ENTREP. 11: Opportunity Seizing

Will I be able to manage, to my advantage, the critical success factors and avoid the critical failure factors?

This is the biggest question for the entrepreneur during opportunity seizing.

Opportunity Seizing

• It is all about thriving business opportunities.

• It talks about how you can search/thrive or find an opportunity for yourself.

Positioning Statement

It is an expression of how a given product, service, or brand fills a particular consumer need in a way its competitors don’t.

Positioning

It is the process of identifying an appropriate market niche for a product, service, or brand and getting it established in that area. In marketing, it is about perception—how your brand, product, or service is viewed in the minds of your target audience.

Customer Profiling

It is the process of creating a customer profile by identifying the benefits they seek, their expectations, personal characteristics and traits, behavior and usage patterns, as well as their preferences and dislikes.

1. What are the main customer segments?

2. What are the different product attributes and features of each of the other competitors?

3. What are the existing marketing practices of the various competitors?

4. What are the market preferences of consumers when it comes to the products being offered?

The four key questions that guide entrepreneurs in effectively defining and crafting a clear market positioning segment.

Concept

It is an idealized abstraction of the product or service to be offered to the preferred market of the entrepreneur.

1. Create a concept similar to the winning products in the marketplace and ride with the obvious market trends.

2. Find a market niche that has not been filled by the competitors.

3. Conceptualize a product in a positioning category where the participants are rather weak.

4. Conceptualize a product that would change the way customers think, behave, and buy, thus making existing products obsolete and "old-fashioned."

The steps to be considered in order to come up with the product or service concept.

Market Niche

Refers to the small segments of the market where discriminating customers are searching for special product/service features and attributes.

Designing

It is the process wherein the entrepreneur must render the concept and translate it into its very physical and very real dimensions (measurement).

Prototype

This refers to the first or preliminary version of a device or vehicle from which other forms are developed. It also means an original model on which something is patterned.

Prototype Testing

• It is an important part of the product development process that involves testing a product before it is released to the public.

• It can be done with different types, including digital.

• It can be done with a small or large group of people.

1. Pick the right prototype

2. Set clear goals

3. Use the best tools

4. Think about users

5. Keep improving iteratively

These are the tips to make an effective prototype.

It allows companies to find and fix problems before the product is released.

Why is prototype testing important?

In order to have good implementation.

Why are good planning and programming important?

End results

This refers to the final outcomes of the business, such as:

• High satisfied customers

• Huge sales

• Large profits generated

1. Choose the correct technology.

2. Choose the right people who can perform the technical and the managerial functions

3. Design the operating workflow that would assure the effective output of the production

4. Specify the system and procedures that would govern the enterprise, motivate and discipline the workforce, and satisfy the customers

5. Design the organizational architecture that would allow the people to function at their best.

These are several ways on how to achieve the desired end results.