How do I choose the general area of my business?
Well it depends on the business. In some cases it's like real-estate; location, location, location. If your dealership is for Rolls Royce, then generally you don't go to the poorest section of town; generally you go like to the wealthiest part of town. In our area here in California it's probably in Beverly Hills that you'll find a dealership for expensive vehicles. If you carry the same thinking down to everything, every type of business you have, you can see where this fits in. Now, if your clientele are mostly not at the top of the economic scale; if you're actually satisfying the needs of those markets that are underserved, then your location wants to be where you customers are. If your customers are certain ethnic groups; Asian, Hispanic, Jewish, or something, then maybe you want to be where they are if that's the type of product or service you're providing. You want to investigate a location in that sense, and you want to see where you competitors are likely to be. I'm amazed; I don't know how it is in other cities, but here we have a Starbucks; two on every block. How they do that I do not know, but never mind. They've studied that and they've found out that it is profitable for them to do that, but it's very important to be where the customers are and that the customers are sufficient. The market is large enough to take care of a situation where you going to have two retail stores in the same place, especially if it's the same brand or even a competitive brands; it's going to work. Say you look around and measure the people walking in and out and what their buying and so forth. Then, you can do your own little market study and that's how you figure it out.
