Market Research?

[atviking]

Hello I am new to the idea of being self employed and I am quite interested. I tried using the search engine on here for market research but I couldnt find anything. Having no educational experience in business I was wondering if someone could give me the right direction to find more info.

I am thinking about starting my own Graphic Design company and eventually my own Film Production company. I also have some ideas for managing artists and commission them to do apperal work for me that I can sell in my own store.

I was wondering how you would go about doing market research and where would I go to find out the job market and demand for graphic design?

Also where would I go to pitch business ideas or film projects?

Any reading recommendations for someone starting out? I know there are tons of entrepreneurial books out there.

Thanks,
Atli

[matdwyer]

For graphic design jobs, check out kijiji and craigslist - you can likely pay about 28-32 grand a year for a solid designer out of school (there is way more designers than jobs generally)

As far as market research, what are you really looking for? statscan is your god when looking at this stuff, but you have to have set goals to figure out what you want. Surveys & interviews will give you more information, but at the same time you need goals to formulate them correctly.

If you have the money, hire a firm, but it WILL not be anything close to cheap.

As far as pitching to people, I may be wrong but I think you pretty well have to prove yourself before you can pitch things. No one will give you the time of day walking off the street. Network yourself, establish yourself, and then you can start pitching ideas once you have the contacts.

[FearSonic]

What sort of film work are you doing?

Plenty of organizations wouldn't mind getting a video made regarding something, if you can do a few for free and get it noticed, that may get your foot in the door.

Unless you are developing your own films, people usually pitch to you their ideas and you help them out on it. At least that's how it happened to me!

[graemew]

In starting our side-business, we made straight-up cold calls to potential clients asking if they would be interested in our services. Not committing to anything, just a simple question. We got various responses from 'we only do in-house work' to 'absolutely, come talk to me when you are established'.

One of the companies that we called suggested one of his clients to us and now we have our first project waiting for us for when we get established in a few months (I am out of town currently). Note that this client is a smaller company and we had not come across them in our market research. Word of mouth really does pay off!

Perhaps mixer opportunities - trade shows, AGMs, whatever's related to your product. Bring business cards, talk to everyone and be friendly/rememberable.