Road To Your Customer - Checkpoint #1

Your Business Plan

As we have discussed before, marketing is more than just advertising. Marketing is every touch that your business has with your potential customers through the time that they become customers. There are 6 checkpoints on this journey. We will cover one in each of the next six chapters. These checkpoints are a work in progress, so they may evolve slightly over the next few weeks.
When you look at your business, be open and brutally honest. In order to improve, you must have a clear picture of your business from the outside looking in.

Checkpoint #1 is your overall BUSINESS STRATEGY.

What PRODUCTS you carry. Where do they fall on the quality ladder? Top of the line, mid-pack, economy end?

Your LOCATION. If you are in a location with naturally high traffic, you are paying more in rent and will need different strategies than if you are off the beaten path. How is parking and access?

REPUTATION of the current business or franchise. Strong history, unknown, misconceptions in the market. What do your current customers say about you?

COMPETITION. Who are your biggest competitors? What are your advantages? Disadvantages?

DIFFERENTIATION. What separates you from everyone else in the market

WEB SITE. In today's business world, one of the first things to evaluate is your web presence. Your web may be one of the first touches with your customers and will say much about you.

VISION. Where do you want to be down the road?

TIME HORIZON. How long before you see yourself there?

Now that you have evaluated and spent time developing the answers from checkpoint #1, we will move on to the second checkpoint. Pricing Strategies.