To determine where and how you can successfully sell your product or service (and at what price), you will need to use one of the most critical elements of business planning — market research. This includes interviewing potential suppliers, pre-selling to potential customers, and investigating your competition and consumer base. Market research has many different benefits. It can help you categorize marketing activities, generate primary and alternative sales approaches to a given market, make profit projections from a more precise base, establish the market's profit boundaries, and develop critical short/mid-term sales goals. You will need to identify your objectives and organize the collection/analysis process first.