For launching professional training and coaching business I have set a date of 25th of May. That is date of one of the major conferences in CEE region that I will attend. I will be present also as one of the sponsors of the conference including short presentation of services I offer. This is great way of marketing and generating leads over those 4 days from my previous experience.
Biggest risk of this project is execution risk or not to have everything ready for that date. It is high both from perspective of how likely it is going to happen as well as what kind of impact it would have on success of my project. What is to be understood by being ready is having ready :registered domain, email address, logo, website,all the brochures,slides,presentation,business cards,banner,set fees etc.
Beside execution risk next possible risk is commercial risk, meaning how and if audience will buy my message and get interested in my services thus potential customers acceptance/non acceptance.
Financial risk here is present also and I would rate it as low in terms of consequences, as if materials for example are not on time I can still use them on some other occasion as they do not have for expiration date. Other part of investment related to travel and accommodation I would consider as accepted risk.
If we are to classify those risks using risk impact matrix ,we can say that both execution and commercial risk in this case are high as they can jeopardise success of my project. Execution risk has high probability of happening as execution is not 100% dependent on me but also on various internal stakeholders (web designer,graphic designer,printing company,content editor,conference organiser).In terms of impact it would have on the project it is high. if must have things like for example website,presentation or business cards are not ready I would look highly unprofessional and would not be seen as serious professional. Also those are some minimum requirements conference organizes has requested from me as they also have certain level of the conference they would like to keep and wouldn’t like to ruin it by having on stage someone who doesn’t even have a website or presentation. My mitigation strategy is to minimize this risk by setting deadline for my web developer ,graphic designer and printing company for business cards not for May but for 1st of April so there is still time if something goes wrong as well as being part of their work in terms of content and design of both website and business cards. Deadline for content creation is 15th of March and I am also involved.Presentation will be prepared by me and I have natural urgency to finish it on time. Another reason for such deadlines is that printing will be done not in Czech republic but in Serbia over there printing materials is significantly cheaper.My strategy if other project components are not ready for the conference date will be opportunistic.Although there is negative aspect to it (not all materials are ready) there is positive aspect to it that I can use this as opportunity to reach more people without looking sales aggressive.I can use it as opportunity for example to say to audience that since we are in digital era (and conference is actually digital conference) I will send them brochures with a link to my website to their email. Organizers have full list of attendees with their emails which they can provide me with and in this way my materials will reach everyone instead of being limited just to those who have approached me at the conference.
Commercial risk is high more in terms of consequences it would have rather than in terms of probability. In terms of probability I can influence it by providing great presentation and sales pitch and I trust myself on both. Consequences wise if it would happen it would mean unsuccessful launch of my project. Nevertheless I would then start my next project and carry on with promoting my business via different channels.
Cost estimation for this project is straightforward as all fees have been already agreed thus they can be considered normal cost. There is no labor hours etc. since we have agreed on set price for certain number of items printed. Same set up is with web developer, graphic designer and content writer. I have asked my friend who already have this kind of business for couple of years to help me by sharing his data as he has done conference promotions in the same region before. Thanks to this comparative estimates I had idea of how much money I will need and also how much realistically services provided by external stakeholders cost so I do not overpay.
Cost estimation challenge I see is expedited cost which is related to printing deadline/fee associated with printing and possibly shipping cost. Deadline for printing is 1st of April given that content is ready latest 15th of March. If content still needs some editing (or anything unpredicted happens) and we break the deadline printing cost will increase as time for printing will be shorter thus different rates apply. Same applies for shipping rates which will increase and I can not clearly estimate how much that would be as I can not 100% predict for how long we can be delayed with content or even with printing.
Given above mentioned as well as Murphy’s law I have recognised necessity for budget contingency. In this way I will have unplanned expenses covered.
