If you want to start your own music shop or music store but you are not sure how to go about it then here is a big of guidance that will hopefully help steer you in the right direction.
1. Write down all of your ideas, write down everything you want to do and why, include what you would like to stock and sell.
2. Start doing some market research, find out if there is a market for your products and for your business. Find out who your competitors are, where they are, what they are selling and so on.
3. Find out who your target market is going to be, where they are, what they read, what they buy, and where they buy from.
4. Start researching and finding suppliers and getting quotes and invoices for products, services and so on.
TOP TIP: Don’t start off too big. Don’t take on more than you can handle. By all means please think big and aim to be big but don’t put all of your eggs in to one basket when you are starting up.
5. Work out your setup and start up finances, work out what your start up costs will be, and work out how you will finance you new music business, fore example will you get a business loan, or will you perhaps start a music shop from home to start off with.
6. Now work out your businesses finances and by these I mean work out your budget, your cash flow forecasts, profit and loss accounts and so on.
7. Seek free advice and guidance. Find out as much as you can with regards to setting up a music shop or a music store, regulations, laws, accounting, taxation and so on.
8. Put together your business plan. Now that you have all of this information its time to put it all to good use, usually in the form of a business plan which will set out and show you what is going on, what you are going to do, when and why. A business plan will help you see in black and white whether or not a business is viable or not.
9. If your business plan is viable then its best to start working on a marketing plan. A marketing plan will help you see how and where you can market, promote and advertise your shop or store and how much it will cost. Including in your marketing plan should be a marketing budget plus market research to discover and find out what your target market and target audience read and respond to.
TOP TIP: Get some experience within the music industry, from working in a music shop to shadowing a musician or similar. See if this is really an industry you want to enter.
I hope you have found this article both useful and helpful, Remember to do your, don’t jump in head first, take your time and you should achieve better results.
Good luck with starting your own music shop or music store. I wish you every success.
