My favourite Dragons’ Den lesson this week came courtesy of Carolyne Braid, founder of Pole Fit. Although pole dancing may sound titillating, essentially this was a pitch that tapped into the latest trend for getting in shape. Pole Fit offers fitness classes in Winnipeg and brought in $89k in revenue last year. Braid’s ask of $35k for 20% of her company was to finance studio space, as well selling Pole Fit franchises across Canada.
Braid did not land a deal. The Dragons’ took no issue with her business or how it’s growing. They noted that it’s still a pretty small company with a niche appeal, but their real grievance was her franchise strategy. In order to franchise, you first need to build a national brand – and Pole Fit isn’t there yet. But it was Robert Herjavec who pointed out the real issue when he said, “there is no barrier to entry.” He identified the fact that there is nothing to stop someone else from opening up a Pole Fit-style business in any other Canadian city. Basically, why would someone pay Braid a franchise fee when anyone with a pole could do the same thing?
Barriers to entry is an important concept to consider when analyzing a business idea and SWOT is a great tool to use. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. When you identify the strengths and weaknesses of your business idea, you look at what’s going on inside your company, while identifying opportunities and threats provides a framework to look at what’s going on outside your company. Thinking about all four aspects of your business together will help you to create a strategy that matches your abilities with the realities of the outside business world.
Braid has a great little business that’s riding a current market trend. But if she wants to take her concept national, she’s going to have to do some SWOT analysis to demonstrate how her idea is unique and what she brings to the table.
So spend some time thinking about other companies you know and what their strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities might be. Now have a look at how this framework might apply to you in your business, or even for a new project you’re working on. It’s just four steps, so give it a try. A little SWOT goes a long way.
Smart gals get what they need for their businesses and their lives as inexpensively as possible. While we’ve always been on the frugal side (cheap, cheap, cheap), lately we’ve been delighted with the results we’ve achieved using free web-based software.
Another mompreneur told us about Elance.com – it’s a great way for small businesses to get the help they need. Elance is like eBay, but only for freelance business services. We’ve used Elance to bolster our SEO efforts, but we know other mompreneurs who have used Elance to find freelancers to do administrative work as well as graphic and web design. Basically, you post a job and then you can invite specific firms to bid on the work or else you can leave it for open bid. It’s easy to vet prospective freelancers because, like eBay, people are encouraged to leave feedback after the completion of the work. We loved Elance and are waiting for another chance to use it.
We recently found a slew of fabulous prospective employees using craigslist.ca. The response to our ad was so overwhelming that we had to deactivate it after just a few days. It was a fast, efficient and free way to find new staff.
We also use craigslist and kijiji.ca to offload fleece scraps and other things we can’t use anymore.
We love SurveyMonkey for free questionnaires and surveys, and lots of mompreneurs tell us they can’t live without MailChimp for e-mail marketing.
What free software/web sites do you use to help you keep your business and life running smoothly?
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