Choosing Your Business Concept
Working out what your niche market will be to start your home business is something that can elicit much excitement. This is when you can put all those great ideas you have had for your business into a plan of action. Give yourself a number of options to work over. Some will be great and some won't fit. Get more than one so you always have a back up when you start a home business.
You can get your ideas from 3 sources:
- Your hobby: If you have something you love to do it is very likely that it is something you can build a business out of. Choosing something that you are passionate about and love to do will help you to enjoy your business. There are very few hobbies that you cannot build a business around.
- Look to your experiences in life: Some experience that you have had may give you an idea for a business. An example would be that you have done creative cooking all your life. You could take that experience to put together and sell recipe books. Or how-to books.
- Talents: Maybe you have a particular talent which could make a great freelance business. Search to see what yours are and how they could become a business for you.
Defining your niche market:
1. Put down a number of ideas and number them as to order of desirability.
2. Put in the keyword into overture suggestion tool This will bring up the amount of searches that have been done for your keyword and will represent demand.
3. Put your same keyword into Google search engine. This will bring up any websites related to the keyword and will represent supply.
4. Find an item that is in high demand but of low supply, and you'll have your niche market right there. You'll make money! You will do better with a specialized or niche market because you may be able to completely do away with the competition. Narrow your list down to about five markets, then go through the list again. Figure out which one would fit into a niche market for you.
Establishing your USP:
Once you have your market picked out, you will need to work out your USP or Unique Selling Point. This is the thing that makes your product different than all the other similar products out there. Often neglected, finding the USP is something that new business owners need to do to set their item above the competition. Online businesses are very competitive and you have to stay ahead of the game.
It's vital to set yourself up as much different from your competition and here are two reasons why:
1. To get ahead of the competition
2. Tell the customers you will get why you are better than your competition.
Deciding on your business model:
Consolidate your ideas, by all means, but also choose the business model to follow. Here are a couple:
- Affiliate marketing-You can target your market by joining affiliate systems.
- Network marketing (MLM)- You can take your idea and market and target it the right way.
- Marketing-selling a product
- Service- you should use your talents, which includes freelancing.
As you can see there are a few steps you will need to take in order to define your business concept. It is worth your while to take some care and plan well, as this is the foundation of your business.
Dan Farrell has a newsletter, Build An eBusiness On A Shoestring. To sign up with free bonuses, go to: Small Business Ideas
Published July 20th, 2007




