I have been researching more and I guess there are allot of questions I just don’t have the answers to. With this site and another people have brought up ‘GREAT’ subject to contemplate. One of my BIGGEST Obstacles that I have to address is:

WHAT TYPES OF BUISNESS’S I need to target.

My whole idea for my Business Support Specialist Business is Small to Medium size companies and my biggest offering is Customer Service (After Hours) And I am very good at surveys also. Now I have no clue as to what industry, what types of companies to target..

Did anyone do some type of survey that was sent to
Potential clients? If So what site did you use and is it Expensive?

What types of Industry / Companies / Clients do you
Service? Any feedback would me much appreciated.

__________________
Dawn

Dawn,

What types of companies use surveys? Have you taken surveys recently? I have not but if you have taken any surveys, I would target those companies which may have contacted you.

You might also decide who might want to take a survey and then create a package with one fee that you can present to that company. So for example, say you want to do surveys over the phone for a non-profit, consider creating a package such as 25 phone calls in one hour for XX amount of dollars, which includes a spread sheet with responses and perhaps some kind of analytical assessment.

Be creative and think about businesses you have worked with in the past and ask yourself if you could target those types of businesses and if they would like to have a survey taken by you.

I do not think that you could make a business just by putting together online surveys but I don't want to discourage you. When I have sent out surveys for my clients, I have used Survey Monkey but usually this was part of a service I offered to my clients. One of my specialty services is ezine creation and writing and often I will include a survey with that ezine.

To dig deep into finding the answers to your questions I believe you would need to begin with investigating, WHO is your target market. I wrote a book review here on VAF for The Wealthy Freelancer and there is an entire section devoted about finding your target market. I highly recommend that book to jumpstart your business.

Also you can Google or research here on VAF 'How to Find Your Target Market". Try to keyword in varying ways but here is one such article I found http://www.ehow.com/how_2156161_find-target-market.html .

Read as much as you can and follow the advice of finding that market.

Once you find out specifically who you will be targeting then you will learn to go to those places on the internet or perhaps even locally to market specifically to those individuals. This is key. You can join groups on LinkedIn or Facebook specifically geared those markets and offer valuable information making you the expert that business owners would want to work with. I also highly recommend a blog which will help attract customers to you.

As far as offering Customer Service...this is a good idea for a service and I want to encourage you to move forward, however, what will your CS entail? Will you work for an ecommerce company selling widgets whereby you will oversee the shopping cart? In which case you would need to be able handle PayPal and shopping cart questions if there are problems with customer orders.

I would suggest that you break down Customer Service further. These will be the specific services that you will sell.

Be sure you have a Business Plan and a Marketing Strategy in place so you have guidelines to follow before you open your doors.

Good Luck.

Janine

__________________
WRITE FAB RFP PROPOSALS & land THE VA job. WinningRFP unveils soon! SignUp www.WinningRFP.com

Janine Thank You so much for all the tips, I am going to research the information and do the Google searches. I just thought this would be something simple to throw together, but Iam finding it is much more in depth. I am not getting discourage I am still very serious about still doing this, I just understand its going to take a bit more time to be sucessful. I am going to look your book up also.

__________________
Dawn

Hi Dawn,

I'm afraid if there was something about entrepreneurship that could be 'thrown together' we'd all be doing it!

Yes, it will take careful planning but you can do it.

Post back here if you have any questions at all.

Janine

__________________
WRITE FAB RFP PROPOSALS & land THE VA job. WinningRFP unveils soon! SignUp www.WinningRFP.com

Thank you for asking the question Dawn and thank you for the informatio Janine. I have so much more research to do!

Terri Randall

Thanks!! I love this forum!! I have picked up so much information here, it is Amazing.

__________________
Dawn

I know my target market is small to medium sized company's and I just want to deal locally. So they would be in my state of Rhode Island. Now I need to narrow it down further as to what type of Industry to seek out. Wanting to take after Hours Calls and other job duties I just need to figure out what companies would be in need.. I only want to do this part time evenings and dedicate my week-ends. So it is going to be a challange to find a few companies that meet that critieria.

__________________
Dawn