By searching through libraries, websites, associations, competitors and affiliations you can gather some very useful information. While conducting your research you will be searching for answers to the following questions:

• How big is the market?
• Is it expanding or shrinking?
• What key publications and other media are being used to advertise?
• What are the advertising costs?
• Who are the competitors (check the yellow pages and conduct local or regional internet searches)?
• Is the subject business competitive?
• Where does the subject business fit amongst the competition?
• What is the competition spending on advertising?
• Where is the competition advertising?
• Are there any major growth areas?
• Are there any new product trends?
• What are the industry distribution channels?
• What sales/marketing applications are being used within industry?
• Who is the industry/market leader?
• Where is this business ranked within the industry?

The above represents a sample of the type of questions that will help you gain relevant insight into the business that you are interested in buying and the industry in which it operates.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 1:21 am and is filed under Buying a business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.