Ron Heywood - New-Media Consultant.
Asking Questions about Your Business
We have already established that marketing is about asking questions and testng the answers.
Now we will deal with what questions we should ask:
- What is your product or service
- Who are your customers
- Who are your competitors
- How is your business structured
There may be more questions, we will try to identify them now.
If you are to market your product or service, it makes sense to identify every aspect, variable property that it has.
You may think you know everything about your product and service, you will be surprised at what you don't know.The reason you should write it down is for the reason we asked the question in the first place. It helps focus your attention on things you may have taken for granted.
Most companies never question the range that they offer. There will be an initial interrogation when the range is selected, but this will often be forgotten as the business becomes successful.
In fact it is quite common that as your business grows, your original product or service begins to hold you back.
If you establish a company selling blue widgets, you find that over the years you are an expert in developing and selling blue widgets. As time passes you find the company earns a substantial profit providing after sales care and consultancy services to the companies that consume blue widgets. You are even branching out into supporting the new fangled red widgets that have become popular.
After some more time you may find that the blue widget sale division in your company is not as profitable as the consultancy arm of the company.
The natural tendency is to attempt to shore up the sales and development of blue widgets. After all you are a company that makes blue widgets, and you have always been a company that makes blue widgets.
Unless you review your business regularly you may miss the vital piece of information that is patently obvious now that you ask the question - The market for Blue Widgets is gone, but the market for Green widgets is ripe for the taking.
That is why you must ask every possible question, and test the answers.
- What is the product What is the range, do you sell add-ons, what does it look like, is there a choice of styles, colour, sizes, can it be customised, is there a market for customising it?
- Where do the materials come from, are the supplies good enough quality, can you meet demand if demand increases, is your existing supplier still the cheapest, will they remain the cheapest if you double the volume?
- How do you sell the product? Is it transported? Is transportation complicated by size weight, geographical issues. What about packaging, is it too bulky, not bulky enough? Does packaging affect distribution, making it too heavy for air freight?
Not all of these questions will apply to every product or service but they may help you identify other questions.
You will be reviewing these questions regularly and you can add new information later, but you should try and get as much in as you can.