In our businesses, we are often in the position of planning a change - either an expansion, a change of direction or some other variation on our current business.
The accepted wisdom in such circumstances is to plan the change, make the changes, measure the results and then make refinements.
- There are situations where a variation on accepted wisdom can make sense. Major changes to small businesses can prove expensive, especially if the changes damage established lines of business that are relied upon for income or for profit to re-invest.
- Some ideas are so radical that many small businesses put them off - usually forever. These radical ideas often have merit and can be tested at low risk - with a well thought out test plan.
You can start your testing by discussing the idea with trusted advisors - although it does pay to avoid the 3 F's (Friends, Fools & Family). If your discussion based testing does not throw up any substantial obstacles, you can then move on to a test implementation.
Your test will be dependent on the nature of your idea but could take the form of a market test where you offer the new product/ service/ process/ ... to selected customers or prospects away from your main markets to test reaction. For a limited period, you operate the idea at lowest possible cost or disruption. Only when the idea is proven do you invest fully in all the items costed into your business plan. Until then, you operate on a shoestring. This does not mean that you are unprofessional, just that you keep extra costs & disruption to a minimum.
Areas to think about:
- Print business cards only
- Microsite linked to your existing web-site instead of a complete change
- Short term property rents - which is a lot easier at present than in a boom- instead of long leases or purchase
- Creative thinking everywhere instead of major investment
When you know what works (and what does not work) - then you can start to scale things up - taking bigger risks with the existing business as you become more confident in the new idea.
