The Bullseye: Knowing Your Target Audience

Joe Johnson, Ph.D.
Entrepreneur. Investor. Startup Expert.

Knowing Your Target Audience

Knowing the audience for your business, your web presence, and your content can help you to achieve your goals
. Here’s a hint: your target audience isn’t everyone.

While most of us would love to run a business with such widespread appeal that everyone comprises the target audience, that’s generally not the case. Running your business as though it were can be dangerous.

Determining the true composition of your target audience is necessary to ensure that your offerings align with their needs. By focusing on those individuals most likely to desire your products or services, you can focus your energy on maximizing your marketing, honing your products and services, and seeking appropriate feedback.

What Does a Target Audience Look Like?

Let’s assume that we’re thinking of starting a printing business. Who might comprise our target audience?

If you’re planning on maintaining a brick-and-mortar location, then you might decide to target both consumers and businesses. However, narrowing it down to those two groups isn’t sufficient. A properly identified target audience should be more specific. Winnowing the field will enable you to focus your efforts on attracting (and retaining!) those potential customers and help increase your chances of success.

For a location-specific business, a target audience should be restricted to the specific geographic area of operation. So, our print shop’s customers will be from a specific city or county. For our example, let’s use Orlando.

How else can we pinpoint our target audience?

Before you can begin to focus on the intended market for your products and services (your unique value proposition), you need to have a clear understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve or the need you’re trying to fill for your prospective customers.

Our print shop is aiming to serve consumers and business clients in the Orlando area. What kind of services are we planning to offer them? Here’s where our market research will come into play.

Suppose we learned that many consumers prefer to make their own copies. We can offer a self-serve area, as well as the ability to send a document via a website form to create copies for later pickup. Additionally, university students in the area frequently use binding services for their theses and professors appreciate the ability to create course books for their classes. Since the location is within walking distance of a university, these offerings will capitalize on a nearby market.

While it’s useful to make offerings such as these available, they aren’t really sufficient to keep our business going because they represent infrequent activities. While students may desire printing and binding services for their theses and dissertations, they may only seek those services in the May or June timeframe. Likewise, professors will only want course books prior to the start of semester.

Business clients, on the other hand, are more frequent customers of print shops. Therefore, while having services available for consumers, a B2B model that focuses on local or small businesses as a target audience may be more successful.

Narrowing Target Market

Now that we’ve decided to primarily focus on other businesses, while still offering printing services to consumers, how can we further narrow our target market and create a buyer persona? There are plenty of small businesses in Orlando – which ones shall we target?

Firstly, consider which small businesses most require our services. Then, think about the values which those businesses may possess.

For our print shop, we may seek to identify businesses with frequent printing needs such as realtors and restaurants. If our aim is to serve local businesses, it may be that our target market is further reduced. However, many cities have networks in place to support small, local businesses. These networks may sponsor a monthly meeting of business owners or an online presence that helps to connect those individuals enriching their communities through business. Resources such as these are a great way to get acquainted with our target audience, learn more about their needs, and directly offer them services to aid in establishing and promoting their businesses and brands.

Just like that, we’ve found our target audience. More specifically, we’ve found one of our target audiences. Chances are, with a little more time and effort, we could identify several more markets that would benefit from our business (for example, local music promoters).

Analyzing Buyer Personas

One of our buyer personas might look like this:
A local restaurant owner in the Orlando area who values supporting other small businesses and is in need of vendor triplicate forms, seasonal menus, business cards, and promotional materials.

Another one might be:
A local Orlando real estate agency that values supporting small businesses and is in need of business cards, sell sheets, signs, brochures, and other marketing materials.

Now that we have our target audience and buyer personas, we can dedicate our efforts to converting those clients by differentiating ourselves from other print shops. Rather than just placing an open sign in our brick-and-mortar window, we can network, offer discounts, and actively market our business to our target audience.

As you’re thinking about your own target audience, keep in mind the following questions:

UVP and Needs: What is my unique value proposition (product or service) and what needs or desire will it fill?

Geography: Where does my target audience live? Are they local, statewide, national, or global?

Type of business: Are my products and services intended for consumers or other businesses?

Competition: Who is my competition? Who is my competition neglecting? How can I differentiate myself from the competition?

Demographics: Is my product or service only intended for a particular demographic? (For example, Spanx focuses on women who would like a leaner profile.) Consider age, sex, education level, income level, occupation, marital status, family status, etc.

Psychographics (Attitudes): What opinions, values, or ideals do my potential customers hold? (For example, customers of Whole Foods may place a greater value on organic food than other customers. Customers of Walmart place a greater value on cost savings.)

This should help you achieve a better picture of your target audience, allow you to refine your services as necessary, and aid in pinpointing your marketing to more accurately hit the spot.

About the Author

Dr. Joe Johnson is an entrepreneur, investor, and startup expert. He is the founder and principal of GoodField Investments and the GoodField Foundation (www.GoodField.com).

Joe has a Ph.D. in Entrepreneurial Leadership and an MBA. He is the author of the upcoming book on The Science of Why Most Entrepreneurs Fail and Some Succeed.

Most importantly, he is the incredibly blessed husband of one amazing wife and father of six wonderful children. He resides in Bradenton, Florida. For more information on Dr. Johnson and his work, go to www.JoeJohnson.com.

A loan of $125 helped to buy feed and vitamins for her pigs.

Vilma, a pig farmer from the Philippines, was the recipient of a microloan.

Here is Vilma’s Story

Pig farming is not something that is often carried out in major cities, but that is just what Vilma does from Roxas City in the Philippines. This 47-year-old married mother of three still has a child in school, meaning that she has to work even harder to support her family. She does this through her pig farm, which she has been running for at least a year.

As an active member of the Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation, Vilma has already successfully applied for two loans from the organization. She recently approached them for a third loan to help her buy feed and vitamin supplements for her pigs. She hopes that the funds will help her realize her dreams of expanding her business so that she can provide a secure financial future for herself and her family.

Locally, Vilma’s loan was administered by the Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation (NWTF). The organization is a Kiva partner and non-governmental organization that is bent on helping men and women from low income families in the province of Negros Occidental attain financial self-reliance. They do this by providing their members with a variety of financial and social services, such as microfinance services, life insurance, accidental death benefits and hospital income benefits. The funds that Kiva lenders such as myself provide help the NWTF to expand their reach, giving them the opportunity to provide their services to an even wider range of people in urban and rural communities.

Through Kiva’s lending platform, Vilma’s loan was fully funded. Organizations like Kiva and the NWTF are helping to change the lives of thousands of people by giving them the tools that they need to escape the cycle of poverty in which they are trapped. This is possible because all the parties involved have the same goal, to provide microfinance services to underprivileged entrepreneurs who need them.

This works because Kiva finds social entrepreneurs wanting to fund loans, while organizations like the NWTF identify locals who are in desperate need of funding and disburse the funds that are donated to them. If you are interested in helping a needy entrepreneur in much the same way, why not visit http://www.Kiva.org, where you will find an extensive list of entrepreneurs that are in dire need of funding.

Notes

1.       This article was based on https://www.kiva.org/lend/837569

Dr. Joe Johnson holds a Ph.D. in Entrepreneurial Leadership and an MBA. He is an investor, entrepreneur, and a start-up expert. Learn more about him when you go to this Facebook page.

A loan of $350 helped to purchase stock weaving materials for resale.

Nrika, a retailer in Kenya was funded a loan.

Here is Nrika’s Story

The small town of Tiribe on the Kenyan coast is where Nrika calls home. This married mother of three has many hurdles to overcome, including the fact that her home has neither electricity nor piped water. Despite these challenges, she has managed to open and operate her own retail store for the last three years. She sells mats in the market to friends, neighbors and tourists, though she does face the challenge of seasonality in her business.

She recently joined Yehu Microfinance Trust in order to help boost her business. After joining, she requested a loan which would be used to buy weaving materials for resale. The loan would not only help her expand her business, it would also go a long way in helping her support her family.

Nrika’s loan was locally administered by The Yehu Microfinance Trust, a Kiva partner and non-governmental organization that initially started off as a project of CHOICE Humanitarian Kenya. However, the project broke off from the organization in 2007 and was registered as a trust. The main aim of the organization is to help lower income households in the coastal regions of Kenya gain access to microfinance services that would normally be out of their reach.

With the help of Kiva and the Yehu Microfinance Trust, Nrika’s loan was funded. These organizations, along with individuals who are interested in helping others, help to change the lives of thousands of financially underprivileged people by giving them access to funds that could help them find a way out of poverty.

Kiva brings social entrepreneurs together, while the Yehu Microfinance Trust ensures that the funds these individuals provide find their way to the people that need them the most. This formula works well because all the parties involved have the same aim, to ensure that needy entrepreneurs gain access to microfinance services.

Nrika is now on the way to realizing her dream of providing a better life for herself and her family. If you would also like to change someone’s life in the same way, you should pay a visit to http://www.kiva.org. There you will find a long list of entrepreneurs that are in need of funding.

Notes

1.       This article was based on https://www.kiva.org/lend/840365

Dr. Joe Johnson is an entrepreneur, investor, and start-up expert. Over the last 25 years, he has funded and launched over a dozen start-ups. Learn more about him when you visit this Facebook page.

Getting Heard: Advertising for Startups

Joe Johnson, Ph.D.
Entrepreneur. Investor. Startup Expert.

If you build it, they will come – right? Not exactly. Getting heard and seen as a new company will have its issues.

Unless you already have an established brand, a new product or service alone probably will have trouble getting heard and won’t draw the masses to your door. Marketing and advertising are necessary in order to inform your target audience about your amazing new doodad or service. Even a retail location with a giant “Grand Opening” banner can’t be relied upon to draw consistent traffic. You need more.

To draw attention to your startup, you must utilize advertising. Although it needn’t be a thirty-second spot in prime time, you’ll want to ensure that the message you’re crafting will be heard by the right people at the right time and in the right way.

So, what does that mean? Well, it’s complicated. Ultimately, how you approach advertising will depend on your industry and your target audience. Here are some points to keep in mind:

The Goal of Advertising; Getting Heard

Yes, the primary goal of advertising is selling, but, beyond that, it’s about making a connection.

First, your message should highlight your customers’ needs and then, share your solutions. Everything with your company’s name on it must be consistent in message and representative of your organization’s values and goals. You also want to draw new customers to your product or service and retain old ones. So, how do you achieve this? Well, to begin with, you need to answer one question:

Who Are You?

Before you can decide how you’re going to market your products and services, you must have a thoroughly cohesive understanding of your business. What is your brand? How do you engage with your customers or clients? What tone do you use?

If you’re planning on hiring someone else to figure this out for you, that’s fine. However, you still need a general idea of how you want your company to be presented. If you’re planning on doing everything yourself, there’s a lot of good information out there to help you get started. There’s also a steep learning curve to negotiate, but it’s a worthwhile sacrifice on the road to understanding and sharing your brand.

For more information about brand voice, take a few minutes to peruse these two articles:

A Simple Tool to Guide Tone of Voice
4 Steps to Finding Your Brand’s Voice

While both articles were intended to help users of their respective sites, they also reach a larger audience by virtue of being freely available. Not only are they about brand voice and marketing, they are marketing done in a brand voice. They demonstrate that each site cares about its audience and is willing to share tips to help them on their business journeys. That seems like effective marketing to me.

Now, let’s talk about where you’ll be advertising.

Physical or Digital?

There are numerous ways to getting heard or seen, but not every method is right for every business or every customer. If you’re selling luxury goods, a photo of a yacht on a shopping cart probably won’t bring you any new leads.

Physical and print advertising is large in scope. Popular items include business cards, brochures, sell sheets, flyers, mailers, coupons, and more. Other non-digital advertising methods include billboards, bus stop posters, shopping cart signs, newspaper and magazine ads, and radio and television spots. These days, there are even ads on the backs of some register receipts.

Digital marketing is also wide in scope. It includes websites, search engine optimization, social media, pay-per-click campaigns, content marketing, and more. Digital marketing is increasingly important as many consumers search for and vet businesses online.

Many businesses require a mix of both physical and digital advertising. Quality information about your target audience can aid you in making the determination of which ads are right for your business. There are some selections, however, that are useful for everyone. A website is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. Currently, only about half of small businesses have a website – a figure that represents a lot of lost leads.

DIY, Hire Staff, or Outsource?

Once you’ve decided on the sort of marketing you want to do, you’ll need to determine how best to accomplish it. Will you be doing everything yourself, hiring staff to handle it, or outsourcing to a freelancer or agency?

DIY

If you’re determined to handle it yourself, be prepared to navigate a significant learning curve. Marketing isn’t simply a matter of words on paper. It’s about crafting a message to which potential customers and clients will respond in a desired fashion. You’ll need to focus not solely on the words in that message, but on how they’re presented and when. Every aspect from graphics, font choice, and layout can have an effect on how your message is received.

For those going the DIY route, keep in mind that you’ll need a strategy to tie your various efforts together. Take a look at these articles for some inspiration:

The 6 Best Advertising Strategies For Small Business
4 DIY Marketing Tips for Empty-Wallet Entrepreneurs
Moz Academy: Inbound Marketing

Hiring

Depending on your budget, you may consider hiring dedicated staff to fulfill your marketing requirements. The exact format this takes within your company, as well as the many related costs, will vary depending on the options you select.

Hiring a dedicated person (or team) to handle marketing is frequently one of the priciest options. These two articles should help get you started:

5 Tips for Hiring an All-Star Marketing Team
12 Marketing Job Descriptions to Recruit and Hire an All-Star Team

Outsourcing

Outsourcing can be a less-expensive option, depending on the agency or freelancer you select. Just remember: more often than not, you get what you pay for.

These two articles will provide some insight into how you might proceed with an agency:

How to Hire an Advertising Agency
7 Tips For Hiring an Advertising Agency

Contracting a freelancer is another way to outsource your marketing needs. Many freelancers offer web-based services such as graphic design, web design, content creation, SEO, and more. For example, a freelancer might help you create a brochure that could be readily produced at your local print shop. Before you get started, however, you’ll need to be clear on your expectations.

Alternatively, you could create your own hybrid solution. One possibility is that you might hire someone to create your website, but write all of the content yourself. The possibilities are endless.

Prepare to Analyze and Reanalyze

How will you know if your campaign is successful?

If you’re working with an agency, they may provide some analytics for you. Many digital marketing agencies function on a retainer and aim to increase certain metrics like pageviews and conversions. In order to do this, they often participate in A/B testing to determine what’s working and what isn’t.

For physical advertising such as mailers and brochures, the inclusion of a unique coupon code will help you track which ones are driving traffic and which aren’t. With digital advertising, you can very easily determine the most effective keywords and learn exactly what people are viewing on your site, among many other metrics.

But don’t stop there. Once this information has provided you with some insight, you’ll want to use it to hone your next campaign and then re-analyze the results. After that? Do it again.

Advertising isn’t just another expense. It’s a necessary investment in and a commitment to the growth of your business. Make sure that the right people are hearing about you and what you can do for them – before you ever open your doors for business.

About the Author

Dr. Joe Johnson is an entrepreneur, investor, and startup expert. He is the founder and principal of GoodField Investments and the GoodField Foundation (www.GoodField.com).

Joe has a Ph.D. in Entrepreneurial Leadership and an MBA. He is the author of the upcoming book on The Science of Why Most Entrepreneurs Fail and Some Succeed.

Most importantly, he is the incredibly blessed husband of one amazing wife and father of six wonderful children. He resides in Bradenton, Florida. For more information on Dr. Johnson and his work, go to www.JoeJohnson.com.

Effective Team Building for Startups

Joe Johnson, Ph.D.
Entrepreneur. Investor. Startup Expert.

When it’s time to hire and begin team building for your startup, there’s a standard set of task boxes to check: hiring the right people, ensuring that the focus is on growth and innovation, working together toward common goals, etc. Once the new team is in place, though, how can you make sure that they’re ready to work together?

Despite effective team-building sometimes seeming like another task added to your precarious and ever-growing pile of tasks, it can pay dividends in helping you tackle that mountain of paperwork and responsibility. Although it may not be what you want to hear, effective team-building is an ongoing process that should be ingrained in your company culture beginning with the hiring stage.

Hiring the Right People for the Right Tasks

The importance of a thorough hiring process cannot be overstated. When you’re first starting out, investing in the people who can help propel your company forward is a necessity. Placing your trust – and the future of your business – in the wrong hands can have disastrous consequences.

Hiring for startups is a different beast than hiring for established companies. For an organization trying to get off the ground, every decision can have lasting effects. New businesses are less able than established ones to deal with the fallout from poor hiring choices.

Learn from others’ hiring mistakes and follow these simple steps to ensure that you’re hiring the right person for the right position:

Know Your Own Strengths (and Weaknesses)

It can be difficult to gain an unbiased perspective on your own strengths and weaknesses, but doing so can be beneficial if you’re seeking to fill in your skill set gaps or knowledge of the hiring process.

Similarly, knowing yourself can help you avoid hiring someone with whom you won’t get along or who might be difficult for you to lead or manage.

Understand the Job Role

Even before you start looking at candidates, make sure that you know exactly what you need from them. Create a detailed job description that includes the role’s title, its responsibilities, your expectations, and the skills/talents that you believe a candidate should possess to successfully fill that role.

If you have someone you trust with whom to share ideas, by all means seek their input. You may have forgotten some crucial point or you might even be asking for too much from a single candidate.

Look for the Right Characteristics

Once you have the role fleshed out, consider the type of candidates you can expect to meet. Do you believe that a four-year degree will aid their success? Should they already have experience in your sector? What other characteristics might be necessary to best fill the role?

During the interviewing process, don’t forget to consider the other characteristics that matter to you. Did the candidate arrive on time? Were they excited about the position? Did they show initiative by researching your company?

Ask a candidate about their strengths and weaknesses. Do they complement your own or mesh with the company’s goals in ways that could be beneficial?

Recognize Motivations

There are people that are motivated by the desire to learn or to make something new and there are people who are motivated by money. Which kind of individual do you want to hire?

If you’re just beginning the hiring process and looking for your first team members, it can be useful to focus on individuals who have a desire to learn and grow with your company and who will invest the time and energy into helping to realize your vision.

Leading and Managing Your Way to Success

Once you’ve hired the right people, you need to be ready to lead them – which is often easier said than done.

It’s important to note that, just as people learn best in different ways, people need to be managed in different ways to achieve their peak potential. While some individuals prefer to receive criticism directly, others need to hear it slightly sugarcoated. Some individuals require a hands-on manager, while others work better independently. You can ascertain some of this during the interviewing process, especially if candidates possess a sufficient level of self-awareness, but more often you won’t discover an individual’s management receptivity level until you’re trying to address an issue or advance a project.

There are numerous books and articles about management and leadership. For the purpose of this piece, I’ll focus on the key characteristics of a good leader.

Confident and Passionate

To most effectively share and spread your vision, you must be confident in your ideas and passionate about your work. It’s infectious! When you’re excited, it’s easier to get your team excited.

Empowering

A manager tells people what to do. A leader develops talents, trusts their team, and delegates important tasks. They work with people to obtain the best results.

Communicative

It’s important to have clear expectations and to communicate those standards to your team. Make yourself available and be open to input. Share the information your team needs to get the job done and be sure to thank them for their hard work.

Honest and Respectful

Leaders have integrity. They’re honest with their teams and treat them with respect. Your team will respect and follow you when you display those qualities they expect from a leader.

Cultivating the Right Company Culture

Your company culture sets the tone for everything you do. It’s what inspires people to want to work for you. By creating and cultivating a company culture that focuses on the following characteristics, you can make your startup a great place to work and help your team work together more effectively:

Instill Purpose

The best culture instills a purpose. It helps employees feel as though they’re working toward a goal, whether it’s offering great customer support or designing websites. When employees feel a sense of purpose, they connect more as a team and can better help you meet your goals.

Communicate Openly

It’s important to be accessible and open to communication. Beyond enabling team members to share ideas with you, it can help them to feel comfortable reporting an issue. You might hear things you don’t like – the numbers are down or the project won’t be completed in time – but that knowledge can help you to better plan and manage your resources.

Applaud Innovation and Creativity

Your staff is one of your greatest resources. Not only can they help you accomplish your current goals, they can provide you with new ideas for the future. In order for this to happen, however, there must be a focus on innovation and creativity. Enabling employees to apply their skills and abilities to create new processes on their own initiative can aid in promoting further engagement with your company and lead to results you wouldn’t have otherwise achieved.

Set Clear Expectations and Roles

Setting clear expectations can make your team feel more comfortable in their roles. When people don’t know the exact parameters of what they need to accomplish or the standards by which their work will be judged, they won’t feel confident that they can deliver what you want. A team with clear expectations can both plan to succeed and execute the necessary steps to meet that goal.

Be Accountable and Monitor Progress

Expressing clear expectations enables you to hold everyone accountable for their work and to monitor their progress. This doesn’t equate to blaming team members for missing benchmarks, however. Rather, the goal should be to improve processes based on the information garnered through monitoring.

Celebrate Success

Just as accountability is important, so, too, is celebrating your team’s successes. Sales goal met? Show your team how much you value them, whether it’s through something as simple as lunch or as extravagant as a raise or gift.

Celebrating success shows that you value the hard work your team put into meeting their goals and encourages them to continue working hard for you.

Learn From Mistakes

Your team isn’t always going to get it right. Maybe a marketing campaign will fail to convert new customers or your first prototype will be missing key elements that your target audience wants. It’s important to listen to feedback in order to learn from mistakes and then apply that knowledge going forward.

Learn From Conflict

Whenever people are working together, there will inevitably come a time when they find themselves at odds. Rather than penalizing employees for not getting along, it’s important to use those instances as teaching moments for how to move forward together in spite of conflict. Working to resolve issues can help team members to feel valued and help them work together better in the future.

Grow

Fostering a sense of the available opportunities for personal and professional growth can inspire a team to work hard and find innovative ways of getting the job done.

Ultimately, a successful team starts with you. Understanding your own strengths and weaknesses can help you hire the right team members to boost your success.

Focusing on the responsibilities and requirements of each role throughout the hiring process can help you ascertain whether particular candidates are well-suited for the tasks you have in mind. In addition, an in-depth interview process can provide you with more information about each candidate to help you build a knowledgeable, skilled team that will work well together.

In the context of a healthy company culture that instills purpose, enables creativity, and focuses on progress, your team will grow together and grow your business.

About the Author

Dr. Joe Johnson is an entrepreneur, investor, and startup expert. He is the founder and principal of GoodField Investments and the GoodField Foundation (www.GoodField.com).

Joe has a Ph.D. in Entrepreneurial Leadership and an MBA. He is the author of the upcoming book on The Science of Why Most Entrepreneurs Fail and Some Succeed.

Most importantly, he is the incredibly blessed husband of one amazing wife and father of six wonderful children. He resides in Bradenton, Florida. For more information on Dr. Johnson and his work, go to www.JoeJohnson.com.

Is a Lean Startup For You?

Joe Johnson, Ph.D.
Entrepreneur. Investor. Startup Expert.

Entrepreneurship and business are replete with associated jargon: value-add, competencies, SMART goals, etc. One term that has been floating around for the past few years is ‘lean startup’ – and it’s no wonder. The phrase is enticing and so are the ideas behind it.

At first glance, you may think that adapting your business idea to the lean startup model is the best path to take. After all, starting with minimal financing seems ideal and you go to market quickly, but is it in your best interest long-term? Also, can lean startup strategies be applied to bring services to market rather than products?

Defining the Pros and Cons of ‘lean startup’ business methodology.

In this post, my goal is not to take a position on your use of lean startup principles, but simply to provide you with information. Once armed with this information, you’ll be able to determine whether the lean method is appropriate for you.

 What is a Lean Startup?

In 2011, Eric Ries published The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. His goal was to illustrate that there was a quicker, data-driven way to get to market with a product and hopefully increase the chances of entrepreneurial success.

Now, countless companies have popped up to assist those looking to build a lean startup. By assisting with business model canvases, marketing, etc., they’re capitalizing on the popularity of the lean model with business services, conferences, and speaking engagements. However, few thoroughly explain the concepts behind the model and plenty of myths abound in that vacuum.

At its core, the lean startup focuses on data-driven results.

Many articles call it “scientific”, though a better term is probably “analytic”. Entrepreneurs are tasked with identifying a need or solving a problem. They then produce a minimally viable product to take to market for customer feedback. That feedback is analyzed to either hone and create future iterations or to completely scrap the project.

To some extent, the lean startup follows the “fail fast” method.

Get your product out as quickly as possible and determine whether people want it. If not, fix it or close up shop. All of this is accomplished while avoiding large expenses in the research and development phase. While this certainly saves money and time, it may also lead to missed opportunities and insights.

The lean startup proposes an iterative process.

The three general principles mentioned above work in a cycle and drive further development and innovation.

Source: http://theleanstartup.com/principles

Build: Minimum Viable Product

Normally, businesses spend a great deal of time designing, manufacturing, and testing their products before going to market. The lean startup model suggests that entrepreneurs should trim this lengthy process by focusing on the minimum that a product requires to function and sell – the minimum viable product or MVP. Once the MVP is on the shelf, customer feedback can work its magic to let you know how users feel about it.

Measure: Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is a necessity for the lean model to work effectively. Once you have your minimum viable product, it is necessary to take it to market. Customer feedback about features, usability, manufacturing – anything, really – proves to be an essential driver of future iterations. The more feedback, the better.

The basic concept at work here is that customer feedback will inform future product iterations, thereby making it more successful. This is at odds with the traditional product development paths of beta testing and focus groups. Rather than having a small pool of initial users, the lean model serves to broaden the market considerably.

Learn: Analyzing Data

With the customer feedback, as well as your sales numbers and manufacturing costs in hand, you can begin analyzing your data to determine the changes required to make your product more successful. Rather than working in a corporate vacuum with only a few people generating ideas, you’re working with ideas from real users who may be able to pinpoint certain value-adds you hadn’t yet considered.

Not all feedback will be useful or possible to integrate into future iterations, but the hope is that there will be some consensus reached or striking new ideas broached as a result of utilizing this method.

Benefits of the Lean Startup

The lean model has introduced ideas and terminology to the business conversation that have become part of the common lexicon and are now being used by many entrepreneurs, regardless of whether they follow the lean model.

The lean startup model is believed to save time and money. By going to market quickly with an MVP and harvesting the feedback, you’re learning whether people are actually willing to buy your product without spending months (or years) and tens of thousands of dollars on research and development to create an amazing product that you love and no one else wants.

A lean startup can usually be gotten underway with a smaller investment, though that isn’t always the case. While “lean” may imply “low budget” to some, plenty of lean startups require outside starting capital and cannot be bootstrapped. Thanks, however, to the basic concept of getting to market quickly, less capital is required to produce a product when compared with those companies following a more traditional path toward production.

Although the lean startup seems particularly well-suited for internet and software companies, Eric Ries argues that any company can use the methodology to learn more about what consumers actually want in a product. It appears as though the ideology behind the lean startup can even be used to offer services at a local business level, so long as you’re willing to solicit customer feedback and implement any necessary adjustments.

Possible Issues with the Lean Startup Model

By relying on a customer feedback cycle, more long-term ideas may be missed.

Consider the device on which you’re reading this article. Had potential customers been interviewed and asked decades ago about the product, what would they have most likely said? Many would’ve had difficulty imagining something like a smartphone, tablet, or laptop and just how integral to our lives those devices would eventually become.

The lean startup model may not be the most appropriate way for certain companies to go to market. Companies that revolutionize particular products or methods must also convince customers that they need those new products or methods and that they provide inherent value. For example, polling consumers decades ago as to whether they’d be interested in buying books online, they might have stated that they could simply go to the bookstore. If Jeff Bezos had listened, Amazon might not exist today.

The lean model seems to apply best to products or services where a market already exists, rather than for revolutionary new ideas.

It’s clear that the lean startup model isn’t for everyone. In fact, it seems more geared toward the tech sector. If the lean startup model seems like a fit for your company and product, great! Go for it! If the entire model isn’t for you, consider that there may be aspects of it which can help you propel your business idea forward. Use what you can and discard the rest.

About the Author

Dr. Joe Johnson is an entrepreneur, investor, and startup expert. He is the founder and principal of GoodField Investments and the GoodField Foundation (www.GoodField.com).

Joe has a Ph.D. in Entrepreneurial Leadership and an MBA. He is the author of the upcoming book on The Science of Why Most Entrepreneurs Fail and Some Succeed.

Most importantly, having one amazing wife and father of six wonderful children make him an incredibly blessed man.  He resides in Bradenton, Florida. For more information on Dr. Johnson and his work, go to www.JoeJohnson.com.

Trust the process: Due diligence in commercial real estate investment

Image source: realestatebasic.com

In acquiring commercial real estate property, a step-by-step process must be conscientiously followed. This can ensure that the needs and objectives of the investment can be identified and accomplished. Unique risks are embedded in the acquisition of commercial property, and only diligence and strategy can prevail over these.

Joe Johnson, founder of Mercy Real Estate and Welfont Group, has been an active commercial real estate investor for more than a dozen years. He has extensive experience in purchasing real estate properties and facilities, and turning those around in the generation of significant profits and substantial returns on investment.

Image source: fossbusinesssolutions.com

He employs an acquisition process that considers the investor’s risk profile, hands-on involvement, knowledge expertise, potential, and liquidity preferences.

Researching prospective candidates is the first step in the commercial real estate investment process. A personal or company profile of the investor or buyer is also prepared, which is effectively communicated to sellers. The ideal match between prospective buyers and sellers is then drawn up.

Due diligence is necessary to make sure that all things are in order. There is a stipulated period where property inspection and valuation, assessment of market information and environmental conditions, and review of pertinent documents are conducted.

Dr. Joe Johnson is a renowned entrepreneur, investor, and startup expert. He is also a family man, blessed with an amazing wife and six wonderful children. To know more about him and his business insights, visit this website.

A loan of $425 helped to restock her sari-sari store with consumable goods such as noodles, canned goods, coffee, milk, confections, condiments, and others.

Dr. Joe Johnson funded a microloan to Analy, a Filipino entrepreneur.

Here is Analy’s Story

Analy is an industrious woman in the municipality of Plaridel in the Philippines. She is never tired of attending to her business, and her little sari sari or convenience store is well known among the locals as it is the only one that services her area. The sales that she makes from the store allow her to provide for herself and her family.

When she needed additional funding to help restock her convenience store, she turned to PMPC for help, an organization where she is an active member. She intended to use the money she received to restock the shelves with consumable goods such as canned goods, coffee, noodles, milk, confectionaries, condiments among other items.

Funding Partners

The loan was administered locally by the Paglaum Multi-Purpose Cooperative (PMPC), an organization that was created by the staff, beneficiaries and parents of the Paglam Community Development Foundation. It addresses economic and livelihood activities that would promote sustainability. Despite the fact that the organization only operates in the northwestern provinces of Mindanao and Visayas, it has helped thousands of people to realize their dreams of being self-reliant.

Using Kiva’s lending platform, Dr. Johnson was able to fully fund Analy’s loan. It is through organizations such as PMPC, Kiva and other microloan providers that underprivileged entrepreneurs such as Analy can access the funds that they need to start or expand their businesses. Without these loans, people like Analy would not be able to access the capital that they need to make their business thrive.

Kiva and PMPC work so well together because they share the same goals, to provide microfinance services to those who need it the most. Kiva brings the people together, while PMPC identifies the people on the ground that need the help the most. Individuals like Dr. Johnson then come in and complete the circle, providing loans to these needy entrepreneurs.

The loan that Dr. Johnson provided Analy with allowed her to restock her shelves and has made her better able to provide for herself and her family. If you would also like to change someone’s life in the same way, visit Kiva.org, and browse through the thousands of loans that are in need of funding.

Notes
1.    This article is based on https://www.kiva.org/lend/997983

A loan of $325 helped to buy more ingredients for her food vending business.

Dr. Joe Johnson funded a microloan for Mara, an entrepreneur in the Philippines.

Here is Mara’s Story

As a hardworking mother of four in the heart of Hinigaran in the Philippines, Mara has to work hard to support her family. She does this by running a food vending business that supplies local delicacies to the inhabitants of this small city. In her quest to grow her business, Mara turned to Negros Women For Tomorrow Foundation Inc. an organization that has helped countless others achieve their dreams.

She applied for a loan of 15,000 Philippine Pesos that would go towards buying more ingredients for her food vending business. Over the years, she has received a total of 13 loans from the NWTF to help her continue to expand her business, and this loan would make it her fourteenth. She has successfully managed to repay all her loans, and is now looking to the future, hoping that her hard work and dedication will help her to achieve her dream of expanding her business even further.

Funding Partners
Her loans are locally administered by NWTF, a non-governmental organization that focuses on helping both men and women in low income communities in the province of Negros Occidental achieve self-sufficiency. The funds that Kiva lenders avail to the organization are used to expand the reach of these products to low-income urban and rural communities in the province.

Kiva and NWTF gave Dr. Johnson the opportunity to fully fund Mara’s loan. These organizations, together with Dr. Johnson and people like him, are helping to transform thousands of families by enabling them to escape the poverty that they experience every day. This is because these organizations provide microfinancing services to those that need it the most. Kiva helps to bring people together, while the NWTF pinpoints needy people.

The $325 loan that Mara took was fully funded by Dr. Joe Johnson, and through his generosity, she is now able to continue growing her business. If you would like to transform a community by helping an underprivileged entrepreneur, visit Kiva.org and have a look at the thousands of loans that are in need of funding. By funding a microloan, you are ensuring that you change the lives of not only one family, but of the community at large.

Notes
1. This article is based on https://www.kiva.org/lend/998719

A loan of $325 helped to restock her store with items like canned goods, oil, and soy sauce.

Dr. Joe Johnson helped fund a microloan to Elizabeth, a retailer in the Philippines.

Here is Elizabeth’s Story

In the heart of the city of Dipolong in the Philippines, lies a small convenience store that is owned by Elizabeth, a member of the microfinance cooperative PMPC. As a member of the organization, she takes great care in ensuring that she pays all her obligations with the money she earns from running the store.

As a member of the PMPC, Elizabeth applied recently applied for a loan to help her restock the shelves of her store with consumables such as soy sauce, oil and canned goods among other products. Restocking her shelves should help her stay in business and thus enable her to support herself better in the future.

Funding Partners
The loan was administered locally by the Paglaum Multi-Purpose Cooperative (PMPC), which was founded in 1992 to help address the economic and social issues that plague the northwestern provinces of Mindanao and Visayas. Just like its name – Paglaum means hope in local vernacular – the foundation has helped to bring hope to thousands of people, and is slowly working towards building a self-reliant society that is able to expand its opportunities. This will give even the poorest of the poor the ability to help themselves and elevate themselves out of the poverty that they are surrounded by.

Dr. Johnson, through Kiva and PMPC, helped Elizabeth by fully financing her loan. Through these organizations, Dr. Johnson and people like him are helping to change the lives of hundreds of families, and ensuring that they can make a better life for themselves.

This is mainly because both Kiva and PMPC share the same goals, to provide microfinance services to those who need them the most. Kiva helps by bringing people together, while PMPC pinpoints needy people on the ground who individuals like Dr. Johnson can then provide with loans.

The loan of $325 that Elizabeth received from Dr. Johnson has gone a long way in helping her realize her dream of restocking her store. If you would like to help transform someone’s life in the same way, visit Kiva.org, and take a look at the list of thousands of loans that need immediate funding. You can change a person’s life this way.

Notes
1. This article is based on https://www.kiva.org/lend/998061