Pro Business Plans

The Key to Winning

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For new and existing businesses, there are many aspects to success. Together, we will analyze your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and competition. We will create a timetable for stages of progress, and look at strategies for enhancing your profitability in the marketplace.

We will think through the risks and potential rewards of your enterprise, taking into consideration your own strengths and areas that could use further research and training. Whether you are starting a new venture or considering expanding your business, we need to assess the opportunities for success and the venture’s attractiveness to investors looking at both the marketplace and your own capabilities. Let’s take a few minutes to analyze: Is it real and Can we win?

Is it real?

The first consideration has to do with the business concept. Will people pay for your good or service with enough profit margins for you to be able to have room for the learning curve? Who are your competitors? There is always someone competing for disposable income, and most likely in the same market niche as you. You may have a new concept but there are comparables, and if your product concept is truly revolutionary then you need to figure out how to get the market to understand the concept and buy into the benefits.

The answer has nothing to do with how you feel about your product but how the market will react. There is a world of difference between a product with even one customer and one that exists only on paper. Market traction or proof of market acceptance is a definite plus.

And you need to have a product and process that is sustainable, because all the profit in the world will not help if there is not a healthy planet for all of us.

Can you think about your environmental footprint? Is it possible to not send anything to the landfill?

The financial consideration of “is it real” also extends to the attractiveness of the concept for funding. We all want to be on the wave of consumer excitement. You want to make sure that your timing is right. If it is just too hard to convince people, the timing may not be right. Don’t try to force the market. Settle back into the development phase or consider going on to something else. We can help you understand the market dynamics and tweak your marketing mix, if necessary to improve competitiveness.

Do people want your product?

Is your product filling an unmet need?

Are customers willing to pay you handsomely for it?

Can you produce it efficiently?

Will it satisfy the market?

Can you produce your product with the smallest environmental footprint?

Can you scale up to much higher volumes?

Can you protect your uniqueness, if appropriate, through intellectual property protection?

What kind of entry barriers can you create to forestall competition?

Is there a coherent product idea and is there a coherent strategy throughout the product life cycle?

Let us work on these issues together.

Can you win?

Where “is it real” is an industry attractiveness question, “can you win” requires you to look at your company’s strengths and areas that need improvement.

Ask yourself the following questions. Whenever the answer is no, find out what has to be done to turn that no into a yes.

Can you win in terms of pricing, promotion, distribution, and timing? This means is your marketing proposition a winning one.

Can you stay ahead of the competition in terms of engineering, production, environmental sustainability, process and world class technology? Here we are considering the operational issues of winning.

How about your team and your people? Are they the best in the industry? Do they work together well and for the interests of the whole? Have you created the ideal incentive programs to inspire them? Are you listening to the suggestions of your personnel and implementing best practices? Human capital is the basis of every other form of capital and you will need to attract the best to be the best.

In terms of finance, ask yourself whether the risk is worth it? Is it worth the investment in money, time and in opportunity costs.

Is the return acceptable and can we attract the capital we need to both survive and progress? Don’t sell yourself short. If your cost/benefit analysis points to a great return, then you are on your way to winning in the marketplace.

This entire discussion is transformed into a feasibility study, which is the Strategy Test page.

Go to the Strategy Test. Email it to me and you can qualify for a free business evaluation

Let us take your business to the next level.