Antoinette’s Dress Shop will be a women retail clothing store designed to serve the growing market of professional working women. Our store will buy clothing and accessories from the most popular labels that provide consistent quality and service. Antoinette’s Dress Shop will resell them “as is” to our target market. Antoinette’s will specialize in fashionable, reasonably priced clothing suitable to this city’s working environment. The e-store will sell a limited line of sportswear or leisurewear. We will carry business suits, pantsuits, and dresses for daytime wear, together with accessories like purses and belts. We will make prompt minor alterations at no charge.
Antoinette’s will regularly publish a newsletter containing clothing tips for working women, which we will send to customers on our email list. We will maintain a file on each customer that contains their size and style and color preferences. Antoinette’s will schedule fashion shows for our customer base as a marketing device.
Antoinette’s will offer a relaxed atmosphere with personalized attention and unlimited fitting-room time. Our store will feature a contemporary design and an inviting feeling. All our employees will be knowledgeable about fashion in general and about the clothing we sell. Antoinette’s will be located in approximately 2,000 square feet in the downtown mall and will maintain regular mall hours of Monday through Friday from 11:00 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. These hours will be convenient for our customer base. The store will not offer delivery on a regular basis, although we will offer Federal Express shipments when requested and we will maintain a website together with active email correspondence with customers so they can express their feelings about any concerns
*General Business Questions
3. Is it better to be in a shopping center with high rents and operating restrictions, or in a separate location with lower costs and less drive-by or walk-by traffic?
4. How much inventory will I buy-in comparison to my expected sales revenues? (This is a critical question in the retail field and deserves your close attention.)
Wholesale
1. Which product lines will I carry in inventory and which will I order as required?
2. Will I carry accounts for my customers or work on a cash-only?
3. Are there any exclusive distributorships available to me?
4. Will I have to market all the products
myself or will the manufacturers have
marketing programs?
Service
1. Are my credentials and skills equal to or better than others in my field?
2. Can I sell my service as well as I can perform it?
3. Will I take work on speculation or will I insist on cash for each job?
4. Do I have a client list, to begin with, or will I start cold?
5. Am I better off associating with others or being independent?
Manufacturing
1. Does my manufacturing process create toxic or polluting materials? If so, how will I deal with them and what regulatory agencies handle them?
2. Is there a pool of readily available, affordable skilled labor where I want to locate?
3. Will I make products for inventory or per order?
4. Will I make one product only or a line of products?
5. If I succeed on a small scale, do I plan to sell out to a larger company or try to compete nationally or internationally?
6. Is my competition from small or large firms?
Project Development
1. Am I sure of the selling price of my project?
2. Am I sure of my projected costs? What will happen if my costs are higher than estimated?
3. Am I sure of the time factors? What will happen if it takes longer than expected to complete and sell the project?
4. What portions of the work will I contract with others to perform?
5. Is there a definite buyer for my project? If not, what costs will I incur before it’s sold?
Taste, Trends, and Technology:
How Will the Future Affect Your Business?
Let’s assume you have a good description of your proposed business, and the business is an extension of something you like and know how to do well. Perhaps you have been a chef for ten years and have always dreamed of opening your own restaurant. So far, so good—but you aren’t home free yet. There is another fundamental question that needs answering: Does the world need, and is it willing to pay for, the product or service you want to sell? For example, do the people in the small town where you live really want an Indonesian restaurant? If your answer is “Yes” because times are good and people have extra money, ask yourself what is likely to happen if the economy goes into a slump ten minutes after you open your doors.
To make this point more broadly, let’s use a railroad train as a metaphor for our economic society. And let’s have you, as a potential new businessperson, stand by the tracks. How do you deal with the train when it arrives? You can get on and ride. You can continue to stand by the tracks and watch the train disappear in the distance. Or you can stand in the middle of the tracks and get run over.
To continue this metaphor, let’s now assume the economic train has three engines: taste, trends, and technology. Together they pull the heavy steel cars which can give you a comfortable ride or flatten you. Let’s take a moment to think more about each of these engines.
Taste
People’s tastes drive many of the changes our society speeds through. For example, in the 1970s, many of us changed our taste in automobiles from large gas guzzlers to small, well-built cars. American manufacturers didn’t recognize this change in taste until they almost went broke. The Japanese were in the right place with small, reliable cars and realized great prosperity.
Consider popular music as another example. Music styles change every few years, and some bright businesspeople succeed by selling clothing and other accessories associated with each new music style.
What does this mean to you? Look at your business idea again. How does it fit with today’s tastes? Is your business idea part of a six-month fad? Are you going into something that was more popular five years ago than it is now and is declining rapidly? If so, you are likely to go broke no matter how good a manager you are and how much you love your business.
Trends
It’s one thing to understand that people’s tastes have changed and will undoubtedly change again and again, but it’s a lot harder to accurately predict what will be popular in a few years. I wish there were a central source of information about predicting future trends in any field, but there isn’t. You have the task of looking into the future and deciding where it is going and how that affects what you do today. Fortunately, a little research can do wonders. Here are some tips on how to proceed.
Read everything you can about your field of interest. Attend trade shows and talk to people in small businesses at the cutting edge of the field. Talk to people in similar businesses. Read back issues of magazines aimed at your proposed field. Your goal is to know enough about your proposed business to spot the trends that will continue into the next decade. For example, if you’re interested in opening a night club from the 1950s featuring a piano bar, mixed drinks, and lots of room for smokers, you should know that the consumption of hard liquor and cigarettes has gone down sharply in recent years and that nonsmoking lounges with wine and imported beer are doing very well. Putting this information together with other factors,
Technology
Technology is your innovative kitchen appliance, your home computer, NASA’s
new spacecraft, and even the proverbial better mousetrap. For example, lots and lots of people are working feverishly to come up with better video games, laser toothbrushes, wristwatches, TVs, and the like. Sometimes it takes years to perfect an item. That can be good news for small business owners, as there is plenty of time to prepare to profit.
Of course, there is a downside to new technology, too. It often involves high risk. There’s no guarantee of success just because the product is new. In fact, something like 80% of the new products introduced into the marketplace die a quick death. Remember HD-DVD players, the Edsel, and eight-track tape players?
What should you do to take advantage of new technologies? First, recognize that large-scale new technology ventures require vast amounts of money and will be beyond your reach unless you plan to have your small business grow in a hurry. Many companies expect to lose money for years during product development and approval before developing a big hit. However, there are often ways creative small business owners can find to participate in new technological trends. For example, many computer software companies started with little more than a good idea and a computer. Or to think even smaller— but not necessarily less profitably—lots of carpenters have done well making
ergonomically correct furniture for computer work stations.
Pay attention to new developments in your chosen field and think about how you can take advantage of them. The explosion in mobile devices has popularized applications (or “apps”) that enable users to accomplish many functions previously associated with desk-bound computers.
Can your business benefit from creating such an app? Can you modify your software or website development business to accommodate the massive app market? In short, new technology is a mighty
engine that can pull the economy in new directions at terrific speed. Be sure you are riding on the train and not picking daisies on the tracks in front of it.
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