This Week In Business: Streetcorner Market Research

As I continue to work on my business plan and video (and, you know, paying work), here is what happened in Breaking Even Communications this week:

I tried my streetcorner market research.

A couple weeks ago, I vowed to stand on a street corner ask people the market research questions I needed the answers to in order to get my business plan done. Here is a moment by moment account of what happened when I actually did this on Tuesday:

9:00 am- Check my Facebook and see via a friend’s status update that today is a ‘boat day’, meaning there is a cruise ship docked in Bar Harbor. More foot traffic is good for me!

10-11 am- Make my sandwich board with my almost out of ink printer and a spare piece of particle board I have from a previous Too Cute Tuesday project. I put on a cute but professional blue dress and walk into town.

11:45 am- I set up my sandwich board on the Village Green in Bar Harbor. ‘Want to get more out of your website?” is the only text that fits. The words ‘free consultation’ do not. Oh well, I can tell people when I talk to them. I tweet what I’m up to and call my lady Anne at SCORE to let her know I’m doing it!

11:55 am- Board blown down by wind. I whip out my duct tape and to the amazement/amusement of a few nearby tourists, I duct tape the sign to the granite sidewalk. I try to make conversation with them, saying that between my duct tape, water bottle, and sunscreen, I am ready for anything. The woman is not amused but her son is. She clearly thinks this ‘saleswoman’ is too friendly!

This Week In Business: Slogging Through

I might not have gotten much done but I sure finished a bike ride I didn't know I could do!

There are times in your life where you are forced to say something to the effect of “Dear Diary, Nothing happened to me. I ate a piece of key lime pie and it was good. Goodnight.” (I had a daily diary in second grade, and a lot of it read sort of like that.)

This week in business was rather unproductive. I took a long weekend to go to my ten year high school reunion and do a 50 mile fundraising bike ride. The reunion was more fun than expected and our team raised over $500 for a really good cause. And while I did collapse in utter exhaustion on Sunday night at 8 pm, it is nice to know I can still do it all.

So this week, I’ll be catching up on my ongoing projects, including video editing, my business plan, and the work I actually get paid to do.

I guess I can’t be on top of it every week!

This Week In Business: Market Research Intensified

This week felt for some reason like it was going in a million different directions. It could be that a lot of projects are taking off and in addition, I am trying to keep working on my two big projects for my business itself (the video and the business plan).

Here’s what happened:

I got two new clients to sign on the dotted line, and three I’m waiting on.
I think every business gets to the point where you are growing (finally!) but need to adjust to the growth (darn it!) I am happy to be finally tackling this issue.

I was counseled by SCORE and realized a fun way to get my marketing research done accurately.
As I’ve been writing my business plan, the market research portion has somewhat eluded me. Sure, I know about how many businesses are in the Downeast Area thanks to directories and can get some demographics from the US Census but what is actually useful to me? Anyone can throw a bunch of numbers into a report and look smart.

Thing is I’m not filling space on a ten page college paper here; I am going to use this document to make decisions, both now and down the road.

This Week In Business: Plugging Away

For Matt and all the other nice guys out there. Yes, I appreciate you and if you don't take my money, I'll do something nice back gosh-darn-it!This week in business, it’s been more of the same as it was last week. Dare I call it a routine? OK, maybe not, but it does seem to be a repeat of last week. A few new developments:

I officially gave up on video importing and am turning it over to someone more able.
Matt, the guy who lent me the camera, is going to take my clips and burn them on DVD for me. He may just be The Nicest Guy On Earth.

Not one to let people do completely nice things for me for free (because who takes advantage of their friends?), I offered Matt money. He’s refused (nicely, of course) so I am going to instead help get WERU’s new site user friendly, since Matt is on their board (WERU is a non-profit community radio station based in Blue Hill, Maine in case you were curious.)

This Week In Business: Why Am I Spending So Much Time Doing This?

One of the things I miss about working for a company is the built in tech support. I worked with some smart people who were happy to help me out with my various tech issues (and they still help me actually, but to an understandably more limited extent). Yes, I may have a blog and be good at social media but high tech, I am not.

I feel like I now spend an awful lot of time doing extraneous stuff that makes me say: why am I even doing this? No more so than the morning I spent taking apart my computer and putting it back together. (More on this in a moment.)

Sometimes when one owns a business, you have to just roll up your sleeves and do what you got to do!
This is a photo of the miracle as it happened... though maybe it's not a miracle if you spend half a week's work time on getting it to work?
Here were this week’s ‘accomplishments’. (Accomplishments being kind of a strong word.)

This Week In Business: Lights Camera Action

There certainly is no substitute for good press. After a favorable article in MaineBiz, people have been calling, emailing, and Facebooking me. In particular, inquiries have increased. For this, I am grateful! Here’s what else has been going on.

I started filming the video that’ll be on my site.
Two interviewers with local business owners down, three to go. I spent this morning trying to extract the video from yesterday’s interviews off the camera only to find that I do no have a firewire port, which I may need. At times like this, I miss my old job for the technical support or even just having someone else to whine about this with. (If you live locally, I’ll pay you to come over to my house and figure it out. Seriously!)

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