Tools For Exploring New Business Opportunities

I don't see much in the way of tools for business planning for self employed people. Motivational videos and DVDs aren't my idea of useful tools, even though I'm sure some people get pumped up on them. In keeping with my recent resolution to explore interactive books, I spent the week doing a very rough draft of a tool for business planning. The point of the flowchart is less about the mapping process and more about pointing out specific areas of concentration for people of different backrounds who are planning to launch a new business.



The main problem I see with business tools is, as with all tools, their effectiveness depends entirely on the skill of the user. Just like you can decapitate yourself with a chainsaw, you can destroy your finances with a poorly conceived business plan. It may be possible to "dumb down" some tools, like calculators that estimate your tax liablity, calculate a selling price based on wholesale and overhead, or tell you what your net has to be to support a given retail space with given foot traffic, etc. But all of these calculations will be subject to the rules of garbage in, garbage out. The skill is in making the right assumptions or estimates that the calculations ae based on, otherwise, the calculators may as well be chainsaws.

Internet search may be the best tool available to the new businessman today, and I don't mean for finding step-by-step guides to business success which aren't worth the electrons used to promote them. The main value of Internet search is for market research, to scope out your potential customers and the competition. There's nothing to stop you from joining discussion lists where your target customer base hangs out to see what they have to say about competing products and services. Believe it or not, they know more about what they want than you do. Tools like Google Trends and the Adwords Keyword Tool are great for determining both broadly and specifically what people search for online.

The best tool you have will always be your own brain, helping you choose where to dedicate its resources is the goal of the flowchart. If you haven't clicked on it to reach the full size version, do so, and let me know what you think. The diamond decision symbols on the full sized version are also clickable, and bring you to expanded text explanations of the decision. Remember, it's all very Beta or Alpha, it's as much a tool for me to see if there's potential in the interactive planning area as it is a tool for reader.