Market Research and Consumer Behavior

Questions and Answers

What qualities they are looking for in a product or service

To cover costs

Insurance premiums

Customer's ability to pay Signup and view all the answers

To reflect changes in market developments Signup and view all the answers

Labor cost Signup and view all the answers

To ensure fair competition Signup and view all the answers

Product utility, longevity, and maintenance Signup and view all the answers

To respond to changes in market conditions Signup and view all the answers

The value placed on goods and services offered to the public Signup and view all the answers

Study Notes

Entrepreneurship: The process of starting and running one's own business, involving risk.
Entrepreneur: An individual who undertakes the risk associated with creating, organizing, and owning a business.
5 Steps of the Entrepreneurial Process:
- Discovery: Generating ideas, recognizing opportunities, and studying the market.
- Concept Development: Preparing a business plan, choosing a location, and deciding if a patent or trademark is needed.
- Resourcing: Identifying and acquiring financial, human, and capital resources.
- Actualization: Starting the business.
- Harvesting: Expanding the business.

Develop a Business Plan:
- A detailed proposal describing the business idea.
- Presented to potential investors and lenders.
- Typically 30+ pages.
Acquire Finances
Meet Legal Requirements

Executive Summary: Brief overview of the business plan.
Product/Service Plan: Presents the product or service being offered.
Management Team Plan: Qualifications of the entrepreneur and partners.
Industry/Market Analysis: Analyzes customers, competition, industry, demographics, and economic data.
Operational Plan: Includes all processes involved in producing and delivering the product or service.
Organizational Plan: Management philosophy, key management personnel, and employment policies.
Marketing Plan: Describes how the business will make customers aware of its products/services.
Financial Plan: Includes financial statements forecasting the business's future financial health.
Growth Plan: Presents a plan for future expansion.

Confidentiality Agreements: Bind one or more parties to non-disclosure of confidential information.
Patents: Exclusive rights granted for an invention, providing a new way of doing something or a new technical solution.
Trademarks: Words, signs, symbols, or logos that identify and differentiate a business from others.
Copyrights: Rights that automatically vest to someone who creates an original work of authorship.

Components of Creativity:
- Environmental Stimulants: Freedom, good project management, sufficient resources, encouragement, and more.
- Environmental Obstacles: Various organizational characteristics, constraint, organization disinterest, poor project management, and more.
Impacts of Innovation:
- Effecting a new policy
- Finding new opportunities
- Designing new structures
- Devising fresh methods

Data points to include in your target market:
- Demographics: Age, gender, employment status, life stage, family structure, religion, and income.
- Geographics: Physical location, rural/suburban/urban environment, area of the country, local language, and time zone.
- Psychographics: Intrinsic personal qualities, hobbies, leisure activities, entertainment interests, and preferred sources of information.
- Behavioral patterns: Purchasing habits, qualities customers look for in a product/service, and why they want to purchase it.

The Concept of Fair Pricing:
- PRICE: The value placed on goods and services offered to the public.
- Factors affecting price decision: Cost of making the product, marketing and administrative costs, competitors' prices, customer ability to pay, supply and demand, and company image.
Basic Pricing Principles:
- All prices must cover costs.
- Effective way to lower sales price is to lower costs.
- Prices must be regularly updated to reflect market developments.
- Prices must be established to ensure sales.
- Product utility, longevity, maintenance, end use must be judged continually, and target prices should then be adjusted accordingly.
Elements in Pricing:
- Labor cost: Employee salaries, wages, benefits, contractors/subcontractors, and supervised or managed services.
- Overhead expenses: Indirect expenses required to operate the business, including insurance premiums, equipment depreciation, business forms, rentals, office supplies, dues, and membership payments.