Your small business is first and foremost a business, and subject to the same business principles that every business is subject to.

To a great extent, the principles for starting and operating a successful business are the same whether your business is a small business, or a Fortune 500 company.

You must have a product or service that people want or need. You must have a way of informing the people who want or need your product or service, that you have a particular product or service available.

You must also be able to source your product or service, for less than your total cost to market and provide the product or service.

Obviously, the bigger and more complex your business, the more complexities there are which will add costs to the product or service you are selling.

But regardless of how complex your business may be, the principles of what makes a successful business remain the same.

Even the asking of some basic questions at the very beginning of your venture, can have an exponential effect upon the direction your business will take.

This is certainly true when starting a small business.

You are already aware of the principles which go into the creation of a successful business. Now you need to determine how to apply those principles to your unique situation.

The first item to consider is location, which in this hypothetical example is going to be Cape Cod. Now, I haven’t done any in-depth research or studying into this hypothetical business, but it’s reasonable to assume that this business on Cape Cod would be dependent in large part on tourism dollars.

So the first thing you might think, is to go in the direction of a product or service which would be of interest to tourists who happen upon your place of business. But you can never forget your local customer base either.

It’s a good thing to keep in mind that tourist season does not last all year long, even on Cape Cod. You will have to determine whether you are going to close up shop when tourist season ends, or if you are going to include a product line or incorporate an element into your product line, which will not only attract tourist dollars, but will also be of ongoing interest to your local customer base outside of tourist season.

So, what product or service do people who visit or live on Cape Cod want or need? I don’t know. That’s for you to decide.

The point is, in a situation like the one I just described, one important aspect of your decision-making process will be to determine if your focus is going to be primarily upon tourism, or primarily upon local customers, or a mixture of the two.

Your initial plans concerning your marketing, depend upon your answer to the first question.

Obviously, your marketing will be different to tourists than it will be to locals.  Maybe the differences will be subtle, but there will be differences depending upon the product or service you provide, and the group of potential customers you are targeting with your marketing message.

As for the third point I raised at the beginning, the sourcing of your product or service would remain the same regardless of what your answer to the previous two points are.

As you can already see, the idea of starting your own small business, takes on an entirely new dimension simply based upon the issue of location. In this example, the basic question of tourists vs. non-tourists, can have a very large impact upon the entire direction of your business.

The time you spend thinking about how you will answer these questions before you start, will go a long way towards ensuring your success.