Free takeaway: Business Basics worksheet pack

Worked example to compare with: Imagine a neighborhood bakery

• Goal: bring in more weekday customers without hiring anyone.
• Situation: Maria bakes from 4 a.m. and serves customers until 6 p.m., so she has about an hour a week for marketing. Her online listing shows the wrong opening hours and has no photos.
• Plan: a marketer fixes the listing first (hours, photos, menu), asks happy regulars for reviews, and turns one photo session into three posts a week.
• Result to look for: more calls and walk-ins from the listing, and a steady trickle of new reviews within a month.
• Takeaway: the best first moves for a small business cost almost nothing and fit around an owner's limited time.

Worked example to compare with: From a vague customer to a target market

• Before: "Our customers are women who like beauty products."
• After: "Women in their 20s and early 30s who live in cities, buy skincare online, follow creators for product advice, read ingredient lists and want a short routine."
• Why it works: the second version tells you where to advertise (creator platforms), what to say (simple routines, honest ingredients) and what to show (real skin, not heavy makeup).
• Check: could you write an ad that speaks to this person and nobody else? If yes, the definition is specific enough.

Worked example to compare with: Narrowing a market step by step

• Broad market: fitness. Millions of competitors and a vague audience.
• Narrower: fitness for new parents. Better, but still wide.
• Niche: 20-minute home workouts for new parents with no equipment. Specific, easy to describe and easy to find in parenting communities.
• Check: is it specific (can you name the person)? Is it reachable (where do they gather online)? Is it big enough (do people search for it and spend money on it)?

Worked example to compare with: Writing a value proposition in one pass

• Formula: For [customer] who [need], [product] is a [category] that [main benefit]. Unlike [alternative], we [difference].
• Draft: For small offices that cannot afford downtime, FixFast is a laptop repair service that returns your machine the same day. Unlike big-box repair counters, we come to you and refund the fee if we miss the deadline.
• Revised: Same-day laptop repair for small offices, or it is free.
• Check: show it to five people and ask what the business does. If three or more answer correctly, it works.

Worked example to compare with: Turning a SWOT into priorities

• Pair a strength with an opportunity: loyal regulars plus a new office tower means an office catering offer launched through the existing customer list.
• Pair a weakness with a threat: no online ordering plus a chain opening nearby means adding online ordering before the chain arrives.
• Result: two clear marketing priorities instead of a list of eight observations.
• Check: every priority should connect a box in the grid to an action with an owner and a date.

Worked example to compare with: Plan your first month

• Week 1: finish this course and write your learning goals.
• Week 2: choose one channel (such as social media or SEO) and start its course.
• Week 3: complete the worksheets from both courses and save them in one folder.
• Week 4: turn your best worksheet into the first piece of your portfolio and apply for an apprenticeship.
• Result: after one month you have two completed courses, a portfolio piece and a clear next step.

Worked example to compare with: Finding and fixing the weak point

• Problem: the booking button is buried at the bottom of the mobile page, so people who want to try the gym give up at the decision stage.
• Fix: add a one-tap "Book a free trial" button at the top of the mobile page and in the business profile.
• Metric: trial bookings per week, compared with the four weeks before the change.
• Takeaway: a journey map is useful when it points to one specific fix.

Worked example to compare with: Matching tactics to the stage

• Business: a new coffee shop.
• Early traction: it fills seats with referrals and local social posts, and tracks how many new customers say a friend sent them.
• Growth: with a steady base, it adds a loyalty card and a catering offer.
• Expansion: before a second location, it tests which neighborhoods already order from it online.
• Takeaway: the goal changed at each stage, so the marketing changed with it.

Worked example to compare with: Reading a one-line report

• Report: "Last week: 12,000 impressions, 3,000 reach, 240 clicks and 12 purchases."
• Frequency: 12,000 impressions divided by 3,000 reach means each person saw the ad about four times.
• Click-through rate: 240 divided by 12,000 is 2%.
• Conversion rate: 12 divided by 240 is 5%.
• Takeaway: knowing the terms turns a line of numbers into a story about where people dropped off.

Worked example to compare with: Two campaigns, counted honestly

• Campaign A: ad spend $800 plus $200 for design is a $1,000 cost. It produced $1,500 in sales. ROI is ($1,500 − $1,000) ÷ $1,000 × 100 = 50%.
• Campaign B: ad spend $1,000, a $150 tool and five hours of work valued at $30 an hour ($150) is a $1,300 cost. It produced $3,000. ROI is ($3,000 − $1,300) ÷ $1,300 × 100, about 131%.
• Result: B is clearly better, even after counting the tool and the labor.
• Check: if you leave out labor and tools, B looks like 200% and flatters the result. Count every cost.

Worked example to compare with: Checking that the four Ps agree

• Product: gluten-free loaf. Price: $9, higher than regular bread. Place: sold only in the shop at 10 a.m. Promotion: an ad promising "everyday low prices".
• Problem: the promotion contradicts the price, and selling only at 10 a.m. misses the customers who need it for breakfast.
• Fix: promote it as a premium everyday staple, offer pre-orders for early pickup, and drop the "low price" message.
• Takeaway: change one P and check whether the other three still match.

Worked example to compare with: A mix for a restaurant opening

• Paid: a small local ad for opening week, $200.
• Owned: a menu page, an email signup and opening-week photos on the restaurant's own profile.
• Earned: invite two local food bloggers and ask happy guests to leave reviews.
• Result to look for: reservations from the ad, signups from the website and a handful of reviews and mentions.
• Takeaway: each type does a different job, so a plan with only one is fragile.

Worked example to compare with: Rewriting two vague goals

• Vague: "Get more email subscribers."
• SMART: "Add 200 new email subscribers from the website pop-up by June 30."
• Vague: "Improve our social media."
• SMART: "Raise Instagram engagement from 2% to 3% by the end of the quarter by posting three Reels a week."
• Check: each SMART goal can be tracked, discussed and either met or missed.

Worked example to compare with: Catching a data problem before it misleads you

• Report: "500 sign-ups this month."
• Check: the form platform shows 410 sign-ups.
• Cause: 90 of the 500 were duplicate entries and test submissions counted twice.
• Math: 500 minus 90 equals 410, which matches the form platform.
• Takeaway: always reconcile a number against its source before you report it.

Worked example to compare with: Which leak do you fix first?

• Numbers: 10,000 visitors, 3,000 product views, 600 carts, 300 checkouts, 120 purchases.
• Step rates: 30%, 20%, 50% and 40%. Overall: 120 divided by 10,000 is 1.2%.
• Reading it: the lowest step rate is product view to cart (20%), which points to product pages, prices or missing information.
• Impact: lifting that step from 20% to 30% would mean 900 carts instead of 600, and at the later rates about 180 purchases instead of 120.
• Takeaway: fix the weakest step that has a clear cause and measure again.