Before you spend time and money developing a business plan, it's a good idea to determine your potential for success. Identify areas of strength and weakness, and get insight into your market, competitors, start-up costs, sales and financing. With this, you can make an educated decision about how and where to build your practice.
Gather Income Statistics, Client Usage and Trends
- U.S. Department of Labor (www.dol.gov)
- Professional Associations
- Practitioners in Your Field
- Trade Journals
- State and Local Licensing Agencies
- futureLMT.com Online Resources
Research Potential Markets
- People most likely to utilize your services (See "Target Market," from Issue 4.)
- People or conditions you want to work with
Estimate Supply and Demand
- Calculate the numbers of potential clients in your market
- Find out the average number of people receiving your type of work
- Determine the average number of sessions per client
- Ascertain the number of practitioners in your field in your city
- Project the average number of clients seen by current practitioners
- Divide the potential clients by the number of practitioners