©make a mark make a mark - student enterprise · ©make a mark jesus and mary secondary school,...

©Make a Mark

Jesus and Mary Secondary School, Gortnor Abbey Crossmolina.

Make a Mark

Business Plan

Ms. Kelly

Jesus and Mary Secondary School

Gortnor Abbey Crossmolina Co. Mayo

Mayo County Enterprise Board

Senior Category

Mary Murphy Sarah Murphy

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Contents

1. Executive Summary

2. Introduction a. Members of the Company b. Description of Product c. Where we got the idea from d. Product development stages

3. Company Description

a. Long term aim of the company b. Current market trends c. S.W.O.T Analysis

4. Market Analysis

a. Our Customers b. Potential size of the market c. Profile of competitors d. Competitive advantage that will make our product a long term success.

5. Marketing/Promotion

a. Marketing Strategy b. Market Research c. Marketing Plan d. Networking e. Social Media

6. Finance a. Financing the set-up b. Cash flow forecasts c. Details of pricing d. Profit and loss account e. Details of stock on hand and orders pre-paid

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7. Risk Management

8. Personal Development a. How did we get on as a team

9. Appendices

a. Sample Survey b. Product Drawings c. Invoices d. Invite to National Launch of the INHFA e. Networking f. Sample Brochure

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Executive Summary

Make a Mark is a single-handed, easy and efficient way of applying marking fluid to sheep for accurate identification. There is no other product on the market like it. It is an innovative and novel product which saves the user valuable time while also leaving no mess. Our customers are in large sheep farmers. Farmers who keep fifty sheep or more were typically the ones who bought our product. A large percentage of the sheep farmers who bought the product were hill sheep farmers. This was due to their need to use the marking fluid opposed to the spray. As these farmers wouldn’t get the chance to mark their sheep as often as the farmers who have their sheep fenced, they need the mark to last long term. As this product makes the job of marking the sheep with marking fluid easier, the biggest market was to farmers who already used fluid as their marking method. To promote our product we travelled to different sheep marts and fairs. We also attended meetings and conferences for sheep farmers and promoted our product there. Social Media was also a form of promotion for us. However, as a lot of our customers are not active social media users our website and talking to people directly worked more effectively for us when promoting make a Mark. Throughout the course of the project we used and learned many skills including market research, IT Skills, communication, marketing and promotion. Mechanical skills were also used for the making and drawing of the product. Critical thinking was used to identify and solve problems that arose during our experience. Creative skills were also prominent as we used them to design the product, stickers, logo and the business cards.

The biggest risk we took was initially investing all the money we invested into our company and seeking a loan to ensure the company successfully got off the ground. From the start, we strongly believed in our product so investing the money we did into the company felt like the right decision. From our mini company we have made a profit of €1175.83 to date. However, we still have a loan of €3,000 that has to be paid. We intend to pay this back in instalments of €500 every second month starting in February. We have started paying back this loan with €500 paid back in February. We are confident our profits will increase in the coming months as have the product available to sell in quantity. We overcame many difficulties from start to finish, from minor disputes amongst the team to larger difficulties facing us as a company. A difficulty we found hard to conquer was the fact that Teagasc are no longer allowing commercial stands at any of their conferences. This was a difficult challenge to defeat as we had planned on going to those conferences. In spite of this, we attended all the meetings and sheep conferences that we could especially the Hill Farmers meetings as they made up a substantial amount of our customers.

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Introduction

Make a Mark

Our product is a single-handed, easy and efficient way of applying marking fluid to sheep for

accurate identification.

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Members of the company

● Mary Murphy

● Sarah Murphy

Description of Product:

Our product is a hand-held gun for applying marking fluid to sheep to make them easily identifiable to their owners.

Our product is innovative as applying marking fluid to sheep can be a difficult, messy and a time consuming job, especially with a large number of sheep to be marked. Our product aims to help sheep farmers to apply marking fluid without the mess of having to use a brush or a stick. As we use only the best of marking fluid, we can ensure that the fluid will last. This is a huge part of the marking process especially for hill farmers who may only be able to mark their sheep every couple of months.

Other farmers who keep sheep close to home and in fenced areas and fields often use cans of marking spray. They do this, as the cans are easy to use and less mess than the marking

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Description of Product:

Our product is a hand-held gun for applying marking fluid to sheep to make them easily

identifiable to their owners.

Our product is innovative as applying marking fluid to sheep can be a difficult, messy and a

time consuming job, especially with a large number of sheep to be marked. Our product

aims to help sheep farmers to apply marking fluid. However, the marking fluid lasts longer

on the wool than the spray and this is a huge advantage, especially to the farmers who do

not have the opportunity to mark their sheep often.

There are other disadvantages to the sprays; these include the health issues that go with

them. The marking sprays are in aerosol cans and often contain harmful chemicals and

chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) which are not only bad for your health but also pose a major

threat to the environment. CFC’s are commonly found in the sprays and they can have huge

effects on a person's health, including skin cancer and eye damage. The result of inhaling

these CFCs can be similar to intoxication of alcohol including light-headedness’ and

possibility of tumour. Inhalation of such CFC’s can be fatal to a farmer’s health as they can

disturb heart rhythm and impair normal breathing.

Despite this, many farmers continue to use the sprays for the simple reason that they are

quick and easy to use. Our product now makes using marking fluid just as easy and quick to

use without the added health risks. For all the farmers that already use marking fluid our

product simplifies the marking process immensely. The product is innovative as it solves

numerous problems for farmers marking sheep. It stores the fluid in the cartridges and

keeps it fresh. If you were to leave the bucket lid open on a container of marking fluid it

would go dry and become useless, with our product the fluid cannot dry up. The product

helps farmers to mark their sheep in record time. It also ensures the marking process is

mess-free.

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Where we got our idea from?

We have grown up on a sheep farm where we often help. On our farm, we have marked our

sheep with marking fluid and found the process messy, time consuming and very wasteful of

the fluid as you have to use a brush or stick to apply the fluid. With the help of a local

farmer, we came up with an idea to make the process easier. Working on the farm, a grease

gun is often lying around and so we based the design of our product on a grease gun we had

at home. Using the design of a single-handed grease gun, we put together a prototype of

the product. For this, we got an empty grease cartridge and filled it with our own marking

fluid. We also made a nozzle for the top of the gun to make the application easier. We

began use of the prototype on our farm when marking new lambs last February (2015). Over

the course of the last few months, while marking sheep with the gun, we made numerous

adjustments which have brought the product to where it is today.

For production of the product we have ordered single handed grease guns from an Irish oil

company based in Dublin. We have also ordered empty cartridges to fit these guns from the

same company. We contacted a local veterinary pharmacist who put us in touch with a sales

rep from a marking fluid company in Australia, whose product had been recommended to

us by several farmers. For the nozzles on the top of the gun, we ordered 1.5mm sheet

aluminium and nylon rods from Miko Metals in Cork. We then manufactured these nozzles

ourselves.

Product’s development Stages:

● We ordered grease guns and empty grease cartridges from a Dublin based oil

company.

● We ordered nylon from Miko Metals in Cork to be used in the manufacture of the

nozzles.

● We purchased marking fluid in 5L containers.

● We filled the empty cartridges with marking fluid.

● We manufactured the nozzles using the materials purchased from Miko Metals.

● We ordered stickers to put on the cartridges and the guns.

● We purchased boxes to package our product and labelled these boxes with similar

stickers.

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● We packaged a gun with a nozzle and a cartridge ready for sale.

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Company Description

Long term aim of Company

The long-term aim of our mini-company is to be a viable business with a healthy profit

margin. We hope for our brand and product to be well-known in Ireland and recognised

world-wide. We also plan to be a successful business selling to an international market,

especially to big sheep farming countries, i.e. Australia and New Zealand. We also hope to

expand our company to selling other products of the same nature, i.e. a gun for applying

tail-mark to cows.

Current Market trends

Currently the only ways you can purchase marking fluid are in tins of 1L, 2.5L or 5L’s. Our

aim is to change this and offer the farmer a way of applying marking fluid without the

inconvenience of having to use a brush or stick.

As of the National Sheep Census 2014, there are 14,429 sheep farmers in Donegal, Mayo

and Galway. The hope is to sell our product to approximately 50% of these farmers as these

are the counties we aim to target most. In that case, we hope to sell approximately over

7,000 guns in the three counties. In the other 23 counties in the republic of Ireland, there

are 20,120 sheep farmers combined; our aim is to sell to 25% of these farmers, which would

mean selling over 10,000 guns to the rest of the country.

As you can see in the graph below, Donegal, Galway and Mayo is the leading sheep farming

counties. This is why we chose to target mainly these counties. Our geographical location

was also a factor in this decision as we are situated in Mayo.

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S.W.O.T

Strengths

● Large target market

● Highly motivated group

● Great knowledge of the market

● Access to sales

Weaknesses

● Farmers may stick to traditional

methods

● While the target market is large the

market is also limited

● Time limited due to our age and the fact

we are full time students.

Opportunities

● Nationwide sales

● Reputable business and product

● Achieve large sales from the

target market

Threats

● Low sales

● Lack of interest and but in from the

target market

● Similar product by a new competitor

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Market Analysis

Our customers?

At present, our target market is Sheep Farmers in Ireland, mainly the Donegal, Mayo and

Galway counties as these are the counties most densely populated by sheep

farmers. However, in the future, we hope to extend this market to bigger sheep farming

countries such as New Zealand and Australia.

Potential size of the market?

According to the National Sheep and Goat Census of 2014 the potential size of our market is

the 34,549 sheep flock owners in Ireland, especially the 5,607 in Donegal, the 4,674 in Mayo

and the 4,148 in Galway.

Profile of Competitors

Our main competitors are sellers of long-lasting sheep marking spray and companies who

produce marking fluid in containers.

Competitive advantage that will make our product a long term success?

● Our product is innovative and novel and this will be an advantage to make our

product a long term success.

● There is no other product currently on the market to assist the farmer in the

application of sheep marking fluid.

● At present the way marking fluid is sold to the farmer is in a container of various

sizes, i.e. 1L, 2.5L, 5L and this must be then applied to the animal using a brush or a

stick.

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Marketing/Promotion

Marketing Strategy

For the promotion of our product, we have visited Livestock sales and sheep fairs in counties

Mayo, Donegal and Galway where we talked to sheep farmers about the product. We also

designed and created business cards and brochures to help promote the product and help

farmers contact us. We also created a website, Facebook, twitter and Instagram accounts,

all of which are managed and regularly updated by our IT manager.

Market Research

On Tuesday the 27th of October, we visited Mayo Sligo Mart. Here, we talked to many

sheep farmers and got great feedback over all.

We handed out 45 questionnaires and the results are outlined below;

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Marketing Plan

Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5

Social Media Promoting our product and company on Facebook.

Promoting our new website on social media.

Updating our viewers on all we have done.

Telling our viewers we are ready to sell our product.

Advertising that we are selling in various shops and at events.

Online Design and prepare for the launch of our website.

Launch our new website with information on us and the product.

Talk to others and encourage them to look us up at www.makeamarkirl.webs.com

Replying to comments left on our website and editing the website accordingly.

Inform website viewers where and when we plan to sell our products.

Promotions Visit Mayo-Sligo Mart a few days in advance of the product sales to promote the product.

Promote our product to local farmers by social media and word of mouth.

Promoting the product at local sheep sales and fairs.

Talking about our product to sheep farming meetings held in the region.

Consider radio and farming newspaper advertisements.

Flyers Designed Flyers and business cards

Printed flyers

Distributed flyers to local farmers and agricultural businesses

Distributed flyers to local farmers and agricultural businesses

Direct Sales Make sales to local farmers.

Prepare for sales in Mayo-Sligo Mart.

Sell products at Mayo-Sligo Mart.

Networking:

As our target market is sheep farmers, it was hard to use networking sites such as Facebook,

Twitter and Instagram to engage with our customers. Although, a few farmers we talked to

are on Facebook, little or none are on Instagram or Twitter. Discovering this information

helped us to decide that creating a website was the way forward. Our website is much more

effective in advertising the company and in attracting customers than social media

platforms. We promoted and advertised our website on our business cards and on our

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brochures which we handed out at the livestock sales and fairs. We attended meetings such

as The Mayo Blackface Group AGM and the National launch of the Irish Natura and Hill

Farmers Association to promote our product also.

Social media:

We did use social media for promotion of our product from the beginning of the company.

However, as outlined above, we found that very few of our customers were active social

media users. Therefore, there weren’t a lot of benefits to our company sales from using it.

Although, we did find it useful to post updates on what we were doing and to get other

people talking about the company and the product.

We discovered our target market is the type of customers who like to speak with the person

selling the product directly. By doing this, they can ask as many questions as they like about

the product and it was also a way for these people to get to know us. This has resulted in

positive word of mouth for us a company which we feel has had a positive impact on sales.

Farmers, in particular in rural Ireland work together and talk about different products or

machinery on the market. We strongly felt we needed to get out and meet our customers

and attend meetings directly to promote our product and put a face to our name and also

let our customers see the product first hand. By demonstrating the product to our

customers showed them we had created a quality product that was of use to them and

worth them handing over their hard earned money.

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Finance

Financing the Set-up

As our company required a significant amount of capital, we looked for shareholders and

people to invest in our company, we were lucky enough to find one person who was willing

to loan us the money, rest free, to finance the setup of our company. We hope to have this

loan paid back as soon as possible; hopefully we will have the last instalments paid back

before September 2016.

Cash flow forecasts

Our finance manager put together a cash flow forecast for January to June 2016, please see

below.

Details of Pricing

● It is currently costing us €31 to produce a box, including a marking gun, a cartridge of

your chosen colour, and one of our two application nozzles. We are selling that box

for €60. Therefore, we are making €29 profit per box sold.

● It was originally costing us €34 to produce a box but we have started buying the

marking fluid in bulk at a cheaper price. We have also created a more efficient way

of filling the cartridges, therefore saving us €3 on every cartridge we now produce.

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● The gun is costing us €27 to produce on its own and we are selling them at €50,

therefore making a profit of €23 per gun sold without a cartridge.

● A second nozzle or a replacement application nozzle for the gun is sold at €5 and it

costs us €0.50 to make them, therefore, we make €4.50 per extra nozzle sold.

● A cartridge is costing €4 to produce and we are selling them a €12 each, therefore,

making €8 per cartridge in profit. (Please see tables below)

● Cost to Produce each piece:

Details on Profit:

Product: Box Gun Cartridge Nozzle

Produce at: €31 €27 €4 €0.50

Sell at: €60 €50 €12 €5

Profit: €29 €23 €8 €4.50

Whole box

Object Price per unit

Gun €25

Cartridge €0.95

Nozzles €0.50

Fluid €2

Packaging €0.90

Stickers €0.76

Total €30.11

Cartridge

Object Price per Unit

Cartridge €0.95

Fluid €2

Sticker €0.40

Total €3.35

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Profit and loss account

Our finance manager also put together a profit, loss and appropriation account as at

29-02-16. Please see below.

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Details of stock on hand and orders pre-paid

We currently have €1459.80 worth of stock on hand. That being;

1. 47 filled cartridges worth €182 2. 112 empty cartridges worth €106 3. 42 Guns worth €1050 4. 58 Nozzles worth €29 5. Stickers for all of the above worth €92.80

Percentages of which colour marking fluid is the most popular;

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Risk Management

Every business faces certain risks, and with the downturn in the economy in recent years it

is extremely important for business people to identify as many potential risks their business

could face. Identifying risks before they become actual problems can be the difference in a

business surviving or failing.

We have identified different risks associated with our product which we have outlined:

• A big risk that we have faced is a financial risk. The capital needed to start the

company was a lot for two students to begin with. We had every confidence in our

product but we had to work extremely to ensure the product sold and that we would

make that money back. We did this by handing out surveys and attending meetings,

fairs etc. After we received very positive feedback, outlined in question 5 above, we

decided to invest the money into the company.

● We also faced legal risks. One of the legal risks we faced was that our product might

be copied. However, we overcame this by applying for a patent which is now

pending and detailed below.

● Design Risks were also something we had to take into consideration. A design risk we

encountered was that our product is based on the design of a pre-existing product

and we are using that product in the production of our gun. We conquered this by

designing colourful and effective stickers to clearly identify our product.

● A risk that we also confronted was lack of transport. As we are only selling out of a

few local retail outlets the main way to sell our product is to travel to different

livestock sales, marts and meetings to sell to the turnout there. Nonetheless we

cannot drive ourselves so it can be difficult to get someone to drive us to and from

such events.

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Personal Development

We had to overcome difficulties while working as a team but we only had minor difficulties.

We found that these were easily overcome and that they didn’t have an effect on our

performance as a team. We solved conflicts that arose but we found that difficulties on the

team were easy to solve as we know each other very well and knew how to manage these

difficulties. In some of the other teams it was noticeable that after some difficulties some

members of the team no longer got along. However, as we are sisters and know each well

we didn’t hold the difficulties against each other and moved on from the problems we had

very quickly.

We developed new skills while working as a team in our mini company. One of us didn’t

study business studies for Junior Certificate and therefore, learned a lot of business skills

and got a great insight into the subject. We as a team learned a lot of interpersonal skills

from selling our product at fairs and livestock sales. We also learned new public speaking

skills from having to address a crowd at the sheep farming meetings we attended.

We feel that our business has been a success and will continue to be a success in the future

and for this reason we plan to continue trading. The best advice we were given during the

process was to stay on top of all the work and not to leave things to the last minute. We feel

this helped us a lot as we never feel behind on our work and meet all the necessary

deadlines.

The advice we would give to students thinking of participating is to work hard and to enjoy

the process. The process can be a great experience and lots of fun if you let yourself enjoy it.

We would advise students to ask for help as both the mentors and teacher can be a great

help, so don’t be afraid to ask. We would also advise them to keep working hard and

striving for better no matter how well everything is going.

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Appendices Contents

1. Sample Survey

2. Product Drawings

3. Invoices

4. Invite to National Launch of the INHFA

5. Networking

6. Sample Brochure

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Directors of Make a Mark Networking

Directors of Make a Mark talk to Michael Fitzmaurice TD as Dara Calleary TD look on.

Colm O’Donnell, Chair of the Common Agriculture Policy Committee, INHFA, poses for a picture at Make a Mark’s stand at the launch of the INHFA.

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Directors of the Company stand in for picture with Dara Calleary TD and Eamon O’Cuiv TD

Dara Calleary TD discusses the marking gun with directors of Make a Mark

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Cathaoirleach of Mayo County

Council councillor and farmer

Michael Holmes chats to

Directors of Make a Mark

at the national launch of the

INHFA on the 5th February 2016

in the Castlecourt Hotel

Westport.

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