BA 3141 - Small Business Management (Seel)

The purpose of your "mini-plan" is to determine if your business idea is worth pursuing.

One of the important tests that this Research Guide will help you with is determining whether or not there is a market for your product or services.

By answering the questions and using the resources in each page of the guide, you will complete the elements needed for the marketing section of your project.

Getting specific about your target market allows you to decide how you want to focus your marketing efforts. It does not exclude potential customers. In order to define your target market, you want to consider demographic and psycho-graphic factors.

With this in mind, try to narrow down which potential consumers would be most interested in your product or service.

Demographics are facts about certain groups. This data is useful to develop a basic profile of your consumer.

• age
• ethnicity
• education level
• gender
• income
• location
• marital/family status
• occupation

Psychographics are things more commonly referred to as "culture." Popular psychographic groups would include Baby Boomers or Millenials. Psychographics data is helpful to develop a clearer profile of your consumer.

• attitude
• behavior
• interests/hobbies
• lifestyle
• personality
• values

Now that you have established who is included in your target market, it is important to understand the needs and wants of this group. Market research is collected by different groups including the government and academia.

Keyword searches from Google Trends and Good Adwords let you see how the number of searches for a given term has changed over time and ​which keywords competitors are using to target their Adwords advertising. 

The goal here is to identify and analyze trends in your industry. Do you expect continued growth in your area? Is it time to adjust your product to meet new needs? These are all things you determine at this stage in the process.

Click in the Industry tab below the search bx to search by NAICS, SIC, or keyword. 

Your goal is to determine strength and weakness in your competitors in order to identify potential problems for your company and well as opportunities for growth and improvement in the industry. Elements of the marketing mix (product, price, distribution, promotion)  should be idenitifed in response to market needs and business opportunity.

You may also want to consider how your competitors do the following:

• social media
• online marketing and advertising
• website design

Most businesses aim for around 1% of their potential market in their first 2-3 years. Now that you have determined who your potential market is and how many potential clients exist, answer the following questions:

1.       Who has the need for my products or services, the financial ability to purchase my products, and the ability to find my products?

2.       How many of these people or businesses exist today?

3.       How much money does each person or business currently spend every year solving the problem that my product or service also solves?

4.       Who else do I share this market with?

Now you need to decide if you can realistically have 1% of the market and if this will be profitable.

Here is an example from How Big is your Potential Market, Really? from bplans.com. 

A small business example

Let’s use a hair salon in a small city (population: 120,000 people).

First, a few things to know about this hair salon:

• It’s providing high-end salon services
• Average haircut and style is $65
• Majority of clients are women between the ages of 25 and 55

Image from LivePlan “Pitch” section for a beauty salon.

Let’s do the math:

(35,000 x $450) = $15,750,000

This means that this hair salon in this city has a total addressable market size of $15.75M and 35K potential prospects.

This salon also needs to keep in mind that there are three other salons in their community that are seeking to serve this same market, because that means that their TAM will be shared with their competitors.

A title page is required for all APA Style papers, unless noted otherwise by your professor. Students should follow the guidelines fo their instructor when determining which title page format is mst appropriate to use. If not instructed otherwise, students should include the following elements on the title page. 

NOTE: Student title pages do not require a running head, unlike a professional title page. 

Title
Name 
University attended, including department or division
Course number and name
Instructor name
Assignment due date

Paraphrasing

When the author's name appears in the sentence, it does not need to be repeated in the citation.

Example: 
Recent literature has examined long-run price drifts following initial public offerings and other factors (Luna, 2020).
Luna (2020) reaches more or less the same conclusion.

Two or more sources within same parentheses

Order the citations of two or more works by different authors within the same parentheses alphabetically in the same order in which they appear in the reference list (including citations that would otherwise shorten to et al.). Separate the citations with semicolons. 

Example: 
Several studies (Adams et al., 2019; Shumway & Shulman, 2015; Westinghouse, 2017))...

Quotations

Example:

For people with osteoarthritis, "painful joints should be moved through a full range of motion every day to maintain flexibility and to slow deterioration of cartilage" (Flores, 2019, p. 20). 
(Gecht-Silver & Duncombe, 2015, p. 210) 

More than three authors

Example:
(Smith et al., 2014, p. 203)

No author
(Title Page #)

Example: 
(Plagiarism and You 1942) 
("Five Ways to Protect Yourself" 1993)

No page number

Because the material does not include page numbers, you can include any of the following in the text to cite the quotation:

Start the reference list on a new page after the txt and before any tables, figures, and/or appendices. Label the reference list "References," capitalized, in bold, and centered.

Double-space all reference list entries (including between and within references). 

Use a hanging indent for all references, meaning that the first line of each reference is flush left and subsequent lines are indented by 0.5 in. 

Works are listed in alphabetical order by the last name of the first listed author. 

 Last name, Initials. (Year). Article title, sentence style capitalization. Journal title, volume(issue, if available), pages. URL, if no DOI available

Example:

 Ahmann, E. (2018). A descriptive review of ADHD coaching research: Implications for college students. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 31(1), 17-39. https://www.ahead.org/professional-resources/publications/jped/archived-jped/jped-volume-31

Journal article with multiple authors

 Last name, Initials., & Last name, Initials. (Year). Article title, sentence style capitalization. Journal title, volume(issue, if available), pages. URL, if no DOI available

Example: 

 McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2019). Language learning as language use: A cross-linguistic model of child language development. Psychological Review, 126(1), 1-51. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126

When a source has twenty-two or more authors, include first twenty-one … last listed author.

Example: 

Kalnay, E., Kanamitsu, M., Kitler, R., Collins, W., Deaven, D., Gandin, L., Iredell, M., Saha, S., White, G., Woolen, J., Zhu, Y., Chelliah, M., Ebisuzaki, W., Higgins, W., Janowiak, J., Mo, K. C., Ropelewski, C., Wang, J., Leetman, A., . . . Joseph, D. (1996). The NCEP/NCAR 40-year reanalysis project. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 77(3), 437-471. http://doi.org/fg6rf9

 Last name, Intials. (Year). Title, sentence style capitalization. Publisher's name. 

Example:

 Burgess, R. (2019). Rethinking global health: frameworks of power. Routledge. 

Books with multiple authors

 Last name, Initials, & Last name, Initials. (Year). Title, sentence style capitalization (edition, if available). Publisher's name. 

Example:

 Christian, B., & Griffiths, T. (2016). Algorithms to live by: the computer science of human decisions. Henry Holt and Co.

Chapter in edited book

 Last name, Initials. (Year). Chapter title, sentence style capitalization. In Editor (eds.), Title, sentence style capitalization (pages). Publisher's name. 

Example:

 Weinstock, R., Leong, G., & Silva, J. A. (2003). Defining forensic psychiatry: roles and responsibilities. In R. Rosner (Ed.), Principles and practice of forensic psychiatry (2nd ed., pp. 7-13). CRC Press. 

If a conference paper has been published (for example, in a proceedings), the published form is usually either a chapter of an edited book or an article in a journal.

Papers published in conference proceedings, book

Last name, Initials. (Year). Title. In Editor (eds.), Title of proceedings (pages). Publisher's name. 

Example:

Cismas, S. C. (2010). Educating academic writing skills in engineering. In P. Dondon & O. Martin (Eds.), Latest trends on engineering education (pp. 225-247). WSEAS Press.

Papers published in conference proceedings, journal

Last name, Initials., & Last name, Initials. (Year). Article title, sentence style capitalization. Journal title, volume(issue, if available), pages. URL, if no DOI available

Example: 

Chaudhuri, S., & Biswas, A. (2017). External terms-of-trade and labor market imperfections in developing countries: Theory and evidence. Proceedings of the Academy of Economics and Economic Education, 20

The presentation delivered at a conference may only be available as an informally published work online, or may only have been delivered live and is not available in full. 

Paper or session presented at conference, not formally published

Last name, Initials, & Last name, Initials. (Year, Month Day). Title [Paper or poster presentation], sentence style capitalization. Conference name, Location.

Example:

McDonald, E., Manessis, R., & Blanksby, T. (2019, July 7-10). Peer mentoring in nursing - improving retention, enhancing education [Poster presentation]. STARS 2019 Conference, Melbourne, Australia. https://unistars.org/papers/STARS2019/P30-POSTER.pdf

Name v. Name, Volume Source Page (Court Date)

Example:

Lessard v. Schmidt, 349 F. Supp. 1078 (E.D. Wis. 1972)

In-Text Citation 

To cite the reference in text, give the case name, in italics, and the year.

Name v. Name (Year)
(Name v. Name, Year)

Example:

Lessard v. Schmidt (1972)
(Lessard v. Schmidt, 1972)

​In APA Style, most legal materials are cited in the standard legal citation style used for legal references across all disciplines.

A statute is a law or act passed by a legislative body. As with court decisions, statutes exist on both the federal and state levels, such as an act by Congress or by a state government. 

Name of Act, Title Source § Section Number (Year). URL

Example:

Every Student Succeeds Act, 20 U.S.C. § 6301 (2015). https://www.congress.gov/114/plaws/publ95/PLAW-114publ95.pdf

In-Text Citation 
The in-text citation format for a federal statute is similar to that for other APA Style references. Cite the name of the statute and the year.

Example:

Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (2006)
(Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, 2006)

 Last name, Initials, & Last name, Initials. (Year). Title, sentence style capitalization (Report number, if available). Publisher's name.URL. 

Example:

 National Cancer Institute. (2018). Facing forward: life after cancer treatment (NIH Publication No. 18-2424). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health. https://www.cancer.gov/publications/patient-education/life-after-treatment.pdf

 Last name, Initials. (Year). Title, sentence style capitalization. Journal name, volume, starting page. 

Example:

 Martin, L. H. (1991). Case worker liability for the negligent handling of child abuse reports. University of Cincinnati Law Review, 60, 191.

 Last name, Initials, & Last name, Initials. (Year, month day). Title, sentence style capitalization. Newspaper name. URL

Example:

 Guariano, B. (2017), December 4). How will humanity react to alien life? Psychologists have some predictions. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/12/04/how-will-humanity-react-to-alien-life-psychologists-have-some-predictions

Last name, Initials. (Year, Month Day). Title, sentence style capitalization [Webinar]. Organization name. URL

Example:

Anderson, K. (2018, January 23). Disease prevention basics [Webinar]. Montana State University. https://www.montana.edu/webinar/disease-prevention-basics-anderson

 Author or organization name. (Date of publication, if available). Webpage title. URL

Example:

 Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (2018, January 23). People at high risk of developing flu-related complications. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/high_risk.htm

When no date is listed

 Author or organization name. (n.d.). Webpage title. URL

Example:

 National Nurses United. (n.d.). What employers should do to protect nurses from Zika. https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/pages/what-employers-should-do-to-protect-rns-from-zika

Account name. (Date of publication). Video name [Video]. Webpage title. URL

Example:

Asian Boss. (2020, June 5). World’s leading vaccine expert fact-checks COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy: stay curious #22 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQdLDMLrYIA

 (Asian Boss, 2020; Harvard University, 2019)

Contact the Library at library@delval.edu to request a new example and citation help!

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