you can about who you think will buy your product. If you are selling to a consumer market, list their age, gender, marital status, and income, and try to describe their lifestyle. If you expect to sell to another business or organization, assess what industries they are in, what kind of company they are, how long they have been in business, how many employees they have, annual sales, what department would be interested in your offer, and who their customers are. 2 LIST AND DESCRIBE THE FEATURES AND BENEFITS OF YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES State how these features will benefit your customer. Define the features of your idea and determine what these features do for your customer. You will create a list of the selling points that you can use in your advertising, your brochures, and in your sales presentation. This will help you establish why your customer might buy your product or service over that of your competitor. 3 DEFINE YOUR GEOGRAPHIC AREA Are selling to your neighborhood? British Columbia? Globally? By defining where you are going to sell, you will likely be able to figure out how many potential customers are located in this area. If you are selling to a large geographic area, you will likely need a good deal of money, marketing, and resources. Defining this area makes it much easier to figure out what your needs are going to be. It will help focus your area of concentration when conducting market research