Starting a New Business

Kelly Lee and Noah Walker meet in a marketing

class and recognize they have two things in
common. First, they enjoy working with animals.
Kelly’s family breeds Irish Setters, and Noah
works part-time in a veterinary office. Second,
they both want to be entrepreneurs. After some
initial market analysis, they decide to collaborate
on creating a pet daycare centre, Pet Haven, that
will offer daily workouts for the animals, hourly
playtime and petting with individual handlers, and
clean and roomy cages or containment areas.
To get Pet Haven up and running, Kelly and Noah
realize they must persuade either a bank or other
investors to give them a small business loan. Then
they must persuade potential customers to use their
service.
Persuading Lenders to Fund a Loan
When Kelly and Noah go to the bank to discuss a
loan for Pet Haven, the banker is interested in the
idea but tells them their interest rate will be very
high because they have an insufficient credit
history and no collateral for the loan. He suggests
they ask relatives to co-sign the loan application to
secure a more reasonable rate. In other words, their
parents would have to agree to repay the loan if
Kelly and Noah could not.
Kelly and Noah decide they need to convince their
parents that Pet Haven is a sound financial idea.
To prepare for these meetings, they brainstorm a
list of questions their parents could ask:
 Are you ready to run a business?
 What services will you provide? How do
you know these are the right services? What
will you need to deliver these services?
 Who is your customer base? Are there
enough customers to support your
 What is the competition in our city? What
will you offer to make you stand out?
 Have these kinds of pet daycare businesses
been successful in other towns?
 How will you market your services to your
customers? How will you communicate and
what will you communicate?
 What kind of licensing and credentials do
you need?
 Do you have a location yet? What kind of
space do you need?
 What kinds of equipment do you need?
  What will the start-up costs be for leases,
employees, licenses, advertising, and
equipment?
 What size loan do you need? How will you
repay this loan from cash flow?
 Why don’t you get a job first and get some
experience? You can open a business later.
Question 1: How can Kelly and Noah prepare for
a successfully persuasive conversation with their
parents?
a. What questions require a logical argument,
using claims, reasons, and evidence?
b. How should Kelly and Noah gather information
to support these arguments?
c. How can Kelly and Noah establish credibility
about their ability to run a business and repay a
loan?
d. What kinds of emotional appeals might be
effective as part of their argument to their parents
to motivate action?
Identifying Benefits and Objections
Based on Kelly’s and Noah’s persuasive business
plans, their parents agree to co-sign the loan.
However, they insist that Kelly and Noah begin to
market their business before graduation. As a next
step, Kelly and Noah decide to learn more about
their potential customers:
 What do they know about pet daycare
services?
 What benefits will they perceive from the
service?
 What objections and concerns may prevent
them from using the service?
Question 2: How can Noah and Kelly learn
this information? What would you do?
1. Alone, or with a small group, search the
Internet for animal or pet daycare centres.
Select at least two companies and read
their websites thoroughly. List the
customer benefits that each company
stresses. Which benefits seem most
compelling? What benefits would you
recommend Noah and Kelly stress? Can
you think of other potential benefits you
did not read about on competitors’
websites?
 2. In small groups or as a class, brainstorm
objections that pet owners may raise about
the pet daycare concept. What may
prevent pet owners from using Pet
Haven’s services? What will convince
them to send their pets? Prepare for this
brainstorming by talking to friends and
relatives outside of class and getting their
opinions. For each objection or question,
give Kelly and Noah ideas about how to
anticipate those issues in their marketing
materials. What objections should they
refute and how? What objections might
they concede and how?
Building Credibility through a Website
Noah and Kelly know that small businesses
need to have a presence on the web to
attract customers. However, they are not
sure how best to use a website to increase
their credibility with potential customers,
especially because they are new to the
business and do not have much experience
Question 3: Working by yourself or with a
small group of classmates, identify at least two
 ways that Noah and Kelly can use their
website to increase their credibility as part of
their persuasive strategy.

Writing a Persuasive Sales Message

As a next step, Kelly and Noah compose two sales
letters for Pet Haven. One is targeted at pet owners
in the area. The other is more personalized,
targeted to pet owners Kelly and Noah know.
Question 4: Noah and Kelly have brainstormed
some claims that they would like to include in the
sales letters. Evaluate each claim to determine
whether it can be supported or represents a logical
fallacy. If it can be supported, what kinds of
evidence would be effective for each claim?
Where can Kelly and Noah find this evidence?
1.If you have a pet and work all day, you can
either allow your pet to remain lonely or take
advantage of high-quality daycare services.
2.Pets that are stimulated during the day are
happier and healthier than pets left alone.
3.If you are willing to bring a child to daycare,
then you should certainly be willing to do the
same for your pet.
 4.Daycareare is as good as medicine for a pet’s
health. For exam- ple, Mrs Jones’s dog was
sickly before becoming a daycare client. Now
the dog is healthy and energetic.
5.Daycare clients receive a discount on routine
grooming.
Question 5: Noah and Kelly have decided to use
the AIDA form for both letters. Alone or working
with a small group of classmates, draft either of
the sales letters. Use your imagination to develop
specific details for the pet owners Kelly and Noah
know. End each letter by asking the audience to go
to the Pet Haven website for more information.
In class, compare and evaluate the various letters
to see different implementations of AIDA.