How Entrepreneurs Should Create a Marketing Plan
I just finished having a short chat with a virtual acquaintance, who also happens to be an entrepreneur.
He wanted to write a business plan for an idea he had for a new product in a third-world country.
His primary concern was how to create a market and business expansion plan.
Have you ever wondered how to do this? Marketing plans are both easy and hard.
They're comparatively easy to write, but can be quite difficult to implement.
That's because when we dream about what we want we only see everything working according to plan.
We only see the obstacles when we analyze the steps that will be necessary to get us there.
Here are several approaches you should use when you write your marketing plan, from the easiest to the more challenging.
1.
Identify the top ten companies that do something similar to what you do.
Study their business models.
Make an appointment to visit all of them.
Most business people love to talk about what they done, and this is a golden opportunity for them to do so.
And who knows, if you've thought through what you want to do thoroughly, they might be interested in helping you to do it because it will help them to expand their own businesses.
There's no sense in reinventing the wheel.
2.
Imagine that you have no money.
During the chat, my acquaintance mentioned that he could do certain things with a lot of capital.
I reminded him that almost anyone could do anything with a lot of money.
The trick is to accomplish what you want to do with as little as possible.
A few decades ago, the was a popular method of creating a budget that was called "zero-based budgeting.
" In a nutshell, it meant that you started with zero, and then built your budget from that.
That is completely the opposite of what many people do, which is to start with some magical figure, and then try to figure out how they'd spend it.
3.
Imagine that you don't know anyone.
This is similar to the previous approach.
Anyone with a well-developed network probably can get all the support he or she needs.
But, not everyone has that luxury.
So, why not assume that you don't have it, and start from there? Again, this is a place where talking with other entrepreneurs or business tycoons can be helpful.
It's surprising just how willing many of these people are to advise beginning business people.
All you have to do is ask.
He wanted to write a business plan for an idea he had for a new product in a third-world country.
His primary concern was how to create a market and business expansion plan.
Have you ever wondered how to do this? Marketing plans are both easy and hard.
They're comparatively easy to write, but can be quite difficult to implement.
That's because when we dream about what we want we only see everything working according to plan.
We only see the obstacles when we analyze the steps that will be necessary to get us there.
Here are several approaches you should use when you write your marketing plan, from the easiest to the more challenging.
1.
Identify the top ten companies that do something similar to what you do.
Study their business models.
Make an appointment to visit all of them.
Most business people love to talk about what they done, and this is a golden opportunity for them to do so.
And who knows, if you've thought through what you want to do thoroughly, they might be interested in helping you to do it because it will help them to expand their own businesses.
There's no sense in reinventing the wheel.
2.
Imagine that you have no money.
During the chat, my acquaintance mentioned that he could do certain things with a lot of capital.
I reminded him that almost anyone could do anything with a lot of money.
The trick is to accomplish what you want to do with as little as possible.
A few decades ago, the was a popular method of creating a budget that was called "zero-based budgeting.
" In a nutshell, it meant that you started with zero, and then built your budget from that.
That is completely the opposite of what many people do, which is to start with some magical figure, and then try to figure out how they'd spend it.
3.
Imagine that you don't know anyone.
This is similar to the previous approach.
Anyone with a well-developed network probably can get all the support he or she needs.
But, not everyone has that luxury.
So, why not assume that you don't have it, and start from there? Again, this is a place where talking with other entrepreneurs or business tycoons can be helpful.
It's surprising just how willing many of these people are to advise beginning business people.
All you have to do is ask.
Source...