7 Guidelines On How To Assess Potential Location For Your Business

In this article, I will be sharing some tips on how could someone assess a potential location or in other words, a site evaluation. This is because in the 4Ps (or5Ps) of Marketing, Placement or simply the Place where you want your business to operate must be accessible to your target customers. An entrepreneur, whose business is in a photocopying industry, would choose a location near Colleges and Universities rather than just catering an Elementary and Secondary schools. Of course the location he has chosen will be much better if he can cater all school levels in just one place!

The following are the seven (7) guidelines I would recommend to those who are looking for, or assessing a location:

Guideline Number 1. IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET CUSTOMER
Who are the users and buyers of your product or service? This question can be a good guide on pondering what or who are your customers that will be buying your product and service. Try to identify as specific as possible from age bracket, gender, income bracket, or even with their buying behavior depending on the type of product and service that you will be offering to them. Example, if you are into an internet cafe business, and will be offering, an internet service, computer rentals and pc gaming you may identify your target customers as Students (Secondary and Tertiary), Professionals (yuppies) when it comes to community status, or from 15 to 30 years old, when it comes to age brackets. As I have said earlier, you can still breakdown this into several brackets depending on the product or service that you will be offering.

Guideline Number 2. OBSERVE and CONDUCT A HEADCOUNT
If you have already a target location, visit that place and observe if your target customer is within the vicinity. Do your target customers exist there? How many are they? Is the foot traffic overwhelming or very few? These questions should be answered by properly monitoring the location. You should conduct a head count for 5 minutes preferably 5 times in a day. Perhaps, a 'push button counter' device is needed for doing this activity. It is also recommended to choose at least 2 peak days and 2 off peak or lean days in one week to repeat the head counting. This will give you a strong grasp on the behavior of your target customers. Weather condition should also be noted down during the head counting as this is a determining factor on the success or failure of achieving target sales in a day or a week.

Guideline Number 3. LIST DOWN NEARBY ESTABLISHMENTS IN RELATION TO YOUR TARGET CUSTOMER
Nearby schools, offices, buildings, hospitals, malls, amusement parks, parking area of public utility transport, gymnasiums, and other establishments must be list down wherein your target customers frequently come and go. This can be you hint on how they behave and why they are there in the vicinity. These establishments can also be considered as potential target for your extended services in the future.

Guideline Number 4. DO NOT FORGET YOUR COMPETITORS
Always make sure to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors may it be direct or indirect and even those businesses that can be a good source as alternatives in lieu of you product and services offered. Widen your scope so that you will have enough knowledge of your competitors in the vicinity. Think of ways on how to be more aggressive in doing business operations and become better over them.

Guideline Number 5. FOR THE LOCATION ITSELF: DETERMINE ALL EXPENSES TO BE PAID
If you found your target location or site potential or become a good source of income for your business, do not forget to inquire all expenses to be paid like utilities expense, rentals, taxes, etc. It is a good thing if you own the location but if you are planning to rent, then better determine and include it in your computations for your statement of accounts.

Guideline Number 6. FOR THE LOCATION ITSELF: CUSTOMER SAFETY FIRST!
Well, this is an add on but if you consider the security of the customer first and ensuring your location as free of danger environment, then it will be a plus or even great for the customers.

Guideline Number 7. EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Somehow the result of your assessment for the target location will end up not aligning to your expected result. But could you imagine of the worse thing to happen if you will not follow these guidelines? Well as entrepreneurs, we are more risk takers. But if there is a chance to calculate the risk we will be facing, why not have a calculated risk first rather than jumping immediately into the trap of failure?

Note:
This article has been provided by the author based on his actual experience while working in a food cart company. The author is willing to help for any request of site evaluation or assessment especially for starting up entrepreneurs who need to have a more comprehensive site or location review.