Checklist for Starting a Cell Phone Repair Business: Essential Ingredients for Success
If you are thinking about going into business, it is imperative that you watch this video first! it will take you by the hand and walk you through each and every phase of starting a business. It features all the essential aspects you must consider BEFORE you start a Cell Phone Repair business. This will allow you to predict problems before they happen and keep you from losing your shirt on dog business ideas. Ignore it at your own peril!
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A Step by Step
Guide to Starting a Small Business
This is a
practical manual in a PDF format, that will walk you step by step through all the
essential phases of starting your Cell Phone Repair business. The book is packed with
guides, worksheets and checklists. These strategies are
absolutely crucial to your business' success yet are simple and
easy to apply.
Copy the following link to your browser and save the file to your PC:
https://www.bizmove.com/free-pdf-download/how-to-start-a-business.pdf
How to Conduct a
Low Cost Market Research
To be successful a business must know
its market. Marketing research is simply an orderly, objective
way of learning about people - the people who buy from you or
might buy from you.
This Guide provides an overview of
what market research is and how it's done. It introduces
inexpensive techniques that business owner-managers can apply to
gather facts about their customers and the people they'd like to
have for customers.
Basically, the purpose of marketing
research is to find out what catches customers' attention by
observing their actions and drawing conclusions from what you
see. To put it more formally, in the words of the American
Marketing Association, marketing research is "the systematic
gathering, recording, and analyzing of data about problems
relating to the marketing of goods and services."
Marketing research is an organized
way of finding objective answers to questions every business
must answer to succeed. Every business owner-manager must ask:
Who are my customers and potential
customers?
What kind of people are they?
Where do they live?
Can and will they buy?
Am I offering the kinds of goods or
services they want - at the best place, at the best time, and in
the right amounts?
Are my prices consistent with what
buyers view as the products' values?
Are my promotional programs working?
What do customers think of my
business?
How does my business compare with my
competitors?
Marketing research is not a perfect
science; it deals with people and their constantly changing
likes and dislikes which can be affected by hundreds of
influences, many of which simply can't be identified. Marketing
research does, however, try to learn about markets
scientifically. That simply, is to gather facts in an orderly,
objective way; to find out how things are, not how you think
they are or would like them to be; what people want to buy, not
just what you want to sell them.
Why Do It?
It's tough - impossible - to sell
people what they don't want. (Remember the Nehru jacket?) That's
pretty obvious. Just as obvious is the fact that nothing could
be simpler than selling people what they do want. Big business
has to do market research to find that out. The same reason
holds for small business.
business owners often have a "feel"
for their customers - their markets - that comes from years of
experience. Experience can be a two-edged sword, though, since
it comprises a tremendous mass of facts acquired at random over
a number of years. Information about markets gained from long
experience may no longer be timely enough to base selling
decisions on. In addition, some "facts" may be vague, misleading
impressions or folk tales of the "everybody knows that..."
variety.
Marketing research focuses and
organized marketing information. It ensures that such
information is timely. It provides what you need to:
Reduce business risks,
Spot problems and potential problems
in your current market,
Identify and profit from sales
opportunities,
Get basic facts about your market to
help you make better decisions and set up plans of action.
How Do You Go About It?
You probably do some market research
every day in the course of your routine management activities
without being aware of it. You check returned items to see if
there's some pattern. You ask one of your old customers, who has
stopped coming to your shop, why he hasn't been in lately when
you run into him on the street. You look at a competitor's ad to
see what that store is charging for the same products you're
selling.
Marketing research simply makes this
process more orderly. It provides a framework that lets you
objectively judge the meaning of the information you gather
about your market. The following flow chart shows the steps in
the marketing research process:
Define problem (limit and state
clearly)
Assess available information
Assess additional information, if
required:
review internal records and files
Interview employees
Consult secondary sources of
information
Interview customers and suppliers
Collect (or have collected) primary
data
Organize and interpret data
Make decision
Watch the results of the decision
Defining the Problem
This, the first step of the research
process, is so obvious that it is often overlooked. Yet, it is
the most important step of the process.
You must be able to see beyond the
symptoms of a problem to get at the cause. Seeing the problem as
a "sales decline" is not defining a cause; it's listing a
symptom.
In defining your problem list every
possible influence that may have caused it. Has there been a
change in the areas your customers have traditionally come from?
Have their tastes changed? Put all the possible caused down.
Then set aside any that you don't think can be measured, since
you won't be able to take any action on them.
You must establish an idea of the
problem with causes that can be objectively measured and tested.
Put your idea of the causes in writing. Look at it frequently
while you're gathering your facts to keep on track, but don't
let it get in the way of facts, either. (Incidentally, while
this Guide speaks of "problems," the same techniques can be used
to investigate potential opportunities too.)
Assessing Available Information
Once you've formally defined your
problem, you should assess your ability to solve it immediately.
You may already have all the information you need to determine
if your hypothesis is correct, and solutions to the problem may
have become obvious in the process of defining it. Stop there.
You'll only be wasting your time and money if you do further
marketing research.
What if you aren't sure whether or
not you need additional information at this point? What if you'd
feel more comfortable with additional data? Here, you've got to
make a subjective judgment to weigh the cost of more information
against its usefulness.
You're up against a dilemma similar
to guessing in advance your return on your advertising dollar.
You don't know what return you'll get, or even if you'll get a
return. The best you can do is ask yourself how much making a
wrong decision will cost and to balance that against the cost of
gathering more data to make a better informed decision.
Once you have Determined what type of
business you want to Begin and The investment requirements, you
are prepared to select a
location. The number of competitive
businesses already in the region should affect your choice of
location. Some areas are
bombarded with support stations or
particular forms of restaurants. Check on the number of your
type of company from Census
figures, the yellow pages, or by
checking out the place.
Factors Aside from the potential
market, availability of Workers And number of competitive
companies must be considered in
choosing a place. For
instance, how adequate are utilities - sewer, water, power, gas?
Parking facilities? Police and fire
protection? What about
home and environmental factors like schools, cultural and
community actions for employees? What is the
average cost of
the place in rents and taxes? Check on zoning regulations.
Assess the business of the neighborhood
business-people, the
aggressiveness of civic associations. In summary, what is the
town soul? Such factors should give you a clue
to the city or
city's future.
Chambers of Commerce and local
universities Normally Have created or Are knowledgeable about
local surveys that may provide
answers to these questions and
the many other questions that will occur to you.
Then
you have to decide in what part of city to find. If the city is
Very small and you're establishing retail or service
business, there will probably be little choice. Only one
shopping place is present. Cities have outlying shopping
facilities along
with the central shopping area, and stores
spring up along principal thoroughfares and neighborhood
streets.
Consider the shopping centre. It is different
from different locations. The shopping center construction is
pre-planned as a
merchandising unit. The website was
intentionally selected by a developer. On-site parking is a
common feature. Clients may drive
, park and do their
shopping in relative speed and safety. Some centers offer
weather protection. Such amenities make the shopping
center
an advantageous location.
There are also some
limitations you ought to know about. As a tenant, You become
part of a retailer team and must cover your pro
rata share of
their budget. You have to keep store hours, light your windows,
and place your signs according to established rules.
Many
communities have restrictions on signs and the middle management
may have additional limitations. What's more, if you're
thinking about a shopping centre for your first store you could
have an extra issue. Developers and owners of shopping
facilities
look for successful retailers.
The kind
and variety of merchandise that you take helps determine the
Kind of purchasing area you choose. For example, clothing
stores, jewelry shops and department stores are more likely to
be more successful in shopping districts. On the other hand,
grocery stores, drug stores, filling stations, and bakeries
usually do better on principal thoroughfares and local streets
beyond
the shopping districts. Some kinds of stores
customarily pay a low rent per square foot, while others pay a
high rent. At the"low"
class are furniture, grocery stores
and hardware stores. At the"large" are cigar, drug, women's
furnishings, and department
stores. There's not any hard and
fast rule, however it is helpful to observe in what kind of
place a shop like yours often appears
to flourish.
After deciding an area ideal for your type of business, Obtain
as many details as possible about it. Examine the competition.
How
many similar companies can be found nearby? What exactly
does their sales volume seem to be? If you're establishing a
store or
support trade, how far do people come to trade in
the region? Are the visitors patterns positive? If the majority
of your clients
will be local inhabitants, study the
population trends of the area. Is population increasing,
stationary or decreasing? Are the
folks native-born, blended
or mostly foreign? Are new ethnic groups coming in? Are they
predominantly laborers, clerks, executives
or retired
persons? Are they all ages or mostly retired, middle aged, or
young? Judge purchasing power by assessing average house
rental, typical property taxation, number of telephones, number
of cars and, if the amount is available, per capita income.
Larger
shopping centers have this type of information out
there, and will make it available to serious potential tenants.
Zoning ordinances, parking availability, transportation
facilities And natural barriers - such as hills and bridges -
are
important factors in locating any sorts of business.
Possible sources for this info are Chambers of Commerce, trade
associations,
property businesses, local papers, banks, city
officials, local retailers and personal monitoring. In the event
the Bureau of the
Census has developed census tract data for
the specific region where you are interested you'll find this
especially valuable. A
census tract is a small, permanently
recognized, geographical area within a big city and its
environs. The Census Bureau provides
population and housing
characteristics for each tract. This information could be
valuable in measuring your marketplace or service
potential.
Deciding upon the actual site in a area might well be
taking what you Can get. Very few buildings or plants will be
appropriate
and at the exact same time, accessible. If you do
have a choice, make sure you weigh the possibilities carefully.
For a production plant, consider the condition and
suitability Of the construction, transportation, parking
facilities, and also
the type of lease. For A store or
service establishment, assess on the closest competition,
traffic Leak, parking facilities,
street location, physical
facets of the construction, Type of rental and price, and the
speed, cost and quality of transport.
Additionally Look into
the history of the site. Find answers to such queries as: Has
the Building remained empty for any amount of
time? Why? Have
various Kinds of Stores occupied it for short periods? It might
have proved unprofitable for them. Sites on which
many
businesses have failed should be avoided. Vacant buildings Do
not bring traffic and are generally considered bad neighbors,
therefore check on nearby unoccupied buildings.
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