First Step Marketing

Basically, all businesses fall into one of two general categories: either they provide a service to a person or to another business, or they manufacture a product. There are infinite variations on each of these themes, but most businesses can be categorized in either of these ways.

It’s important to realize that a service-oriented business doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to be a people person, since landscapers and housesitters—which are clearly both service businesses— spend very little face-to-face time with their clients. In the same light, a product-oriented entrepreneur who has decided to manufacture and sell her prize-winning salsa may spend most of her waking hours selling her product in person to supermarket managers and individual customers, not in the kitchen chopping and prepping vegetables.

Before you choose a specific business category, try to get a strong feel for the way you will spend the majority of your time. Remembering, of course, that you can always delegate tasks that don’t play to your strongest skills. And once you have a good idea of the type of business that will make you happiest, start to do your homework. Subscribe to the trade magazines in your chosen field and talk to people who are already running that kind of business. Some aspiring entrepreneurs even spend their vacations interning for the types of businesses they’re leaning toward. Immersing oneself in the lifestyle for a week or two is a great way to determine if the business will be a great fit or not.

For instance, many people who stay at an inn or bed and breakfast look misty-eyed at the innkeepers and dream aloud of trading places. Most inn-keepers would probably take them up on it, since it would mean an end to scrubbing toilets and being wide awake and cheerful when greeting latecomer guests at 11 P.M.—after getting up at five that morning to cook breakfast. The grass is always greener on the other side until you get to walk on it yourself. Then, the hidden thorns and burrs may cause you to have second thoughts.

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Service or Product?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 5:30 am and is filed under Business Plans, Home Based Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.