Is There Truly a Market for your Proposed Product or Service
Is There Truly a Market for your Proposed Product or Service
Hi reader’s, I want you to think about if you’re going to start a business one of the most important things to do is not a business plan but rather to do some test marketing. The thing you have to remember is that when you start a new business or even if you’re buying a business the principal still remains the same. The person who decides whether or not your business ultimately succeeds is your customer. You can think you’ve got a wonderful idea and work up this great business plan and get out there and get started and fall flat on your face. So many people do. The thing that you need to do, first of all, before you invest a whole bunch of other time is take that product or that service that you’re going to present to the world … take it out there and test market. Make sure that other people think it’s great too.
That it’s something that people are willing to buy from you. You need to have an idea, a product or service that people really want and that they’re willing to part with their hard-earned cash to buy from you. Take that time and do that first. I remember a story about a fellow who was creating a new beer. He had created this beer and thought everyone would like it. He came to his dad and said he would like some financing for his business to get started. His dad said, “I am not going to lend you a dollar until you can show me that there’s really a market for your beer.” This particular brand.
His son went out, took some 6-packs, 12-packs of the beer and went around to some of the different bars and gave it to the bartenders and said, “Here, just go ahead, sell this or give this to some of your patrons who come in and just tell me what the feedback is on it.” What do they think of it? Then he went back around to those bars and most of the bartenders said, “Hey you know what? We’ll buy this beer from you because our customers loved it.” He had the market research done. He test marketed his product before he went through the whole process of buying all of the things he needs to get into production. Before he invested in facilities and equipment and so forth and employees. He made sure that he had buyers for his product before he started.
That’s critically important and I want you to remember that. If you’re going to start a business or even buy a business you want to make sure that the product or service that you have is something that people really want.
