This afternoon I came across this post from the blog “The Daily Positive”. The author is a speaker and entrepreneur who blogs about social media, positivity and business. I thought that this post on “Writing a Business Plan in a Week” was informative and concise. He shares a data visualization from the Washington State University that I plan on sharing when I am out teaching about data and business plans.
Business Plans
Business Plan in a Day: Book Review
A few months ago I was browsing at a local bookstore looking for something interesting to pick-up. Lately I’ve been very interested in Business topics because I hope to convert this blog into a money generating stream. I stumbled upon a book called “Business Plan In A Day”, by Rhonda Abrams. It promises to help the reader create a business plan. The author says that it will take 24 hours (non-consecutive 24 hours because you will have to do some research) to get craft your plan). The book covers “The Anatomy of a Business Plan” (9 steps total) and has a chapter devoted to each step. I’m going to specifically review Step 3 which is about understanding your Target Market.
This is a great chapter because the author points out some resources that are free such as census data to show your customer demographics. She also mentions reading market and industry reports, researching trends and using customer surveys to get a good grasp of your market.
This section goes over:
- Targeting your market location and reach your target market
- Describing the demographic characteristics of your target customers
- Explaining customer patterns/motivations
- Determining market size
- Evaluating market trends
I found the book very easy to understand. It is laid out in a way that you can work on each chapter independently so that you don’t become overwhelmed with the process. There are worksheets that can be filled out by hand the reader can keep notes in one place for reference later on. Ms. Abrams doesn’t illustrate how to access the data so a tutorial on the process would have been helpful.
You can find the book here and wherever books are sold.
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Demographic Data Resources (US and International)
One crucial part of a business plan or a grant is the section on who your potential customer base/client base is. This information is vital to your bottom line whether you’re reaching out for funding or pricing your services to customers.
Why spend a ton of money having someone else crunch numbers and send you a report that you can create on your own for little to no money. How so? By using data that is already available. One of the most widely used sources of data on people is census data. You can get all types of stuff including income, education, languages spoken, family composition many times down to the neighborhood level. Sometimes it does take a little work to understand what you are looking at but I guarantee that the info that you find will be very eye-opening. Imagine you want to know the income level of an area because you are thinking about opening a business or want to get funding for a grant to help children receive after school tutoring. Demographic data can help you find the best place to serve your community or open your business.
Here are some websites that you can peruse to see what data is available.
US Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov
Statistics Canada: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/start-debut-eng.html
United Kingdom Office for National Statistics: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/index.html
Mexico Census (site is in Spanish): http://www.inegi.org.mx/
Showing that you have really done your homework can make your proposition stand our from among the crowd. And with all the competition out there who doesn’t want any advantage they can get?
The Data Consultant 