Self-Assessment
- Assess your entrepreneurial characteristics and business skills
- Examine some steps to take before leaping ahead into a venture of your own
Unit 1 - Concept Development
- Develop a profile which accurately and concisely describes your business idea
- Identify opportunities which will contribute to the success of your business
- Understand the basic concept of marketing as it relates to your customer and your product/service
- Develop a customer profile by market segment
- Recognize and understand trends that influence consumers and impact the potential of a business venture
- Describe direct and indirect types of competition
- Understand the use of Market Research to confirm a viable business opportunity
Unit 2 - Goal Settings and Time Management
- Determine short-term and long-term goals and prioritize steps to their implementation.
- Examine strategies for managing time and improving daily productivity
- Understand your responsibilities and get to know yourself
- Determine the location, office equipment and furniture that you need to run your business efficiently
- Learn how to set up a home-based business
Unit 3 - Marketing Strategy
- Understand the importance of marketing to the success of the business enterprise
- Describe the customer, product/service, and tools to be used to promote the product/service
- Describe methods of distribution that will be used to get the product/service to market
- Describe the customer profile by market segment
- Describe the current status and trends occurring in any related industries
- Describe direct and indirect competitors
- Increase awareness of legislation which will effect how the business can be operated
- Prepare a list of marketing objectives
- Outline a complete marketing strategy for the product/service
- Describe any value-added service to be offered to the customer
- Prepare a one year sales forecast for the business
- Participants in the program will become familiar with using the computer as a tool to undertake market research, including Internet searches and sourcing information from national and international database
Unit 4 - Promotion Strategy
- Identify the advertising tools that will be most effective for the product and/or service
- Prepare a master promotion calendar for the coming year
- Evaluate the promotion strategy based on the marketing objectives, cost, and time required to prepare the promotion activities
Unit 5 - Legal Issues
- Choose the best method of carrying on the business
- Complete any steps necessary to legally create the selected method of carrying on the business
- Determine if the business will require debt financing for start-up, and if so, determine a source of financing and the securities or collateral available
- Know the process for applying for registration of a trademark and/or patent, if necessary
Unit 6 - Effective Business Communications
- Improve business communications by recognizing and eliminating communication barriers
- Improve listening habits
- Improve presentation skills
- Write effective business letters, memos and emails incorporating the 5 C's of business writing
Unit 7 - Sales and Quality Service
- Assess personal sales performance effectiveness and identify those areas which need improvement
- Assess the needs of customers and outline a plan to sustain long-term customer relationships
- List specific actions to be undertaken to ensure quality customer service
- Identify the methods to be used for measuring customer satisfaction
Unit 8 - Financial Strategy
Part 1 - Personal Financial Management
- Calculate the percentage of net income that is required to pay mortgage and taxes
- Calculate Gross Debt Service Ratio, Total Debt Service Ratio
- Analyze current existing finances to determine monthly profit or loss
- Prepare a breakdown of expenses by percentage of total net monthly household income
- Prepare a realistic monthly household budget
Part 2 - Recordkeeping and Financial Analysis
- Develop a financial record keeping system
- Prepare a Cash Flow Statement and identify assumptions made
- Complete an Income Statement for the first year of operation based on projections in the Cash Flow Statement and identify assumptions made
- Prepare a Balance Sheet and identify assumptions made
- Complete a Start-Up Cost list for the venture
Unit 9 - Anatomy of the Business Plan
- Prepare a detailed overview of the business products and/or services
- Write clear, measurable, specific, and achievable objectives of what is to be accomplished and how it will be achieved
- Develop an organizational chart and job description for all positions
- Write a detailed description of products and/or services to be offered
- Identify major competitors and describe their strengths and weaknesses
- List the methods of advertising to be used, frequency of use and associated budget
- Prepare revenue forecasts and cash flow
- Summarize the major contents of the business plan in a concise, energetic executive summary
Course Fee
$625.00 CAN + HST - includes instructional services, course binder & shipping. To register, contact Rick Gorman at rgorman@phpa.com
Instructor: Larry Bitner
Technical Requirements
- access to the Internet and an e-mail account
- Windows 98 or higher
- Microsoft Office Word 2003
- Microsoft Office Excel 2003
- Adobe Acrobat Reader (5.0 or higher)