�‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍�� Your second business plan project memorandum will tell r

�‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍�� Your second business plan project memorandum will tell readers about the market for the company you are starting (for the purposes of this assignment, of course.) TOP HEADING Start your memorandum with the following heading: To: (Write here your audience) From: (Your name goes here.) Date: (Type the date here.) Re: (Here you should place some sort of short heading about your business) OPENING Good business documents provide readers a smooth, logical entry as they prepare to read more about what an author has to present. Keep that in mind as you outline and again as you begin writing your assignment. You are expected to start things off with an opening paragraph (or perhaps as many as three, depending on what you determine) that summarizes what you have found out about your market and what other companies might be competitors. Think of this as your thesis paragraph: You are presenting readers a thumbnail sketch of your topic (the market for a particular product or service), where it exists, what type of people or businesses make it up, and how that market is currently served. THE BODY OF YOUR TEXT Once you have completed your opening, look to divide your text into sections that cover the following topics. You should break your text up with subheadings or titles that “announce” or precede each. (This assignment posting uses similar headings.) Your customers. One section should tell readers about your market, what people or businesses it includes and where it is located. You will need as many details, numbers and specifics here as you can gather. You will also need to cite sources in your text. Do not need present your sources in MLA format, but instead mention them in your text with details to indicate just what the source is and the name and date of the publication where you found material. Here’s an example of the format you should use to credit sources: The American Bread Association, a national organization that represents professional bakers, says the Bronx is an underserved market with only 13 full-scale bakeries in operation as of 2008. According to the group’s pamphlet “Why the Bronx Needs More Bakeries,” published in 2009, the borough’s population will require at least 27 by the year 2010. Note that the example here includes numbers, a reference to a recent text, and identification of the organization or group that published the text. Your document should include similar references. Please refer to the readings for guidance. Location (the area or neighborhood that you will serve.) Another section of your memorandum should tell readers about your location of your market, namely the neighborhood or area where you will operate and where you customers are located. Here you should include information about where your market is, what type of neighborhood or town where it is found, and how many potential customers it includes. You will again need to present readers with information that is very specific – details, numbers, specifics, examples and explanations will help you make your point. And again, you will need to reference sources that back up your claims. Your competition. A third section of your memorandum will need to examine competitors. Here, you will tell readers about what companies already service the market you have targeted. You will need to be very specific. Your text will need to include names, addresses and numbers of locations. You should also outline the products primary competitors offer and prices they charge for services. Also be sure to note if there are any gaps between their products and just what your target market needs. WHAT READERS NEED TO KNOW To determine what information you’ll need, think of the questions your marketing memo will need to answer (besides others you may think up): What people or businesses will be paying for your services or buying what you have to sell? Where are they in relation to the location where you plan to open shop and how many customers can you potentially count on? POSSIBLE SOURCES: Industry associations, the local chamber of commerce or business organizations, rival companies and their reports or publications, . Census info, Department of Commerce and Department of Labor information, state agency information, newspaper and magazine articles. Who are your competitors? How many are there? How long have they been around? What do they offer in terms of products and services? What prices do they charge? How is their presentation? POSSIBLE SOURCES: Industry associations, the local chamber of commerce or business organizations, your visits to competitors, rival companies and their reports or publications, . Census info, Department of Commerce and Department of Labor information, state agency information, newspaper and magazine articles. What’s the outlook for your business and its market? What trends affect your proposed business? How do things look nationally, in New York state, in New York City and finally in the borough and neighborhood where you plan to set up? POSSIBLE SOURCES: Industry associations, the local chamber of commerce or business organizations, your visits to competitors, rival companies and their reports or publications, . Census info, Department of Commerce and Department of Labor information, city and state agency information, the borough president’s office, newspaper and magazine articles. Business Plan Project – Your Market Memo Rolling up your sleeves Now turn your attention to the second business plan assignment – the market analysis memo which is due by the end of the day listed for Unit Twelve (see the timetable posted on the assignments homepage.) The document should run a minimum of 1200 words and will have to cover some very specific things that are outlined in paragraphs that follow. Keep this important pointer in mind, however: A lot of the research you do for this memo as well as the sources memo may overlap. Translation: You may be able to do a lot of work for memo 2 at the same time you’re working on memo 1. Working in stages Divide the work on your marketing plan in to two chunks. The first of the two is research, namely the task of gathering facts on your topic or business. The second job is organizing and writing the information you have gathered. Your marketing memo should answer some very basic questions and provide solid proof that you know what you’re talking about. To accomplish both, map out a plan to dig up information – using sources you have already investigated, and, of course, new one you may find as you continue working on your business plan. Do not settle for one source. Look through many sources for information – the Internet, the yellow pages, or your own observations on a visit to a competitor. Cut corners, and your report will be transparent and frankly inadequate. Rely on one or two sources alone and you risk gathering up too little information and having an incomplete understanding of your topic. Rate your sources and select the best. Let’s face facts. Any Joe Blow can set up a website, dump in a few links and slap together some facts in a fancy ‘html’ format supplied by . The downside of the sheer breadth of the Internet, not to mention the web’s accessibility to new site builders is this: The two together can greatly complicate your job of gathering up information. As a result, any Internet research you do will need to include an extra step, namely the task of judging sources and casting aside websites or other publications that just don’t measure up. Again, primary sources such as industry associations, company and government agency reports are invaluable. Another primary source – your own detective work during a visit of a competitor’s shop or establishment – is equally important. Don’t stop there. Solid secondary sources – magazines, newspapers, blogs – can be just as helpful. Combine all of the above and you’ve got a good foundation for your report. You should put your sources through several tests. How recent are your sources and the information they provide? Things change rapidly. Factors that affect your business – competition, the size of the market, the economy, or the needs of customers – may be markedly different from one year to the next. In order to give readers an accurate picture of the business, its competitors and its customers, you’ll need to find up-to-date information. For this report, it’s best to stick to go back no more than five years in time. In many ways, seven years is an absolute cut-off point. Information older than that will simply not be very meaningful for your research. How close are your sources to your market? The miracle of the Internet makes it possible to dig up facts and figures on most every human activity occurring in every corner of the globe. You’ll n‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍eed to sift through the cornucopia or information in order to focus on details that are pertinent to the business you’ve selected and its location. So, if you’re planning to open a taxidermy shop in the Bronx, recent trends in Tasmania, some 16,000 miles away won’t be very meaningful. Always check sources for their geographic origin. How far can you venture from home? The answer is as far as the continental United States. Let me explain. While your primary focus is likely to be one neighborhood nearby, citywide or regional trends – the local economy, the number of competitors within a 10 to 20 mile radius of your business – are likely to have meaningful impact on your company. The same holds true for New York state or the tri-state region. Finally, sources that track developments nationwide may yield very substantive numbers and details for your report, particularly if you are focused on selling something via the Internet, a network that effectively shrinks the distance between you and your customers. Remember, though, that as a rule of thumb, the further you venture from your home market to gather information, the less meaningful what you collect will tend to be. Of course, details, numbers, explanations, examples and specifics are very, very important. Don’t neglect your audience. They’re giving you a chance to make a convincing presentation. You’ve got readers’ attention, but that said, remember that they don’t know what you do. They’re seeking your help. They need proof. The same tools that helped you make a strong case in your personal statement, resume and cover letters work just as well here. Find them and use them. Credit your sources. Be sure to mention the source of key facts and figures – otherwise, readers have no reason to believe. Protect the credibility of your document. Two: Writing The key to writing long reports is remarkably simple. It’s essentially a matter of breaking lengthy text into smaller chunks or building blocks, depending on the metaphor you prefer. Think of paragraphs as the most fundamental of these. Sound paragraphs, of course, focus upon one topic or idea. For you, the writer, paragraphs can help you keep from getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information you’ve managed to gather. They can help you finish the work you have to do methodically, one piece, or one topic at a time. To work well, good paragraphs require an outline, a blueprint that helps you plan what topics or themes to cover in your report. Sections are another organizational building block. They are typically made up of two, three or four paragraphs that cover similar topics or facets of the same theme. Many report writers separate sections with subheads or titles to let reader know what is covered in the paragraphs ahead – you’ll see plenty of examples of this very technique in the Inc. and Entrepreneur magazine article links that were posted last week . Sections make it possible to work your way through a text where separate topics might not link together very easily. Sections for your business plan might include (note: we’ve given the subheads here as a guide): Location My Customers The Donut Business Is Growing There Are Few Rivals in the Business Sections, of course, work best as part of a well-planned outline. Devote time to your outline, your business plan’s blueprint, and it will be considerably easier to shape and write a text from a long list of facts and sources. Market Research for Your Second Business Plan Memorandum The following Internet links offer up a wealth of ideas to help you research your market and competitors for your second business plan memo. Please note: Use these articles to generate ideas and follow up on some of the sources they point out. While you may find them helpful for the first two business plan memos, these specific articles listed below will not count toward the 10 sources you must find and summarize for your sources assignment. More Detail on Details: Numbers This much is certain: If you’re looking to make your writing more convincing whether at work, at school or even for fun, you have to know how to use numbers and when and where they belong in important documents. That’s simply because numbers are critical. They show the magnitude of your topics – just how big or small it is and can often spell out reasons why. They track trends and show growth or shrinkage. They make it possible to quantify and compare. In the world of professional writing, thinking in numbers gives readers the power to judge and conclude. What’s more, numbers convey a large amount of information in a small textual space – a blink of an eye. The numeral 10,000 gives readers an instantaneous value, something that says, “many” or “more” or “considerable.” Pair that figure with another “10,000 from 30” and readers suddenly get a clearer message: It may be that something is booming, getting worse, or improving markedly. More on to Use Numbers Now that we’ve seen the power of numbers, let’s step back and take in a few considerations on how to best use them. Numbers are Perishable. Yes, numbers have what you might say is a shelf life or expiration date. Writers must always take that into consideration since old or “stale” numbers render your point or topic less relevant. Company, government or nonprofits numbers or statistics only matter for a finite amount of time. The fresher the numbers the more authoritative (read: better) your text is. Here’s an example: Let’s consider a document that is due to appear in 2016 or 2017 which includes numbers that track the latest immigration trends to the Penrose Park neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri. If the author’s very latest figures date from 2013, 2014 or even 2015, readers will probably be satisfied that conclusions in the document are accurate and up-to-date. If the latest numbers stretch back to 2012 may start readers thinking about whether newer statistics are available or if a major change may have taken place in the period since the source research came out. That conjecture, unfortunately, sets off a chain reaction of reader doubts that can range in wondering if your report is accurate to whether or not you’ve worked hard enough. Yes, it’s always good to make comparisons to earlier numbers, but only if you have fresh data or statistics to track the latest developments in your topic. Better sources make for better numbers. Citing sources is always critical when you put numbers to work in your text. That’s because sourcing gives readers greater – or lesser confidence – in your factual content. Numbers gain credibility from the sources you cite as well. Readers will respect figures from primary sources – the Census Bureau, the Center for Disease Control – far more than or – especially since many secondary and tertiary sources turn to the likes of government agencies and expert groups for the information they put out. Numbers should often travel in pairs – or groups. You might call it providing context. Numbers gain significant meaning when they are grouped together. When readers come across a passage that says four charter schools are open in Des Moines, Iowa, in many ways they are puzzled. That figures seems like a small number – but maybe it’s a big improvement. Perhaps it means that the local board of education is changing its policy . . . and then again, maybe it doesn’t mean that. You get the point. A solitary, lonely number set out on its own leads your readers off track as they wonder about a number of things that don’t have to do with the immediate point you want to make. That’s not good. Find the stylistic rules and stay consistent. There are a handful of important rules about the use of numbers in text. We’ll list a few here. First off, don’t start sentences with digits (1 or 516 rather than “One” or “Five hundred sixteen”). Here, the fix is rather simple – either spell out numbers are the very beginning of your sentence or else change the wording of your sentence so the digit doesn’t appear. Here’s a good rule of thumb: Within your text, spell out numbers nine and below as words (one truck, six apples, eight adolescents . . . ) a‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‌‌‍‍‍‌‍‍‍‍‌‍‍nd use digits for 10 to 999,999. Writing about millions, billions or trillions: Use a digit followed by the denomination in question. In other words: “3 million” or “173 billion”.