Financial Planning

• Establishing the Market Trend Via Surveys- Let’s say you surveyed about 100 product consumers and your product garnered only 10% or only 10 people. You may opt to go into promotional advertisements by giving out flyers, brochures or demos in craft fairs.

However, before doing into this, it is best to research more about the ten people who participated. Find out what are their common factors, where can you find them, their age group, their genders, or their ethnicity, by sending them a thank you note. In sending out a thank you note, you can ask them to fill in some more questions including suggestions on how you can further improve your product. By zeroing in on your target market, you will be able to direct and optimize your promotional efforts to areas where you will likely have the most number of potential customers.

3. Gathering Factual Data from Veritable Sources: Business analyses has become a widespread practice and it covers analyzing not only your business but also that of your competitors and the entire retail trade. Information you will derive from the latter will give you leads about consumer preferences and behavior. In knowing the retail business industries that are perforrming from those that do not, you will have a feel on how the general buying public will respond to your product. A good source of this information is the US Census Bureau’s Economic Census, which provides comprehensive data about retail trading in different levels and by state to state locations.

4. Analyzing Trends in Job Loss Statistics - Study the unemployment graphs and take note of the seasons or months when most businesses have to temporarily reduce their workforce. For worst case scenarios, you could also analyze which industries are resorting to mass layoffs. Work reductions and mass layoffs are indications that the industry is not earning enough to sustain its largest overhead cost. If it's seasonal it may be due to climate and weather changes and their effects on the...