Identifying Your Customer (EK's Small Business Series)

As you may have read on one of my other lens, it's my goal to start a small retail shop. In researching to start up a business of my own I ended up starting this series of small business start up lenses, in hopes of teach others what I learned as I learn it.

How well do you know your product/service? When you ask yourself these questions, what answers do you come up with? What other questions can you think of to ask?

What is the product/service?
What am I trying to sell?
What impact do I want to have on my customer?
How will this benefit my customer?
What reason do they have to buy my product/service?

Before you can decide who to sell to, first you must decide what to sell, because that is the only way to figure out who exactly your customer is. For example, a retired couple looking to vacation in Hawaii are not going to be shopping in your baby shop, just as the new mother is not looking to buy first class tickets on a private jet from your travel agency. Like wise a woman with 30" of long dark curly hair buys very different hair care products than the blond guy with a crew cut.

Ever customer buys something different, and it's important that you know who it is that is going to buy what you are selling, otherwise you will have no idea who to market too, where to advertise, or how to interact with your customer.

Now isn't that a weird thing to say? But it's true. I'm not, and I don't claim to be either! Usually what I write I will defend and backup viscously, because I am an expert in the field: writing, art, comic books, fashion history, fashion design, dress making, costume making, those are things I am an expert in, those are things I do and practice in my daily life and have done and practiced in my daily life for more than 20 years now, not to mention that those are also things that I did take lessons, courses, and have a degree in. When it comes to fashion history I'll ram heads with the best of you to prove I'm right. However, when it comes to small business management, I admit that I am no expert and my info may or may not be 100% correct and accurate and I'm willing to change my theories in this area should I discover that my info be wrong.

When reading the articles I wrote for this series, please keep that thought in mind. I never took any lessons or courses in small business or small business management, nor have I had and professional training in this area. My formal training was in Dressmaking, Fashion Design, and Fashion History. This course of training was taken however, due to the fact that it was my career intent to go on to open a costume/fashion shop: The Rabbit Hole.

Part of this career choice was inspired by the fact that my mom was a seamstress/costume maker/cloth doll maker and owned a craft shop, which I worked in growing up. So I do have actual hands on experience in the behind the scenes look at running a small shop, and so I petty much do know what I'm talking about here in these articles, based on a been there done that kind of thing.

In planning for starting my own shop I have spent the last few years scowering the internet and local libraries in search of information on how to start a small retail business. In doing so, I ended up compiling several binders filled with my notes, ideas, thoughts, and random observations scrawled out on looseleaf. In short I have about 5 binders each with some 250 sheets, of messed up random scribblings about my thoughts on how I should go about setting up shop!

Well, I am now trying to get all my business planning sorted out, so I can finally get going on starting my business, rather than planning for it, but in doing so, I find that my note taking habits have been sadly much less than organized and as a result of my desire to organize my notes in a more suitable fashion so that I can go back and read them, I have decided that there is no better way for me to organize them, than for me to divide my papers up by topic, and than start a Squidoo lens for each topic and than copy my notes off of the lose leaf and onto the Squidoo lenses.

In other words, this series of lenses is me, organizing my thoughts, more than me giving advice, and as such should be looked at as my opions on the matter rather than any sort of legal advice on how to start a business, because my observations are my observations and not me telling you that this is either the right or wrong way to start a business. Also, what may be right for me and my business may not be right for you and your business.

So while I certainly hope that you have learned something from reading this series of articles, please know that I can not guarantee than any of this information is 100% accurate.

And one final note: before you start or change anything in your own business always seek the advice of a professional business attorney, one who knows the ins and outs of your type of business.

Thank You!

The content of this lens was created by Wendy C. Allen compiled in part from posts on Star Log Pink, Star Log White, EK's Writing Blog, EK's CosPlay & Sewing Blog, Xavier's Nest, and EK's Business Blog, the official blogs of author and artist Wendy C. Allen, a.k.a. EelKat. Reprinted here on Squidoo with permission.

EK's Star Log and it's sister sites Copyright © Wendy C. Allen 2004-2008.

Star Log, Space Dock 13, The Twighlight Manor Press, Moonsnails, Buried Treasure, Copper Cockeral, Black Bobcat Fashions, Purple Peacock Patterns, The Rabbit Hole, and Xavier's Nest Copyright © Wendy C. Allen 2003-2008.

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