Develop A Business Plan With A Proper Unique Selling Point (Research Paper Sample)

Business Plan for Cindy’s Wedding Planner
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Executive Summary
Cindy’s Wedding Planner is a full service firm that offers complete consulting services for anniversaries, holy unions and weddings. Our consultants have a wealth of knowledge and experience and are dedicated towards providing exceptional services to ensure client satisfaction. With over 15 years’ cumulative experience, our consultants and wedding planners ensure that we provide our customers with unique and undivided attention. We keenly listen to customer needs and work towards creating the event of their dreams. Our mantra is that “the customer’s dream is our reality” as we work towards satisfying the wishes of our clients. Regardless of the kind of event you are planning, Cindy’s Wedding Planner is your go-to planner and consultant.
Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Executive Summary PAGEREF _Toc498625432 \h 1Introduction PAGEREF _Toc498625433 \h 1Name of the Business PAGEREF _Toc498625434 \h 1Industry Outlook PAGEREF _Toc498625435 \h 2Type of Business PAGEREF _Toc498625436 \h 3Business Plan Structure PAGEREF _Toc498625437 \h 3Marketing Mix PAGEREF _Toc498625438 \h 3Place PAGEREF _Toc498625439 \h 3Product PAGEREF _Toc498625440 \h 4Price PAGEREF _Toc498625441 \h 5Promotion PAGEREF _Toc498625442 \h 5Market Segmentation PAGEREF _Toc498625443 \h 6Target Market Segment Strategy PAGEREF _Toc498625444 \h 6Management and Employees PAGEREF _Toc498625445 \h 7Customers PAGEREF _Toc498625446 \h 8Future Plans PAGEREF _Toc498625447 \h 9Wedding Fairs PAGEREF _Toc498625448 \h 9Valentine’s Day Parties PAGEREF _Toc498625449 \h 9TV Show PAGEREF _Toc498625450 \h 10Wedding Décor Hiring Services PAGEREF _Toc498625451 \h 10References List PAGEREF _Toc498625452 \h 10
Introduction
Name of the Business
Cindy’s Wedding Planner is a business that focuses the provision of holy union, wedding and anniversary consulting and planning services to brides, grooms and other family members. The business will focus on providing couples around the United Kingdom with professional planning and execution services for their weddings while giving them a peace of mind to enjoy their engagement party, wedding ceremony, honeymoon and ultimately their marriage. By providing clients with exceptional services, Cindy’s Wedding Planner is poised to become the go-to wedding planning company in Britain.
Industry Outlook
-381002077720SOURCE: hitched.co.uk, 2017SOURCE: hitched.co.uk, 2017According to a popular wedding website in the UK, UK’s wedding industry is worth well over £10bn with an expected growth in the coming years as more people get married (hitched.co.uk, 2017, p.1). A typical wedding celebration in the UK may cost a minimum of £36,000 from planning, engagement all the way to the honeymoon. Most of the money used in the wedding is often contributed by the wedding guests who often call for high accountability with regards to how their funds are used.
Of the money spent on a typical wedding celebration in the UK, 59% is often spent on guest expenses, 33% on the wedding day and the remaining 8% is spent on honeymoon (hitched.co.uk, 2017, p.1). This therefore calls for good wedding planning professionals to help the couples with the planning and apportioning of funds in order to ensure a smooth celebration. Data from Office for National Statistics show that there were 240,854 opposite sex marriages in the UK in 2013 and the figure increased by 2.7% to 247,372 in 2014 (ONS, 2017, p.1). Most of the marriages recorded over this period were between individuals aged between 25 and 29 years. These statistics cumulatively show that there is high demand for wedding planners in the UK.
Type of Business
The business will commence as a simple proprietorship, owned by its founders Steve and Cindy Machala. However, as the operations increase the owners will look into upgrading it into either a corporation or a limited liability company depending on the business needs. The simple proprietorship model is best suited for startup to ensure that the founders have a more hand-on approach to business operations and are able to make immediate decisions regarding the future and operations of the business. Additionally, this saves on cost as the company will only employ about three other people to help the founders with the operations of the business.
Business Plan Structure
Marketing Mix
To explain the marketing mix for Cindy’s Wedding Planner, McCarthy’s 4 Ps of marketing will be used. These represent place, product, price and promotion.
Place
Initially, this will be a home based business with a strong online presence. However, after two years of operational, we will expand the facilities of the business into a well-equipped and highly operational business. A Forbes (2011, p.1) article argues that starting home-based businesses is good for both the entrepreneur and the business as it allows more time to work and less time to commute. Cindy’s Wedding Planner offices will occupy the basement of our house but we will be available on call to meet with clients and customers wherever, whenever. This will therefore enhance the flexibility of our operations.
Secondly, setting the business at home will enable us test out different approaches to the business without too much overhead costs. With statistics pointing to a 50% failure rate in all new startups in the UK (Forbes, 2011, p.1) starting Cindy’s Wedding Planner will enable us test out the business and invest wisely as the business matures into self-sustenance. Additionally, since the office space is not rented and there are no separate telephone or office utilities expenses, the overall costs of running the business is relatively low.
A recent report revealed that 40% of the world population has access to social media (Williams, 2017, p.1). Of this 42 million are from the United Kingdom and the bulk of which are within the 25-29 years age bracket that is equally leading in having weddings (Statista.com, 2017, p.1). With Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram being the leading social media sites in the UK, having an online presence is important for Cindy’s Wedding Planner as it will enable the transformation of social media sites into offices through which we can interact with our customers with a lot of ease. Cindy’s Wedding Planner’s place strategy therefore is hinged on being available to the customers whenever needed, wherever needed.
Product
Cindy’s Wedding Planner is a full-service wedding consultant company that aims at providing a number of services to its customers. These services include etiquette advice, discounted invitations and products, rehearsal attendance, event scheduling, vendor confirmation, supervision of the ceremony and reception as well as setup and budget planning. Being in the service industry, we recognize the importance of customer centricity. Our service portfolio is therefore geared towards creating an experience for both the couple and guests at the wedding ceremony.
Price
Cindy’s Wedding Planner will implement three pricing strategies that will be determined by a number of factors including logistical requirements, client needs, client’s budget restrictions and the timeframe allocated for the planning of the event. Effectively, the company may use an hourly rate or a percentage of the total cost of the wedding. For the full-service offering, we will charge between 15-20% of the total cost of the wedding. However, the minimum starting rate for our services is £5000. For clients who will opt out of the full-service offering and prefer either the partial planning, event design or wedding day coordination services, a packages pricing strategy will be used for each of the package selected by the client. The package fee will vary from £6000 to £12000. Lastly, clients who will prefer hourly rates will have to agree on the number of hours that will be spent on the planning process and compensation done as agreed.
Promotion
Our promotion strategy will be informed by three critical issues: the target market; financial constraints; and efficacy of the promotion channels. For starters, we will primarily market our services via internet on our social media platforms. Most of the market Cindy’s Wedding Planner is targeting with its services is tech-savvy and available on the internet. We will therefore implement a disruptive social media marketing strategy to reach this target market. With time, we will start organizing for wedding fairs, Valentine’s day’s parties and other couples’ session which will serve to provide valuable information and consultative services to people who are single, dating, engaged or married and also market Cindy’s Wedding Planner as the go-to wedding planner in London. Apart from these, we will also do TV, radio and newspaper adverts especially during the festive season when more people tend to wed. As part of our promotion strategy, we intend to in five years’ time to collaborate with one of the leading TV stations in London and produce a wedding show that will showcase all the weddings that we will have planned and executed successfully. All these will work towards promoting both the company and the various services being offered.
Market Segmentation
209550301561500While the excitement and flash of an oncoming nuptial can be invigorating, it can be prodigious and therefore at Cindy’s Wedding Planner, we market our services to the people who need them the most – brides and grooms. With over 200,000 marriages happening in the UK every year, the rate is expected to remain the same for quite some time. While there are several wedding planning companies in the UK, the numbe...