Need Opinions On Offline Buiness

I need your opnions on an offline business idea that popped into my mind. About two months ago my girl friend had a severe case of "pink eye" and wanted to go to an opthalmologst. She belongs to a church with about 500 members and looked thru the church directory to find one because she would have preferred to go to a member of her church. After lookig thru the entire directory she discovered that there were no opthalmologists that belonged to her church. It would have been much simpler if the church had a "yellow pages" directory of their members. I think most people would prefer to do business with a member of their church.

What do you guys think of developing a business directory for churches? The directory could be published for a couple of dollars each and given free to the members. The members would be charged a fee for entering their names in the directory. The church could be given part of the fee for promoting the directory and collecting the entries and the fee. I haven't completely crunched the numbers yet, but I think the fee could be in the $60 - $80 range which I think is very reasonable.

What are your opinions on this?

Thanks,
Bill

Hi Bill,

I would definitely "crunch the numbers".... If the numbers are too small, it's probably not viable as a business. But if the church is large enough, then it could be a good business idea.... Numbers are important, though.

I would consider the idea of charging on both sides, both from people being in the directory, and also from selling the directory. (Even if you only charge a nominal amount to sell the directory, it will still help cover costs.) Of course, you should give the church a portion, I think, even if it is just as a good will gesture. (Maybe a percentage of every sale can go to the church.)

I once read (and wrote about) how a guy named Leon Ashjian put together a special directory of Armenian businesses in his city, aimed at the Armenian community there. I think your idea is essentially the same thing, except grouped by a church instead of by a particular immigrant background.... You can read my post about Leon's business here -

http://www.sowpub.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl?read=1327

I hope it gives you some good ideas! :)

I would definitely check the numbers, though, first - your potential profits from advertisers, from sales, and your costs of printing, your estimated marketing costs, the amount you give to the church, and the time it will take you to put it together.... It's all critical! You want to be sure that in the end, you've made a profit for all your time, and not a loss....

I think the main factor is the number of people involved with the church.... This idea is probably easier to make work with a larger church than a smaller one, I would think...

I hope that helps.... :)

- Dien Rice

Hi Bill,

One more thing.... Don Alm once wrote a post here about creating a directory too. You might want to check it out to get some more ideas.... Here it is -

http://www.sowpub.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl?read=6978

- Dien Rice

.....there's a similar "yellow pages" here in Central Texas. It's a guide to businesses that are owned/operated by Christians and the guide is free to anyone who wants it. (They have them in wire stands next to the newspaper stands.) I would imagine paying to get into that guide is pretty high dollar since the potential traffic it can generate for a biz is unlimited.

:)
EM

I think it's called The Shepard's Guide. We have it here in Illinois also.

> .....there's a similar "yellow
> pages" here in Central Texas. It's a
> guide to businesses that are owned/operated
> by Christians and the guide is free to
> anyone who wants it. (They have them in wire
> stands next to the newspaper stands.) I
> would imagine paying to get into that guide
> is pretty high dollar since the potential
> traffic it can generate for a biz is
> unlimited.

> :)
> EM

The Shepherd's Guide?

This is America's leading Christian business directory distributed in 125 major market areas reaching an estimated 3.5 million families.

They are looking for franchisees


The Shepherd's Guide is included