25A - What's Next?

Assignment 25A – What’s Next?

Existing Market

Step 1: I will pursue further growth in this venture by beginning to sell hair products to my clients. Instead of paying retail prices for hair products, I will do research and find top-end products for wholesale prices and order them online. I will make sure that the products I buy are the same products that my clients will buy from me. I will then “mark-up” the products prior to selling them to my clients. This will ensure that I make a profit.

Step 2: I interviewed my friends Reed, Ian, and Tyler. All three of these friends are likely to be interested in my barbering services. I described to them my business and asked the initial question, “What should I be doing that I’m not planning to do?” I did not receive much feedback from these interviewees. I had to continue to ask further questions to spark ideas from them. At first, the consensus was that I’m doing everything that I should be doing.

Upon further questioning, one recommendation that I received was that I might wash my clients’ hair after giving them haircuts. Tyler said he would like if I did this, since his barber back in California provides this service. Unfortunately, I do not have a practical way to offer this service and I don’t believe that the majority of my clients value that extra service very highly. Reed and Ian expressed that giving fresh fades should be the only focus of my business.

Step 3: In terms of growing my existing market, I still plan on purchasing and reselling hair products to my clients. Due to the lack of interest expressed regarding this service from these three interviewees, I will execute this extra service in a conservative manner. I will purchase minimal products and will then attempt to sell these hair products to my clients.

If I succeed in the reselling of these products, then I will continue to do so. If my clients are uninterested in buying my hair products, then I will use them for myself over the next several months/years. I will be careful not to get stuck with excessive inventory and a lack of customers.



New Market

Step 1: In my previous, existing market, I targeted Marines, whom live on the same military base as me. These Marines make approximately $20,000 per year. Although they do receive benefits in addition to this salary, they are in a very low-income bracket. I have identified a potential new market target of wealthy, affluent businessmen.

Step 2: Although my current venture concept may be ideal for Marines, whom are looking for cheap, convenient haircuts, I do not believe that my current venture concept will be found attractive by wealthy, affluent businessmen. I suspect that I may have to remold my venture concept to earn the business of these high-class citizens.

I do not believe that I have the skills necessary to give satisfactory haircuts to affluent businessmen. I suspect that these men may also prefer their hair to be cut in a more professional environment than my barracks. I do still believe that the principles of my venture concept can be beneficial to meeting this new market. I will have to take the principles of my venture concept (providing barbering services) and build off these principles to provide what this new customer market demands.

Although exploiting this new market would be a very time-consuming and require much effort, it can be done. I believe that the best way to do this would be to learn everything possible about the barbering market. After and while acquiring this knowledge, I would learn as much as possible about starting and managing my own business. Once I had the skills and financial capital necessary to do so, I would open my own barber shop. I would hire very skilled workers and provide a rather high-end, professional environment inside my barbershop. I would expect that I could charge more than $20 per haircut and having employees under me would increase my profits if this business was established and managed in an efficient and effective manner.

Step 3: I interviewed my step-grandfather, whom is an affluent small-business owner. I also interviewed the owner of a local coin store. This man’s name is Louie, and he is very wealthy even though the average person may not be able to tell that from looking at his store.

After describing to these men my “new” venture concept, they were both very intrigued. My step-grandfather expressed his frustration with trying to find a barber shop that provides quality haircuts in a professional environment. He stated that he hates walking into barber shops and hearing “the sh**ty music” that us “kids” listen to these days. He suggested playing classical music in the barbershop and hiring good, professional barbers. Louie wasn’t so concerned with the environment in the barbershop but emphasized the importance of my barber giving quality haircuts.

Step 4: I learned a lot about this market. I learned that wealthy, affluent businessmen tend to be pickier with their haircuts and harder to please. I also learned that if my barbers can please businessmen, the businessmen are willing to pay premium prices for their haircuts. This was certainly a market that I never planned to exploit; however, it is a market that may be worth exploiting after a lot of knowledge is acquired and a lot of networking is done.

I believe that my current market is much easier to exploit, but the potential that lays within this new market is much higher than the potential of my current market. I was correct in assuming that these wealthy, affluent businessmen care very much about the quality of their haircuts. I was at least partially right that they also care about the environment where they receive their haircuts.