At least once a week I get the question, “Do you think selling [insert product or service name here] is a good small business idea?” My answer? It doesn’t really matter what I think.
It depends on your target market. And most people who ask that question haven’t even begun to determine whether there is a market for what they want to sell.
That’s the mistake many small business owners make. They decide that selling a specific product or service will be a good idea and sink hours into creating a business name and marketing materials only to find out there are no buyers.
The golden rule of starting a small business is to find the buyers first. There might be a huge market out there for what you have to sell or there may be only one person, and you need to know that before you begin.
Minding Your Own Business member Mark Anthony McCray said it very well in a post he made on the network quite some time ago. Hop on over and read Did You Forget Something? The Importance of Market Research In Building An Emerging Business.
What about you? Do you think market research is important? Did you research your market before starting your business or just jump in with both feet? Talk to me by leaving a comment below.
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A small business owner since 1996,
November 9th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Sure, market research is important but I think there is a myth about the fact that we have to spend a lot of money to get useful datas. Since we can consider that small business owners don’t have financial resources to get professional assistance for markets research reports (which is not the only way to get useful information about a market, we must admit), they act exactly the same as with their accounting system: they avoid to put money and time looking for the right solution for them and their business, which is not the same for everyone.