 We have about 60 people coming in at this point and we are going to get started so we so that we can move forward. We have an action. This is an event. Mr. Allen Brown with the South Carolina SBC is available to us this evening. And I'm going to let Alan tell you all about what his organization does. This is in partnership with the City of Columbia Office of Business Opportunity and of course we have the Small Business Association Women Women's Business Center and USC Columbia technology incubator and each week we will highlight the organizations that are involved. The goal specifically is to create an atmosphere where you can learn the process of your business plan. Last week was about the concept. It was about finding the value in your business. Does your service provide a assist a need or a desire. This week is about the industry and the market analysis you need to understand the business environment as well as your competitors. Alan is going to discuss that this morning. He says that his program is about 50 minutes so we're going to try to give him as much time as necessary. From 11 o'clock to 1130 there will be a question answer section. We'll put the link in the chat box as it relates to next Tuesday night. And we did provide a workbook. We had a discussion as it relates to what whether it was homework, pre work, or course work, whichever one you decide. It is your willingness to invest in your business that allows you to have a business plan because it is the roadmap. It is the process of what you have. I know a lot of times we talk about vision boards. Your business plan is your business, your vision board. Alan, I am going to allow you to take the zoom podium. And if there are any questions relating to any of the organizations that I have discussed, please feel free to reach out to the chat. Mr. Allen Brown is a excellent tutor, and he will provide you with a wealth of information. Mr. Brown, the podium is yours. Thank you, Shilia. First of all, I want to thank everyone for showing up today. I want to thank Shilia, the city of Columbia, OVO team, Angela with the SBA, Cheryl and her absence with WBC, and Aisha, you know, again with the city team who are spearheading this. You know, Kate Stewart, who is a building mate of mine here at the incubator. It's good to have her as a part of the collaborative as well. As Shilia has already stated, my name is Alan Brown, and I am the Midlands coordinator and business consultant for the Small Business Development Center for the Columbia area office here in what we call the Midlands, and that consists of Fairfield County, Lexington County, Kershaw County, and Richland County. Sometimes we support small businesses in Sumter and Clarendon County, but those four counties are the counties that, you know, we really focus on. And we have four regions in the state of South Carolina, USC, length of Clemson and South Carolina State, over 21 centers, and we serve all 46 counties and we've been here for close to 50 years. And as you can see, in the bottom right hand corner, you know, 2020 year in data we haven't gotten out 2021 data finalized as of yet. You know, we've helped retain or create, you know, close to 4000 jobs in the state of South Carolina, helped over 143 businesses get started and provided consulting services to close to 12,000 individuals. One of the things that I really appreciate because that's one of my specialties is the capital formation piece we were able to help small businesses in the state of South Carolina acquire 77 million dollars of capital and that's the two part thing that's getting equity, but it's all funding that they utilize to start their businesses. And then through our training events, we helped trained over 10,000 individuals in the state of South Carolina in 2020. You know, you can, if you think back 2020 was the year that you know we started with COVID. And so there was a lot of chaos and volatility in the marketplace during that time and so people had a lot of questions about what they should do in order to sustain their businesses. And so you can imagine we had a large volume of people calling us and contacting us about our services. You know, we have three areas where we focus on consulting education and resources and my resources. We take into account establishing relationships with local partners in the marketplace like the city of Columbia, like banks and it professionals, you know, thinking about it from perspective that ecosystem that you need from business on a perspective that helps you grow your business. You know, we serve for particular markets, you know, prevent emerging growth and establish companies. Here in the Columbia office, our focus our sweet spot, when we do our best work is really with emerging growth companies. Our services, the services that we tend to provide most often on the startup side, which start up forming and launching startup funding, and as you can imagine, market sells and growth assistance. You know, we also help small businesses with access to capital and financial analysis. We have a suite of tools that we can what we call in the banking world spread your financials and basically do a health assessment of your company, you know, to help you get a better understanding of what's going on in your company. You know, since 2020, you can imagine we've been spending a lot of time in a disaster prep and recovery assistance area. That's a lot of the work that we've been doing over the last two and a half years we started to see it come down some in 2022, but we're still working with some clients working through COVID funding restarting and things of that nature, you know, and we're probably going to see a resurgence that in the restaurant area, as they're making some changes around the restaurant revitalization fund. I don't have a lot of information on that to discuss today but that's an area where we're getting re briefed on because it's something that came about last year and kind of went away now it's come back again. You know, from a disaster prep and COVID perspectives, you know a lot of times, you know, individuals like myself come on different webinars and we talk about the great work that we do. Right. But I think the best way to really show the work that we do is to have our clients to speak for us. And so some of you may know. Gabby Bowes, you may know Gabby Goodwin and Rosalyn Goodwin who are the founders of Gabby Bowes, also known as confidence now. That's one of my clients. And, you know, I'd just like to share with you just some of her comments about the services that she's received at the SPDC. I'm just going to share a portion of the wording there that says, you know, John Brown is always been a good source for guidance, reason, encouragement and knowledge for our business. And that's basically what we do for all our clients here. Not to manage your business but to be a sound board for you to help you make better business decisions and help you think through the decisions that you're have at the present time that you need to make in order to start grow and scale your business. You know, so let's get into it. You know, our agenda today is as follows, you know, we're going to talk about understanding industry versus markets. Industry analysis, market analysis slash research, and then talk about competitive strategy or more so competitive positioning in a marketplace based on the analysis and research. You know, like Sheila said, you know, please use the chat for questions, you know, post your questions in the chat box. We're going to be monitoring those. I also asked that, you know, if you have a question when you speak, please, you know, show your wonderful face on the screen so we'll know exactly who we're talking to. And I'd like to know if I meet you on the street that I had an opportunity to share some information with you, and I can come up to you and say hello. So please, you know, if, if, if you can, when you're speaking if you decide to speak, you know, share your screen and if you want to share it throughout the presentation. Feel free to do that as well. Awesome. Awesome. I see Tange and Wilhelmina taking me up on that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let's get started. Right, so quick distinctions. You know, a lot of times, you know, when we talk about marketing or industry analysis, you know, we use the term market and we use the term industry. And for a lot of us in the room, we really don't know the difference. Right, you know, but simply I want you to think about, you know, the industry as the sellers in a particular marketplace. The group of people who sell products or sell services to the people who sell a product in a particular market in a particular group of products. Think about your competitors, your suppliers and all your support services for your particular business. You know, you can also think about the supply chain, right, or how you get your service and products from idea to the customer. Right, so think about that as the industry. You know, when you think about markets, you want to think about the customers. More specifically, you want to think about the people you are targeting for your particular service or product. Right, and it's important that you remember that because we're going to come back to that point throughout today's discussion. Right, think about it from perspective of markets are people. Right, markets are people, you know, particularly we need to make that distinction or that connection, because it's the people who are giving us the money that we need. Right, in order to make that transition of value that transfer value for us selling our service or product and them acquiring our service or product so it's that customer that person that has the money that you need they're giving you the money. And then in some cases where there are businesses that are somewhat what we call the middleman. But they're not the actual end user of the product, like a car dealership, right a car dealer, like Toyota manufacturing, you know, their customers are the Toyota dealers, the Toyota dealerships right they sell to the dealership. And then the dealership 10 turns around and sell that product to the end user, right, the customer, right and so you know that business to business or sometimes what we call B2B, or that B2C market, gaining understanding of how you take your services and products to the market or marketplace is really important. Right, because it's going to determine some of the constraints. Big picture. When we think about what we're going to talk about today we're going to identify competitive industry, talk about the constraints how you analyze an industry, and how you take account of the key competitors, large and small. And then from a target market perspective from the perspective of figuring out who we're going to spend our time having conversations with when we begin to market. We're going to conduct some market research, gain an insight and understanding of who the people are that are buying our services, and then formulate a competitive position based on the players that already exist in the market. So, who's selling today. When we think about who's selling today, what we're trying to gain understanding of is, you know, who do we need to know about who's buying our products like what do we need to know about who's buying our products. And we have to know what environment we're operating in, and that exists around us. A lot of times, entrepreneurs think what they're doing, no one else has done before. Right. Anybody ever thought they had the latest and greatest idea. I've never seen this before, right and then you go on Google, and you see there are 12 businesses that's already doing what you're doing. Right, you know whether you knew it or not, that's a form of market research. You know, it's just at as simple as Nate and it's simple as you know form, but that's a form of market research. So what market research and initial analysis helps us to get to is it helps us to get to a validated feasible business concept or business idea. Right, what we, we don't want any unfounded unvalidated ideas or concepts that we move to market with using our precious limited resources. We want to make sure that our solution has a significant problem that exists in the marketplace for a specific customer set. So we'll know that they're more likely to purchase what we have to sell. A lot of times, you know, what we have to communicate with entrepreneurs is that a real opportunity pay attention here. A real opportunity is the equivalent of a problem, plus a solution. I'm gonna say that again. Right. A real opportunity is equivalent to a problem, plus a solution. A lot of times we develop solutions, but they're not for problems that people are willing to solve. Right, so who wants to buy a product or who wants to create a product that no one wants to buy. Right, that's the waste of time, energy and resources. So when we think about industry analysis, our objective is to figure out some key components or aspects of the industry so that we'll know how to ultimately know how to position ourselves within it. So we want to know the size of the industry. Right, we want to know the structure, we want to know the key success factors, and we're going to talk about those in a moment and give you an example of what those may look like. You know, we want to know the trends, we want to know the constraints and barriers to entry. We want to know what are those things that we're going to have to deal with in this particular field, so that when we're establishing our businesses, we're making sure we're taking an account and other things that are going to affect us and help us to stay in business and the risks associated with our businesses, so that we can manage those effectively. One of the ways we do that is we gather data around our industry, and the government has come up with a phenomenal way of doing that. Right, it's really not that simple, it's, I mean, it's really not that phenomenal, it's really simple. Right, they just put everybody in a category based on the products and services that are sold in that particular segment. Right, and so pay attention, they don't calculate demand, right, so going back to economics class, they don't calculate supply and demand based on the nature codes, they just put everybody in the category, and they let others calculate supply and demand utilization of businesses and suppliers and vendors in that industry. We're going to talk about that a little bit later as well. Right, but the way that they do that, they base the activity in revenues, that's how they come up with the size, right, and sometimes what you'll realize that in a particular NAICS code, NAICS stands for North American Industrial Classification System. You'll find that your business may have multiple NAICS codes, you know, and a simple example that we use is iTunes and iTunes has been around for a long time so it's something that we should almost likely be familiar with. And when Apple was thinking about developing iTunes and they were going through the process of developing and doing research, what we found or what they found that there were two NAICS codes, right, and they're listed there on the screen. What we also find is that, you know, for a very specific niche businesses, right, businesses that, you know, come down and really service a small subset of a particular market, they might not have reports for, you might not have a NAICS code, right, and those things are forming over time, you know, this system has grown over time and it will continue to grow, you know, so you could go to this website, naics.com, to do a search and find your NAICS code, you know, the NAICS code that we're going to be dealing with today is associated with bakeries. So we're going to get into an example of what the components of a NAICS code are associated with, right, and so when we think about a NAICS code, you know, there's a broad number, and there's a narrow number. Now, counterintuitive, the broad number of itself is small, it's a two digit number, and the narrow number, right, the five to six digit code is the number that gets you more focused detail analysis in a specific subset of an industry, right. When you think about broad data points, it helps you to get a broader understanding of an industry and how it operates. It helps you to figure out major players in that industry across a broader geographic location, right, typically, you know, the financial reports we see associated with our NAICS codes are spread across the nation. And then when you start to drill down, you start to get to that six, that five or six digit code, you start to get into more niche areas. For example, when we do a search for bakeries, Panera Bread is one of those entities that comes up, right, but if you've ever been to Panera Bread, you know, Panera Bread is more than a right, they offer drinks and sandwiches and catering and things of that nature right so restaurants is a good example to think about how you have these broad opportunities these broad industry players, but then when you start narrowing down you get to your local market. You have your local, sometimes what we call mom and pop shops that are specifically local to the area, but who also compete with the Panera Breads the Starbucks and other large corporations. Right. The key things that you want to pay attention to when you're thinking about NAICS codes is you want to get a grasp on how this information allows you to focus on the key factors of success in the industry. That you're in, right, it helps you to get a better understanding of the relevant competitors, their offerings, and their prices, it helps you to get a benchmark in relating to pricing. And I emphasize that because a lot of times we think that we need to be the low cost provider of our products and services in order to get people to buy from us. And playing the low cost game is a definite way to end up out of business. And I see she'll just shake her head. Right. I'm going to repeat that playing the low cost game is definitely a way to end up going out of business and so we want to make sure as we go through this process. I want to help you to understand about business planning in general that you gain insight and confidence about your business and what you know about your business so that you can believe that you're adding value in a way that the customer should pay for. All right, that you don't underserve, undercut your services or products, because you've done the homework the pre work the field work right those all those terms whichever way we want to use. You've done the work to figure out where your position in the marketplace, and who you should be having conversations. Right. And so, one of the ways that we go from broad to narrow from a market perspective is we pay attention to what's called Tam, Sam, Sam and TM, and I have those at the bottom of the screen. Tam, Sam, Sam and TM and I'm going to explain those a little bit later when we get into the market component, but Tam stands for total addressable markets. Tam stands for serviceable addressable market. Sam SON stands for serviceable obtainable market. And then a subset of your song could be your TM right we familiar that term our target market. Sometimes, you know that that word addressable is switched out for acceptable, right, but essentially those mean the same thing. So what's important in the industry analysis right we, here's the things you want to get out of the industry analysis, kind of as a what's important high level, the stage of the industry, whether it's emerging fragmented or in decline. So when you think about videos, you know, a few years ago right, you know, actual physical DVDs, right that you would actually go to the store and purchase our rent. Right. That business was on a decline, so much so to the point that when if you're from Columbia and you live on the north side of Columbia, when you drive up Park Lane, you don't see blockbusters sign marquee on the right in front of your building anymore because they're gone they're going out of business right that business went through a period of declination it's no longer there right because that product was cannibalized through videos on the internet the ability to download and upload and download videos on the internet. Right, it's important that you understand where your industry is because the pen opponent stage, no matter what stage it is in emerging fragmented mark mature or decline, you can find potential opportunities to leverage your services and products. Right, you know, if the industry is going drawn we want to understand the number of competitors, right if the firms are profitable, and if they are profitable at what level. We want to gain an understanding of what are new successful firms doing in the industry that's causing them to accelerate and scale or grow fast that we can take advantage of. And we definitely want to understand what's happening in relationship to technology how technology is changing the industry and research and development opportunities so that we don't get cannibalized. And so that 10 years from now we're not experiencing what happened to blockbuster. All right, so those are the things that we want we want to gain insight of. Right. And as I stated before, going from a broad analysis to a narrow analysis. I'm going to do a quick check in before I move to this slide. Kate, do we have any questions in the chat yet. We do have a question so will Lena asked if there are more than one NAS codes for your industry, do you use all that apply or how do you determine which specific one you should use. So, the answer to that question is yes, and it depends. So, really, will Lena, it really depends on who you're going to serve as your customers. Right and so when we get to the narrow part of our customer segments of our target markets really figuring out who are we going to serve. The research around the people that we're selling our product and services to what we can do is then back out or zoom out from them to see if we have enough demand from that customer segment to really include those industry parameters and barriers. That's the way that we go to market for our customers right because imagine, you know, part of your customer segments, you have this particular customer segment that uses your services, and they might not be your targeted client, but they utilize your product you get a revenue from them what you're recognizing that hey this customer segment, I'm making money from them, but it's really not my target market, and I'm really not making enough money in that area from them to really allocate my resources to focusing on that target market or that customer segment or as we roll that up right that that Nate's code. And so what we'll do is we'll monitor that group over time. We'll say okay, how will they perform how did they perform last year let's take a look. How did how did they perform this year okay they they stayed the same. Oh okay well are things changing in that particular industry that I may be able to explore and expand my market share in that particular area. Right so it really depends on your goals and objectives and how you want to serve a particular customer base. Right because we got limited resources and we got limited time and so it's really going through that process of figuring out what's important to you as an entrepreneur and a business owner, and how you want to grow and scale your, your company. One of the things that we talked about last week is having systems in place, right and we talked about financial systems HR systems and things of that nature. Well, in order to make that decision, you really have to have a system in place that's connecting that data, right, and she was going to talk about right some of the things you need to do in order to collect that data that helps you to understand what's happening in your business, so that you can effectively manage it right you can get it within your arms, you can control it is not growing beyond you. Okay, did that make sense. I'm coming from a grant writer's perspective, and so some applications as for that code, and my question was relative to which one of these codes should I use how do you determine which one you should use, etc. So, if you use a one in that category on against based on the funding opportunity. I mean, do you have the choice to pick and choose yourself. Okay, and would you be wrong. If you pick one of them in that category. That's where I'm coming from with that. Um, so, so grant writing is not my expertise. Okay, we might have some members on the team who've done some grant right okay then no problem. But I will say this, you know in relationship to general focus on your customer. Right. That's fine. You want to do what's important and what's relevant to your customer. Right and so for instance, if the grant is associated with. I'm gonna go back for a moment. Right so if the grant hypothetically is associated around electronic shopping. Okay, right. Then we wouldn't spend a whole lot of time talking about pre recorded tapes and CDs. I know I put a statement a small sentence in there, but remembering that all of this information is to address the issue that our target audience, our target market hats. Okay, that's fine. So when we're when we're writing anything, we want to make sure that it has the context of the people that we're communicating. Thank you. So that's a general way but you know, we may be able to get you some more specific answers in relationship to grant writing as we go through the process. So make sure you put that in the chat the way that you formulated will mean so we can make sure we get that information back. And this is Angela Matt energy real quick. Oh for sure. Hi, this is Angela with SBA. And most time when you when you're looking at grants, the grants is going to tell you what NAICS code they're looking for the industry that they're looking in. But when you go in Sam so if you're registered in Sam system for award management, you can put 101 NAICS code in there because most time when you do a federal grant, you're going to have to be registered in Sam they want to have that NAICS code in your pool of NAICS code. But when you're doing a specific grant, you just make sure the NAICS code that they're asking for is in Sam that relates to that particular grant. That's fine. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Angela. Thank you, Angela. Right. So one of the things that we talked about earlier in the presentation we talked about success fans. Right. So, the reason we want to get on NAICS code, right, it's because when we do when we're doing our industry analysis and research, you know, there are companies in the whole obvious world, right, that provides data, specifically related to the NAICS codes that we can pull and provide that information for you to help you identify one of the keys to success in that particular industry. Right in this particular industry. And we're looking at NAICS code 31181 that's the five digit code the two digit code is three one, and it says manufacturing, but what is really focused on is food products. Right so it's food products, manufacturing. Right. That's a fancy way of saying a commercial baker. So you have to understand what are the key words associated with your business, so that when you're doing research you know how to do good research, right going back to high school and we had to do those research papers, and they started telling us and all those different areas to do research. Right. What I suggest is that as you're, you know, doing this, that you keep a little notebook that you're keeping your questions and assumptions in, and you're keeping your key data points like the keywords that you're using to search so that you'll always have that and you can go back to the information at some point in the future. So this particular industry, and I'm gonna pick up the pace a little bit because we're about 40 minutes in. In this particular industry, one of the two things I really want to point out is that supply contracts in place. The inputs are essential. And the ability to pass on costs are essential actually I'm going to do three, and I'm going to come back to part 70 to key marketplace, right and so ability to pass on costs increases. Anybody tell me what's happening currently in the marketplace. That could be negatively affecting the business, if they don't have ways to pass on those unexpected costs increases to their customers. Anybody want to put in a chat or share with the group via unmuting your mic. All experience. Hello, everyone. This is Shannon Hammons. I am in transportation, I am a truck driver at this present time, I am working towards entering the industry in the low barrier of dispatching. And so in our industry right now. There's a shortage of drivers, shortage of trucks, which is detrimental to the, you know, to the economy, you know, with getting food and things, those sorts to different, you know, states that we need to the stores. So, that's where I'm at. So Shannon let me ask you a question. Yes. Is there a particular commodity that increased over the last 45 months that's made it more challenging for you to operate your business. I'm just really getting started. I haven't even, yes, gotten a, and yes she did put, well the commodity, when I, when you say commodity I'm thinking about the cargo that's being carried correct. Or are you talking about things like fuel fuel. Yes, fuel, right fuel prices right and so. So someone in your industry will where you use large volumes of fuel in order to provide your services. Right. You need to have components in your agreements that help you to capture revenue or revenue back to your business as their fluctuations and fuel prices. And one of the ways that I know that transportation companies do that is, you know, through fuel surcharges. Right, you know, imagine, imagine agreeing to a load two weeks ago. And then, and when you agree to it, you priced it based on a fuel cost. That was $2 right I'm doing, I'm doing a small level not not the trucking level right because I don't know what those prices are, but you do it and you did it at 248. So go to the gas pump when it's time for you to make that delivery and fuels double that. Right, your margin has officially gone away. Right, and so that's, so that's, you know, part of the reason why we, you know, taken industry research report and do industry now is because we want to know those constraints that exist in a particular market. We want to know the industry that we're operating in so we'll know how to negotiate for the correct pricing to maintain profitability. Right. And then proximity to key marketplace right in relationship to a bakery. Right. You want your bakery to be close to the end user. Right. You, you don't want your end user to get stale bread or stale muffins. Right. So being close to the end user is extremely important in this particular industry. And this is the type of information that doing a NAICS code research can help you to get inside of because it will help you figure out where to locate your business. Make sense. Yes. Awesome. Thank you. You're welcome. All right, so now from sellers to buyers, right? We, we, you got it. Yes. We did have another question and I think it relates to what we just talked about and not going to relate to this. So I figured we would go ahead and address it. Okay, great. Pete Coleman asked, is there a best practice around the amount of debt a business should carry, or is there a debt slash receivables ratio that should be observed when pursuing funding? Yes, and yes. Right. And I'm going to show you a tool, Pete Coleman, later on at the, when we get to resources that will help you understand those things. Man, she'll use the love in this because you're asking some, some good questions around financing. Why are you asking about ratios and debt coverage and things of that nature and financial leverage. That's awesome. That's awesome. All right, so from, so from sellers to buyers, right? So now we need to think about who we are going to sell our products and services to, right? We want to really begin to think about who those potential customers are, and who the potential competition is, right? We need to think about what are the questions that we need to ask to better understand who we're going to serve, right? You know, oftentimes we hear that entrepreneurs are risk averse, right? They're risk averse, meaning they don't like risk. And then we also hear say that entrepreneurs are risk takers, right? Really what we're trying to communicate in both of those statements is that we should take calculated risk as entrepreneurs, meaning we should measure the potential gain, the potential reward, right? And the potential loss and determine based on our own risk profile, our own stomach or ability to lose what we have, right? To see if this particular option that we have in front of us is for us, right? Because really when it comes to market analysis, what we're talking about is discovering a customer, right? Discovering a customer, right? And when we talk about discovering a customer, we want to know the size and growth rate. We want to know their problems and pains. We want to know what products and services that they may be using to do what our product and service do that might not be a good fit. You know, who's ever used a shoe as a hammer, right? That was an alternative product to the hammer, right? It may have got the job done poorly, right? But it was an alternative product, right? Loads at Home Depot were like, dude, you can come get this really nice hammer that did that job done quicker and faster, more efficient, right? And then you won't have potential holes in the heels of your shoes, right? So when we talk about alternative products and services, those are the things that we're talking about. We really understand and trends and really focusing on potential entry points to serve that particular customer, right? And so there are five steps that I want you to think about when you're considering your customer, how you discover your customer. We want to gain insight and understanding of their pain points. We want to develop customer personas, and will it mean that this goes back to what we were talking about in relationship to the grant, right? We want to understand the organization that we're sending the grant to that we're applying for the grant. What's their missions, right? What's their vision, what their objectives are, right? You know, that's profiling a client and developing profiles, right? And then if we can, we want to interview similar customers in the marketplace, right? To get some firsthand insight, right? To do some primary research around what they're really expecting. Remember we said the last thing we want to do is to create a product or service that no one wants to buy, right? We're going to do some interviews and some testing, some user experience testing. We can discover some insights about the customer needs that we didn't even have, right? Because we're coming from our perspective and we're coming from our one person limited perspective around the service and product. When we take it to the marketplace, when we want to back up and say, hey, what's the problem that you're having, right? I think about it in this way, because I think about it in connected to an acronym that I use called PINTS, P-I-N-T-S. Problems, issues, needs, trends and situations, right? What are those things related to a particular customer, right? Because part of the discovery is trying to find not just how painful the problem is, but also whether it's a big enough problem across enough constituents or customers, right? To make it work, building a product or service and building a company, right? Because we don't want to sell one muffin. We want to sell 10,000, right? And then understanding the customer's journey to our product, how they learn about our product, how they interface with our product, and eventually what causes them, what's that trigger that causes them to say, yes, I want your product. And so the key questions are getting to the point where we're very precisely trying to figure out who's going to buy our product, who's going to purchase our services. We want to know precisely, right? And so oftentimes, you know, we'll hear people when you ask them and they say, well, who's your customer? And they'll say, everybody, everybody ain't your customer. How are you going to service everybody? I mean, you think of some of the largest businesses in the world, Apple. Everybody's not Apple's customer, right? You know, there are some Android users. And that if you purchase an Apple phone from them, they'll take that shoe that we was using as a hammer and smash it. Don't give me no Apple products, right? So we want to take that misnomer out of the fact that everybody is your customer. Everybody is not your customer, right? What we want to move to is we want to figure out, right? And look at that graphic that I have on the screen, right? We want to move to a broader focus where we're taking a look at the total addressable market, the potential market. You notice, I'm going to back up for a moment. You notice that we went from everybody to a specific part of the globe, right? Think about going from everybody to the U.S., right? Time is representing everybody in the U.S., potential customers, right? These are potential customers, right? And then we move to available or addressable. Now, these are people that could potentially buy your product, right? But here's the group that you really have an opportunity to reach, right? Here are the ones that you really have an opportunity to get them to your website, right? To communicate with them, do various social media platforms. Here's the ones that you really have an opportunity to reach. But guess what? Here's the ones that are really in your marketplace that are more likely to purchase from you, right? This would be your regional area. For some of us, this might be South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. And for others, it might just be the Midlands area, right? It's depending upon your industry and your market and your services and your products. But here's the big one, right? Here's the one that you specifically speak to because in your market, your marketing, and that's something Kate is going to talk to us about in two weeks, is really resonating and pointing to this specific group of customers. And what we like to do is we like to have you to think about it from a persona, an avatar, an ideal client perspective where you take psychographics and demographics and geography into account to think about what's important to them and what are their buying Here are some examples of the types of, you know, ideal customers, avatar and buyer personas that you should be developing, right? So everything that I've talked about previously leads up to this, right? After you've done all of that analysis and research, we're destilling that information so that we can formulate this type of profile to address a particular customer so that when you do your elevator pitch, like I do mine, when I say I help entrepreneurs connect to capital and opportunities and ways that increase revenues and cash flows, they say, oh, Alan, tell me more about that. I'm like, I'm so glad you asked. Right. Because what I've done is I've realized that the keywords I'm using in my elevator pitch are resonate with this particular client. And here's another example. Right, you're looking at her frustrations. Right. And then another example, taking into account, you know, Clark's goals and frustrations, you know, Clark's frustrations are key but what's important to us as a bakery is that Clark wants to cut down unhealthy eating and drinking habits. Right. So we know cart wants to cut down unhealthy drinking and eating habits. We can say cart, we got some healthy muffins over at our bakery. Right. And we start advertising those we putting coupons and cart social media feed. Right. So he's learning more about us. Look, I don't, I don't think there's anybody on the planet that does that better than Starbucks. I get my points. And I'm like, ooh, I need to go by Starbucks. Starbucks we went even on my mind until I got that push notification that I got unused points that if I don't spend they're going to be gone by tomorrow. Right. And so it's doing those types of things that helps us to connect with our marketplace our customers, so that we can increase our revenue and sales and do it in a way that's profitable. Right. So it's imperative that you do these particular things. Right. Because at the end of the day research is intended to let you know more about your customers that wants their behaviors and key part their ability to pay. Right. So for the sake of time. I'm not going to read all these right because we're going to provide these slides to you as a follow up to the presentation so when you get a moment when you get them just go in and read those components that are listed here that I didn't read. So I will say that you know your business and issue type will affect your research methods going back to that question that will mean to ask will mean to thank you for asking that question because it's something that you know I'm sure a lot of your peers had in mind. Shannon, I think that was you that shared about your business enterprise and where you are right because those make the conversation points that we're talking about relevant. And when we thinking about market research right part of the components is when we're looking at business data. We're looking at the competition. Right we're looking at the customer and stats and all this information. What we're really trying to do is three things we're trying to get secondary market research that's the market research that somebody has provided for you. We really want some primary market research. That's where you specifically has taught have talked to a customer right and some test marketing right one of the ways that we experienced our engagement test marketing today is people say hey remember when zoom first came out. You know, they had this free platform. Right. Oh, everybody could get on zoom right it didn't cost you nothing to get on zoom right and they get you used to clicking that button zoom. And today, they changed the flat platform that now it cost you to do some of the things that you used to do for free. Right and where you used to have unlimited people for for 45 minutes and they wouldn't say none now you got three people and they said all your time is about to come to an end. And if you don't and if you don't do something, the next thing you know you'll be sending out another link to get people back into the conversation. Right that's ways of test marketing right getting people and demo and getting people used to using your product in a manner that's safe for them. And then making those adjustments to see how to use it based on how they use it and then say oh yeah we're going to charge you for this we're going to charge you for that right to increase your revenue. And then one of the final components in relationship to this side is this three things right when you think about it is you want to segment your client base. You want to target them so that you can position your business in the marketplace related to specific competitors. Right and there are three types of competitors that direct indirect and future right you know, for IBM 3040 years ago. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were those future competitors that was in their garage, creating Microsoft and Apple that was coming to eat their lunch, in particular consumer products that they had developed but really wasn't taken to the marketplace. Right so don't sleep on future competitors. Right that's one of the reasons why we don't have blockbuster with us anymore because they slept on future competitors. But going back to direct and indirect right direct competitors are those those businesses that do exactly what you do right there are identical similar products. Right indirect, or they do sort of kind of what you do right in our example today we use Panera as an indirect competitor for bakery right Starbucks would be an indirect competitor, because they have bakery goods. And guess who even getting into the bakery good business. McDonald's with m cafe. Right they got them apple fritters, y'all can tell I like sweets right. They got them apple fritters. I have to say no, no Alan. No, no yeah keep your blood sugar down right no no no. Right, but those are the type of things that you want to think about in relationship to competition. And then you want to do what we call a competitive majors where you base on the things that you found to be relevant important and important for your customers. You want to compare your business with specifically your direct competitors and a few of your indirect competitors that are that are in your marketplace or in proximity to your business that your customers have a potential to utilize as an alternative to your solutions. Right, you want to do a competitive majors. Now the key thing about this is that when this is all done, you should rank higher than your competitors. If you don't, that means you need to tweak your offering around the points that are important to them until you see how you can rate higher compared to these particular competitors, based on what you're doing, not what they're doing based on what you're doing. And now you have the foundation for a great marketing plan, because now you know how to speak to your customers in a way that resonates with them. Right. I'm going to briefly just share with you this one resource and how you and how you can go utilize it. I'm going to show it to you. Give me a minute. I'm going to pull it up. Stop sharing for a moment. Actually, I'm going to continue to share screen one. I'm just going to move this over. Right. So, so do you guys see a need big data for your small to midsize company on the screen. Right. And so, so this website is included in this slide. Right. But one of the things that key about this particular website is that the amount of data that it gives you in relationship to your particular industry. Right. And so I just created a company. I created a hundred thousand dollars in revenue and and based on this tool we can see very easily that compared to this initial queue that they're very small compared to other competitors in the marketplace. Right. Because average business revenue for them is just a hundred thousand and for others is over a million. Right. But, but that means we need to do a little bit digging right because we're looking at when we really take a look at those competitors. Oh, we got some indirect competitors and we got food line and Panera brand we got Walmart Bakery. Right. We got those foods to offer bakery items. Right. And so this is part of the reason. Right. We do that research to get a better understanding of our local market. This tool which is size up SC is a really good tool to help you understand what's happening in your local market. Right. And so that website is listed here. And again, you're going to get these slides and so, you know, you'll have an opportunity to utilize these slides and take advantage of the resources that are listed there. Right. At the end of the day, remember it's all about the customers. Right. Solving their pain. Solving their point and their pain points and figuring out which ones you want to solve. And then, you know, analyzing the industry, analyzing the market, you know, taking the key factors of success into account. And coming up with a competitive strategy based on your competitive position that that leverages the value that you bring to the marketplace. We're at our and five minutes. It's 1108 we have some time left for questions and discussion. Kate, are there some questions or discussion points in the chat that we want to go through. There's no new questions yet, but definitely feel free to drop them into the chat or unmute and ask Ellen all of your questions. Hi, this is willing. I did type something. I sent it directly to someone. I'm sorry. When we do a search on this site. Do we type in the name of the industry or the code. So either or. Okay, either or. It's, you know, because sometimes we know our code. Right. And sometimes we don't. And when we don't know our code, using keywords to describe our business. Right. And that's, and that's really a good question. Well, because oftentimes we describe our business different from the way others describe it. Right. Right. And so we can be talking about the same thing and calling it something different. And we're having a disconnect. So the inherent value that we may provide to one another is being lost because our communication was off. Right. Right. I remember when we first started, she was going to be mad at me. When we first started planning this, I was calling Sheila. She, she, she look, and that's not her name. Right. And so our, and so our communication was off because she was like this guy can't read. He, he don't know what's going on. And, you know, and she is the type of person she's like, okay, Alan, I'm gonna give you one more chance. And now, and I say that because I'm particular about my name also right because people spell their names. There are people who don't spell the name Alan, the way that God intended. Okay. So when people say how do you spell your name Alan I say the way God intended. Right. But it's that communication right so that's a great question right gaining an understanding of how we classify and call things is really really important because it helps us to you know as they say get on the same page. Absolutely. And my name is well, Lena. Well, Lena. Well, Lena. Yes, thank you. So there was a another question and we can get to that yet but one of the things that I've just wanted to bring up before you start on your mission and your vision. So you're up with the concept and you may want to do the market market analysis. That will allow you to understand the value that you add. And then that in itself can create the mission and the vision, which allows you to walk through the process so a lot of times we may start off with a mission and a vision, but we haven't did our research. We recognize that that is, and I love what he said with that is a, that's, it's a problem, but it's a problem no one wants to solve. But making sure that you understand what your client wants to solve is, is critical when you are establishing your mission and your vision as well. Hey, do we have another question. Yes, we have Shannon with her hand raised and we have Elena in the chat, I will say Elena's real quick and then we can get to Shannon so Elena asked also I'm sorry if I'm saying your name wrong because I'm from Alabama and I say lots of people's names wrong. So what's the best strategy, if you are working backwards for a business. So it's an established business with a clientele, but it's missing steps along the way that would make it more viable and successful so what's your best strategy for moving forward. That's a great question, and I'm glad you asked it because it's really only relevant if you have customers. You know so there's a concept that I call acres of diamonds. And basically the story behind acres of diamonds is that, you know, they're, you know, a guy was a farmer. He had somebody tell him about these diamond mines and how people are getting rich on these diamond mines and so he sold his farm to go purchase a diamond mine. And the person who purchases farm was walking by a stream on the farm on a particular day and saw something shining in the water. And behold, he went and picked it up, and he found that it was a diamond, right and unbeknown to the previous owner he already had catch the phrase here, acres of diamonds in his possession that he let go because he was looking for something else elsewhere. Right. When you have a customer base, right and you've been able to get people to buy from you you were able to hook wink them twist their arm right through your marketing something you got them to buy from right you should have some data that tells you who they are right and so mining your current book of business right to figure out who are your right going back to that segmenting who are your top purchasers of your goods and services right and why they buy what they buy when they buy and profiling them right and then using them to find more people like them. Right, you're headed again, because you already have something to work with, we call that primary research because you have that data yourself. It's right there, sitting right in your business that you can take advantage of right there, you know, we, you know, we have resources here at the small business development center and the WBC has resources that they can help you, you know gain some insight and leverage those resources the better help you understand who your customers are right, you know but think about that that story ages of diamonds, oftentimes we leave what we have in order to get something that we don't want. Right and we often don't find out that we don't want it until we got it. I want to pick, I want to piggyback on that as well. It's never too late to go back to the drawing board and when I said go back to the drawing board I don't necessarily mean go back to the drawing board as it relates to to your concept, but to go back to the drawing board and create a business plan if you have already if you have an existing business, then just put that information, write it down and create follow the same process. The other thing that is important about a business plan is it is a living document, meaning that you don't write a business plan today, put it in a drawer and don't look at it for until you have to ask for more finance because as your business grows as the market continues to evolve and change your plans will change as well one of the things that I think about all the time. March 18 2020 is when the world shut down every business plan that did not incorporate some type of e-commerce or some type of virtuality had a plan that was nonexistent every business had to go back. It wasn't because of whether it was Delta Airlines or Kiki's chicken and waffles or I don't know the lemonade stand. Everyone had to go back and restructure that plan to include additional safety scenarios involved to include additional contingency plans to include a business plan. So now nobody wants to drive anywhere to a meeting because we can do it on zoom. So you have your plan has to continue to involve based on the growth of your business based on whether that cash cow has turned into a dog meaning that it's not making up and and as well as all of the things that involved the the the last comment I will make as we were talking about marketing is understanding the barrier is to get into that market. So if you want to let's say start a cable company that's going to be difficult because most of that market has been saturated with spectrum or or whomever but it's very difficult to get in that business on the other hands. There are other businesses that there are low barriers to to get in so in addition to understanding the market understand what is it going to take what licenses do I need to have what educational background do I need to have how much money do I need to have. And if I want to get in that business. Is it something that is it something that are there barriers that will prevent me from from getting into that business. We can take a few more questions. Shannon. Okay. Yeah, I know we have a lot of resources, but I was wondering about mentor, if, if we're able to, you know I guess have a mentor to kind of help walk us through this you know I'm very passionate in the industry that I am in very passionate and I'm enjoying the process. But it could be overwhelming. And I'm just wondering and I know it's a lot of resources that's helpful to us but are we able to get a mentor to kind of help us on this journey. So the women, the women's day to day college is one is what a business center is one I know that Alan's process is another so you can reach out to the partners. The other thing too is over if you guys just subscribe on my website over the next couple of months. We're going to design a once a month lunch and learn where, for those of us who are going through this process, we can have, you know, piggyback off of each off of each other. So if you would just, you know, go into my website and subscribe there. As we get through this process, we can do that as well. So in response to that comment, you know, so, you know, as Sheila mentioned, the WBC, which is the women's business center, the small business development centers as I share our locations at the beginning of the session located all across the state. And then you have score as well. Right. And so all of those organizations are resource partners for one of the major promoters of the day's meeting which is the SBA, you know, Angela Brewer here is representing them. All right, those services are free to you, and they have counselors, advisors mentors, right they don't they don't always use the same term. Shannon and everyone else on the call, but those services are free to you you don't have to pay it's no cost to you, because you've already paid for those services via your tax base right via your tax and so the answers your question is yes there are free services for you. Now, you know, a long term depending upon how you grow your business. Right there are other resource partners that we need I mentioned earlier like Sheila, that you definitely want to have as a party or team, right because we don't get into the deep weeds none of those resource partners get into the deep weeds of your accounting. Right you need someone like Sheila to help you develop your chart of accounts that help you understand the implications of those things right you need you know what we call a bell it team. You need a banker attorney or bank account an insurance person or lawyer and as Sheila you mentioned, right you can succeed in this marketplace without having some type of IT or technology component to your business. And because of that you need someone to support you in that area as well. All right, are there any additional questions. I want us to make sure that we respect everyone's time got about nine minutes. Number, the first thing is you will receive a copy and a link to this recording. Number two, we will have a co session on Tuesday evening and the link with it will be provided as well. We're not recording the, the Tuesday evening is because there's more of a collaboration, and I want everyone to feel comfortable about those questions. Next week, next week, next week, we have talked about the concept we talked about the industry now we need to talk about the finance piece and that was a great question as it relates to your debt ratio. We're going to start with that concept how do we walk through the process of making sure that we understand what it is to start a business. Number two, how we're going to finance that startup and then the third part of that process is to know how to project out as it relates to that. This is going to be really important because as Alan did say, there is so much that's going to stop the labor cost inflation, all of that plays a role in the accounting piece today. I really want to thank Kate, Kate, Alan, Kate was with the USC Columbia Technology Center. Alan has been representing South Carolina Business Development Center. Aisha Drigger has is with the Columbia Office of Business Opportunity. Cheryl is not with us today but she represents the Women's Business Center. Benedict College Women's Ventures Business Center say that three times really, really fast. And this is a goal that we want to continue to provide you with information that you can that you can utilize as it relates to your business. We have a lot of ongoing sessions. I know the Women's Business Center does as well. I want to register to the City of Columbia Office of Business Opportunity. They, they also provide a events letter. If any of my partners want to speak and close us out that would be wonderful. Thank you for presenting for today. I would just like to say thank you everyone for taking the time out of your schedule to attend our session today. I hope I added some value and cause you to think about some things you possibly hadn't thought about in relationship to your business. I do want to thank everyone who participated today, you know, either via verbally sharing and asking questions, you know, verbally and in the chat and I know there are some comments in the chat that we didn't get to. We do appreciate all of you who posted in the chat about inflation and diesel fuel costs going up and those things that we didn't get to for the interest of time but we're relevant to the conversation and that everyone can take a look at again. And then we send chat group out. Kate did point out in the chat that the specific things that we're going to send out. I'm going to pass it to Kate and so she can remind us of those things that are going to come out, come that going to come out and then I think that might be it for the end. Yeah, of course. So the first main reminder is make sure that you register for next week when we're going to talk about financing and all fun things. And then the last week where me and Aisha will be covering marketing and your executive summary and all that really fun awesome stuff to get your customers to buy buy buy, but do it in a way that comes off as informative and helpful instead of being the sales person that you see in those annoying comments there that the music is stuck in her head. So we're going to talk about new kind of innovative digital ways to talk about that. The email that you're going to receive is going to have the presentation for today, it's going to have the meeting chat for today it's going to have a survey for you to let us know if you liked what you hated what you hope to see from us and our awesome partners in the future. It will also have the zoom link information and also the dates and times for those upcoming Tuesday sessions that are meant for us to get a little deeper in our networking chat and also a little deeper into some like one on one Q&A. And then once it is live you'll also get a YouTube link moving forward about the recording of this week session and last week session is already on YouTube. So the best resource is going to be a meeting chat if anyone would like to drop their contact information to have in the meeting chat for anyone else to network or reach out to feel free to do so but we're so glad you are all able to attend today and we can't wait to see y'all next Thursday if you have any questions, please let us know and have a great rest of your week and weekend. Happy Easter. Oh, one of the taxes are due Monday, April the 18 forgot to tell you if you have not filed please file an extension. It's 1127 so I'm going to give you three whole minutes back to your day. Good night. Goodbye. Thank you.