Get to know your market!.

Once you starting out a business then you might want to know that you must focus on the needs of your customers. Not only the sales man in the store or on the phone selling stocks need to explore what the customer want. Also the businessman who is writing a businessplan. The market exsists of different type of customers with various demands. To get to know the market you can go to a business consultant before you start a business.

If you do the proper market research then you can find out what the annual sales of a certain product is. If you  are going to set up a factory producing soap bars. Then might want to know where you going to sell those soap bars. Who are buying from you, What type of soaps you are going to produce. What type of soap bars the customers want for example Fa Soap used to be a big hit in the tropics. Those fragrances which contains in those soaps where just breath taking. The colours of the soap is just one of a kind. 

You need to find out what the trends are in the market. How you can get your products to your customer. Are you going to start a brick and mortar store or are you going to sell online?. In what countries you are going to market your products. You need to understand the need of the people. For example soap is rather cheaper than shampoo and the third world countries go for soap than shampoo. Because of the weather in the tropics there are often taking a bath and consume soap. 

If you market your soap bars in the tropics then you might want to know that you need to adapt the packaging into a suitable language. You need to communicate with the customers in the right way. What people want is that you solve their problem as a businessman. Only way that you can do it is when you know the  their needs.  Automation can a solution. If you have conventional cash registers then consider buying scanners to help out the customer quicker and more accurate the transaction will be.  

When you are going to sell watch batteries for example then you might want to know that you focus on selling different types of batteries from various brands. This will attract more customers. You need to determine a type of business you need to set up. If this is a whole sale business then you need to market your products to the retail stores to make more profits. You need to set a sales system that communicates with the retail stores. You can hire a sales that contacts the retailers and send them promotion material. 

When you run a supermarket then determine what type of segment to serve. If you target the upper segment then you have to sell quality products that goes with the price. You can target the lower segment of the market. Then you can sell products which attracts clients who want to buy your goods because you offer a price which fits the budget of your customers. You might want to do some research about who sell whole sale goods to fill your product range  of your store. 

Analyze the stocks then you will find out what type of products sell the best. Then promote the products which sell at a slow pace with discounts. If you run a supermarket place coffee and suger next to each other. This is not the case when you are running another type of business such as a transportation service.