Market Research

In my experience entrepreneurs fines the market research section of the business plan the hardest to write. The reason for these difficulties is the they don’t fully understand what it is or why they should do it. Basically speaking market research is the proof that a business has a chance of success.

When writing a business plan for a small business many entrepreneurs go about the market research section the wrong way. Many feel they have to rush out, produce a questionnaire, give it to potential clients and write up their findings. Often when I read a business plan with a questionnaire section I have my reservations;

1. If the results were altered to give a favourable impression
2. The mixture of people it was given to e.g. friends and family
3. If it was all completely made up

Personally I would not put a questionnaire in a business plan, but if the person who is investing in your business requires it, then you will have to put one in. If you are going to conduct some market research through a questionnaire get some advice on how to design it, there is loads of tips on the internet. I would also write a paragraph or so about the questionnaire, what was the purpose of it, who it was given to and keep the questionaire short!

A questionnaire is only one part of the market research. My advice is to break your market research into sections and write a little bit about each one such as

1. Internet/desk research
2. Customer profile
3. Advertising
4. Competition
5. Market research conclusion

I will go into further detail and give examples of each of these sections in future posts. When complete you should have a comprehensive market research section, worthy enough to gain finance.

After amending the below paragraph in bold and copy it into lesson 10 – Market Research

During my market research I have been approached by a number of people regarding my products. This has given me a good basis for my market research and shows that there is demand for the service that I plan to offer.

I have broken my market research down into 4 main areas
1. Internet/desk research
2. Customer profile
3. Advertising
4. Competition
5. Market research conclusion