Are Your Customers Ready For Your Horse Business Ideas?

You may have some fantastic equine businessideas and have written some brilliant horse business plans, but the sad fact isthat unless there is a need for you equine product or service in the area youintend to market to then that is all they are… equine business ideas andhorse business plans!

Before you start your horse business, thereare some important questions to ask yourself about your potential customers.

What type of customer is your businesstargeted towards? People who have their own horse? People who don’t have theirown horse? People who ride for pleasure or serious competitors? People who rideregularly?

You should be able to describe your idealcustomer that is interested in your horse product or equine service.

An ideal customer is one that

a) wants your product or services

b) has the finances to be able to pay for yourproduct or services and

c) has the authority to pay for your product.

In identifying the type of customers you wantto attract or that your horse business is aimed towards you will be able toplan your equine business and marketing better so that it is suited in thatdirection.

Ask yourself some questions when figuring outwho your ideal customers are:-

Who do you think yourideal customer will be?

What are the needs orproblems of the ideal customer?

How will you addressthose needs/problems?

Are your idealcustomers businesses or individuals?

What will be mostimportant to these customers?

What will beunimportant to them?

How can you addresswhat is and isn’t important to them?

Your business mayappeal to a wide variety of horse people but it will profit most from yourideal customer.

What is it that your customers want from yourbusiness? Is there a service or product you can supply better in the area or isthere another business which can’t meet the local demand?

Do Your Horse Business Ideas Align with YourPersonal Goals?

Once you have decided on your ideal businessyou should also consider that operating your own horse business is likely tohave an affect on other aspects of your life.

If you can align your personal goals with yourequine business objectives it will help in identifying priorities and preventdistraction from your equine business plans. This is ideal if you love tocompete and you plan to have a horse business buying and preparing competitionhorses for sale and coaching competition riders. But it could be disastrous ifyou love to go to horse competitions on the weekend and your horse businessideas include running a riding school every weekend.

Writing down both your personal goals and yourhorse business plans gives you a sense of direction and will help to distinguishwhat is important to you.

You can test your commitment to achieving yourgoals and to check if they are right for you by asking some questions:-

Is it a goal you wantor is it a goal someone else wants for you?

Do you know how youare going to set about to achieve this goal?

How do these goals fitwith where you want to be in twenty years? Will this goal help you get there?

Does the goal meet andabide by your values?

Is this achievable inthe given timeframe?

Goals which answer’no’ to any of these questions may need to be reconsidered to avoid frustrationin the long run.

Short term goals assist in building towardslong term goals and all goals should be reviewed regularly to make any changesto correspond with those in your life. For instance, you may plan to compete ata high level on a horse that you have bred. This is a long term goal that canbe broken into smaller goals such as

Savings plan topurchase the stud fee

Preparation for themare to go to stud

Handling of the foal

Regular training of thefoal

As the foal becomesold enough, riding the foal

Training for firstcompetition

Competition plan forthe year

Plan for competing ata higher level

Plan for teamselection

And so on

The benefits ofsetting long term goals are greater motivation and higher levels of self-esteemand confidence.

Here are some simple steps to help define andrealise your goal.

1.Write down the goal

2.Give yourself atimeframe for achieving it

3.Describe what you needto do to achieve it

4.List any knowledge orskills that will be required to reach the goal

The preferred method for goal settingstrategies is the Map Method

Where do you want tobe?

Where are you now inrelation to it?

How are you going toget there?

Make a map and followit!

The S.W.O.T. analysiscan also benefit goal setting strategies, but is less effective than the MapMethod.

When you come up with an equine business idea,the main thing is that you can align your personal goals with your horsebusiness plans and that your horse business ideas are making you happy