Week 7 · Readings & resources

Week 7 — Readings & Resources

Introduction to Business Free sample edition

Your primary reading is Chapter 7 (in this module). Everything below is the optional, go-deeper layer — pick what helps, skip the rest.

How to use this page

This page has 11 items (5 readings and 6 videos). Allow 49–57 minutes for everything. Each group links back to the matching chapter section and class-session segment, so use the full menu when you want more, or take the quick path below.

Every video here has captions: turn them on with the CC button in the player. The chapter covers the same ideas in text.

Pick-one quick path (18–21 min total)

① Choosing whom to serve

Chapter 7, Section “Choose whom to serve: target markets and segmentation” · Session 1, Segment 2, “Split, then choose” · Remember: a business does better when it splits its market into groups and chooses the group it can serve best.

Value Proposition and Customer Segments: Crash Course Business - Entrepreneurship #3 — CrashCourse — an episode on two linked questions, what value a business delivers and who its customers are; as you watch, connect the customer-segment part to the chapter's four bases for splitting a market. (video, 12 min) (captions: creator)
Target Marketing Explained — The Business Safari — a short animated explainer on finding the customers a business should aim at and splitting its audience into groups; listen for how choosing a target sharpens the offer. (video, 5 min) (captions: creator)
What is a target market — Business Development Bank of Canada — a national development bank's one-screen glossary entry on a target market as the set of customers a business chooses to serve, and on why no business can be all things to all people; read it as a check on the chapter's definition. Use it with the first goal in the Week-7 module overview, segmenting a market and choosing a target market. (reading, 2–3 min)

② Building the marketing mix

Chapter 7, Section “Build the mix: the four Ps” · Session 1, Segment 3, “Place is the path, not the pin” · Remember: the four Ps are product, price, place, and promotion, and place covers every decision about how the offer reaches the buyer.

The 4 Ps of Marketing Explained — The Business Safari — a short animated explainer on product, price, place, and promotion and how they work together; as you watch, fill in the four Ps for the coffee cart. (video, 3 min) (captions: creator)
Manage your business: marketing and sales — U.S. Small Business Administration — the federal small-business agency's guide to a marketing plan, starting with the target market and covering pricing and the action plan; read the marketing-and-sales part, whose closing note on operations builds on Week 6's work on how a business makes its product, and skip the payment section that follows. (reading, 4–6 min)

③ Finding the break-even point

Chapter 7, Section “Find the break-even point: fixed and variable costs” · Session 2, Segment 6, “Divide by what each sale leaves over” · Remember: divide the fixed costs by what each sale leaves over after its variable cost, never by the price.

Break-Even Analysis: How to Calculate the Break-Even Point Explained — Two Teachers — a classroom explainer that works through the break-even point step by step and adds two ideas beside it, contribution and the margin of safety; match its contribution to the chapter's per-unit margin and treat the margin of safety as extra. (video, 9 min) (captions: creator)
Covering fixed and variable costs — nibusinessinfo.co.uk — a regional government business service's short page on fixed costs that stay put and variable costs that rise with sales, with a worked example of what each sale contributes toward fixed costs; read the example and compare its arithmetic with the coffee cart's. (reading, 3–4 min)

④ Markup, margin, and launch prices

Chapter 7, Section “Compare markup and margin: one gap, two percentages” · Session 2, Segment 7, “One gap, two percentages” · Remember: markup divides the gap by the cost and margin divides it by the price, so the two percentages differ.

Margin versus Markup — The Finance Storyteller — a finance explainer on why margin divides profit by the selling price and markup divides it by the cost; check that its example gives a larger markup than margin, as the cart's does. (video, 3 min) (captions: creator)
Price Skimming Strategy — Christopher Doyle — a quick drawn overview of how a skimming launch works in practice; as you watch, say what the opposite strategy, penetration pricing, would do instead. (video, 1 min) (captions: automatic)
Different types of pricing tactics — nibusinessinfo.co.uk — the same business service's list of pricing tactics; read the skimming and penetration entries closely and skim the others, which go beyond this week. (reading, 3–5 min)

Optional one-stop reference (free online reference)

Plan your business: calculate your startup costs — U.S. Small Business Administration — the federal small-business agency's guide, which this course returns to; read the break-even part for what the break-even point is and why it matters to a plan, and skip the other planning topics. (reading, 4–6 min)

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell your instructor and use the reference above in the meantime.

Provenance: Built with The Course Maker · samples.thecoursemaker.com