Category Archives: Sales & Marketing

When Do You Focus on the Plan and When Do You Adjust? Four Guidelines

Interview with Phil Bookman, CEO, Assistyx

Situation: The dynamics of an early-stage business require balance between focus and opportunity. The challenge is in the balancing act. When do you focus on the plan, and when do you adjust?

Advice from Phil Bookman:

  • Never allow your friends to become statistics. We call our customers our friends. Our most loyal and vocal friends were our early adopters and got us where we are today. They remain important participants in the conversation and are always in our focus.
  • Along the same lines, when using social media to communicate to your audience, remember that this is a face-to-face conversation. This is a key point of focus.
    • Remove as much friction from online interactions as you can. Make it as easy as possible for people visiting your web site to buy. This requires both live interactions with users and attention to detail. If a question keeps coming up, answer it; put the answer right up front on your web site where it cannot be missed.
    • We’ve made hundreds of tweaks, each tiny. Each has removed a point of friction. As the company grows it is easy to lose sight of these details. Never lose sight of details.
  • Much of what we face in business is transitory. It is important to stay nimble so that you don’t get stuck fighting the last skirmish. For example, in 2009, we found that a subscription service was difficult for institutional users like purchasing departments in schools to understand. It isn’t now.
  • You must be careful not to chase bright shiny objects – opportunities that take you outside your principal market competence. Would you try to modify a hammer to put in screws?
    • Our principal product TapToTalk is a communication device for kids with verbal challenges. Some have suggested that it could also be a teaching device. Possibly in the future there will be room in our plan for a teaching device, but we will address this as its own market and application when we are large enough to diversify.

You can contact Phil Bookman at pbookman@assistyx.com

Key Words: Early Stage Business, Focus, Opportunity, Balance, Adjust, Early Adopter, Social Media, Friction, Detail, Nimble

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How Have You Attracted a Resistant Audience? Three Thoughts

Interview with Pradeep Bakshi, CEO, Foundation3

Situation: A new start-up has developed a SaaS application focused on helping sales people and small businesses leverage LinkedIn and other social media for prospecting. The Company’s customers build Private Shared Networks which can be used by sales people to accelerate the Pipeline. Their concern is that historically sales people have not adopted sales productivity and prospecting solutions.  What have you done to attract and accelerate trial and acceptance when addressing a resistant audience?

Advice from Pradeep Bakshi:

  • Keep it simple and make the application very intuitive and easy to use.
    • Do not try to change behavior; make it easier for sales people to do things they already like to do.
    • Create an instant “I get it” experience.
    • Bias the interface toward instant gratification. This is critical to generating viral marketing.
    • Make it easy to tell others what you’ve found – similar to a “Like” button to share a YouTube video.
  • There are 15 million sales people in the US.
    • You won’t get everyone, but you want to get the “believers” and avoid the “haters”.
    • You must quickly find segments of the market who are likely early adopters. For us, the early adopters are in the SMB segment (startups, 25-200 emp.) and the service provider industry.
  • Select channels which are open to your messaging and solution.
    • LinkedIn Groups are becoming an excellent way to network with like-minded people who can spread the word.
    • Look to past contacts to whom you have provided value and who value you. They are more likely to get your value proposition and introduce you to others.
    • Allow customers to collaborate with referral sources: potential business partners and collaborators who aim at the same audience that you will serve; and lead sharing partners. These individuals can help you find customers who will value your solution.

You can contact Pradeep Bakshi at pradeep@foundation3.com

Key Words: Software, Prospecting, GUI, User Interface, Viral, B2B, Early Adopter, Professional, Customer Acquisition, SMB, LinkedIn, Private Share Network

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How Do You Reset Pricing When The Game Changes? Five Parameters

Situation: The Company sells customized products and pricing has been per product/per customer. A large client has proposed to purchase product rights across a number of products and uses. The technology is early in its expected 5-year life span. How should the Company set pricing to this customer?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Start with a series of questions:
    • What is the value of your technology to the customer?
    • How much competition do you face?
    • What other solutions are available to the customer?
  • Based on this framework, ask contacts within the customer company open-ended questions that will reveal what is important to them including:
    • Licensing objectives,
    • Planned use of the technology, and
    • Any protections that they seek.
    • You need to understand these before you can make decisions on pricing.
  • There are several pricing scenarios:
    • Set up a scale with a declining pricing driven by volume.
    • A large lump sum payment now, non-transferable if the customer is acquired by another company.
    • A large annual fee to cover a preset number of uses and volumes, with small increments for additional purchases.
    • The final arrangement will depend on the priorities of the customer.
  • Find out what the customer is willing to pay, but you set the terms.
  • Ask what guarantees they desire to protect their position. This includes:
    • The customer’s key risk factors.
    • Whether they want exclusive or usage rights. Exclusive is worth more.

Key Words: Pricing, Custom, Technology, Life-span, Value, Competition, Licensing, Objectives, Protection, Scenario, Scale, Lump-sum, Annual Fee, Guarantee, Exclusive, Usage  [like]

What are the Three Clarities that Every Start-up CEO Needs?

Interview with Naeem Zafar, President & CEO, Bitzer Mobile, Inc.

Situation: Starting a new venture is a daunting task. You must determine market need and land your first few key customers on tight timeline and budget. What are the most important foci for the start-up CEO?

Advice from Naeem Zafar:

  • The answer lies in what I call the Three Clarities.
  • Clarity #1 – Deep Knowledge of Customer Pain Points
    • The fundamental point is that your eventual success is not about your technology – it’s your ability to understand and address the needs of your customer.
    • Research and talk to potential customers. Ask them about their pain and problems (and not about your product). What makes their job or their lives difficult? Learning these facts takes time, patience, persistent questioning, and open listening both for what they are saying and what they are not saying.
    • Once you have a clear idea about their need and can succinctly define it, you must determine whether your capabilities can address the customer’s need.
  • Clarity #2 – Understanding the Purchasing Behavior
    • Once you have identified your target customer, their need and your ability to meet that need, you must understand their current purchase behavior.
    • Have they ever bought from a startup before? What happened when they did? Are they happy or unsatisfied? Where are the gaps in satisfaction?
    • Particularly for a start-up with limited credibility, it is critical to identify those purchasers who will take the risk to buy from a new company.
    • From what you find, determine how you will frame a personal relationship with the likely buyer – how you will frame both your solution and the buying experience – and build a psychographic of the buyer so that you can quickly determine likely customer candidates.
  • Clarity #3 – Understanding the Decision-Maker’s Sense of Urgency
    • Who makes the purchase decision? In B2B sales is it the CEO or someone further down the organizational chart? Who approves the purchase budget?
    • Why now – do they have their ”hair on fire” so a decision must be made now?
    • The essential question is: what are the alternatives to not having your solution?

You can contact Naeem Zafar at naeem@bitzermobile.com or check out his six books at www.NaeemZafar.com

Key Words: Start-up, B2B, Customer Need, Domain Knowledge, Purchase, Experience, Psychographic, Competition

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What are the Strategic Components of a Sales Model?

Interview with Sanjay Sathe, President & CEO, RiseSmart.com

Situation: RiseSmart is in the process of building an inside sales program to complement their outside sales capabilities. What are the most important strategic components of an effective sales model?

Advice:

  • In a marketing and sales system, marketing is the precursor to everything. If you can’t effectively deliver your message to your audience, you have no lead generation machine and sales must resort to cold calls.
    • In an online world, one of the key components of a marketing system is the email campaign, combined with tools for rapid and responsive follow-up.
  • In RiseSmart’s system, the inside sales team is primarily responsible for following up on leads.  The team’s role is:
    • To qualify the prospect responding to our marketing efforts. Is this person the right buyer for their company? If not, who is?
    • Does the company have a budget for our services? If not, when will they?
    • Is this the right time? Do they have a current contract in place? Are they actively looking?
  • The most critical aspect of the inside sales rep’s role is to be an effective filter in collecting and passing data to the field sales force.
  • Many inside sales reps fail because their performance is measured on the number of calls made, not the quality of the calls or information gathered.
  • Our incentives for inside sales are based on the quality of data gathered and on the success of field sales in closing the leads they receive.
  • The effectiveness of outside sales really comes down to choosing the right people.
    • The 80/20 rule applies here.  One out of five field sales reps hired is truly successful, one is marginal, and three don’t make it.
    • We hire based on experience selling to our target customer groups, subjective elements, and careful reference checks.
  • As CEO, I consider hiring good people the most important thing I do.

You can contact Sanjay Sathe at ssathe@risesmart.com

Key Words: Inside Sales, Field Sales, Qualify, Filter, Performance, Measurement, Incentive, Selection  [like]

What are the Strategic Components of a Marketing Plan?

Interview with Sanjay Sathe, President & CEO, RiseSmart.com

Situation: RiseSmart’s top opportunities are to increase visibility and gain market share. What are the most important strategic components of an effective marketing program?

Advice:

  • The best marketing plans don’t start with your company, product or service, They start with a focus on your customers, and the benefits you can deliver to them.
  • That means your first step should be to identify who your customers are.
    • This can be challenging in B2B businesses. For example, with RiseSmart’s outplacement solution, Transition Concierge, we have several possible customers: the HR department at the company seeking outplacement services; the CFO at these companies; the HR department at companies seeking good candidates; and the individuals who are going through outplacement and seeking new positions.
    • Each of these audiences has different objectives, priorities and approaches. To succeed, we need to connect to each of them where they are.
  • After you have identified your target customers, the next step is to develop messaging and message delivery systems that capture and maintain their attention.
    • Your messaging must express a differentiation that is easy to grasp – something that clearly sets you apart from your competition.  In technology marketing, Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl commercial, with its man-versus-machine contrast, is one of the most famous examples of this.
    • Your campaign must consistently touch your potential customer base. Research suggests that this requires a minimum of 4-5 touches to effectively gain customer attention and communicate your message.
    • Accompanying the messaging and the increased visibility that you seek, you must have an effective way to respond promptly and directly to customer interest or inquiries. Rapid and responsive follow-up are critical to success.

You can contact Sanjay Sathe at ssathe@risesmart.com

Key Words: Market Share, Visibility, Customer, Message, Differentiation, Consistency, Touches, Follow-up  [like]

What are Best Practices to Open New Markets? Five Thought Starters

Interview with Greg Curhan, CEO, Clickworker, Inc.

Situation: Clickworker was founded and has gained nice traction in Europe. Focusing first on Silicon Valley, they want to expand into the US. This means identifying companies that could use their service, as well as appropriate contacts within those companies. What are best practices to open new markets for a product or service?

Advice:

  • Start with a set of profiles of possible customers and contacts.
    • If you have a history of success, look for companies in similar industries, and with similar profiles as your current customers. Build a set of profiles of customer companies, and use these profiles against the lists that you develop to identify and prioritize prospects.
  • Develop a list of who’s in your addressable market and narrow this list to prospects.
    • Work with your staff and systematically review past jobs and companies that you’ve been associated with, including vendors and suppliers. Identify a list of possible target customers, and use LinkedIn, Link Silicon Valley and other social networking sites to confirm and develop your contact list.
    • Also work with companies that develop and update databases of local companies including contact lists, web sites, telephone numbers, revenue data and SIC codes. For example, Rich’s Business Information develops searchable lists of companies Northern and Southern California. Dunn and Bradstreet and others also sell searchable lists of companies and positions.
    • Subscribe to the locally published Business Journals in your target markets. These Journals generate Books of Lists of local companies and contact information.
    • Network with those you know and ask who they know. This is more effective once you’ve developed a set of profiles, so that you can clearly characterize what kinds of companies you seek.
  • This is an initial set of ideas. What has worked for you as you opened new markets?

You can contact Greg Curhan at greg.curhan@clickworker.com

Key Words: Customer, Profile, Contacts, Suspects, Prospects, LinkedIn, LinkSV, Social Networking, Rich’s, D&B, Business Journal, Network   [like]

Can You Increase Value in Social Network Discussions? Four Thoughts

Interview with Kenneth Vogt, CEO, Crooner Labs, Inc.

Situation: Individuals participate in social networking sites for several reasons – to network, to promote their businesses, products or services, and to gain insight through crowd sourcing. For these audiences, what are the best ways to increase the value in your discussions?

Advice:

  • Encourage participants to move from a short-term to a medium-term focus. Short term focus is about lead generation, immediate results and “Buy, Buy, Buy Now.” Think of the man in the flashy sports coat selling cars on late night television. It may generate a “sale” but with low engagement and commitment. If focus you instead on engagement, you start to build growth which is more sustainable – which will stay alive with more momentum.
  • Clarify your objectives. Are you interested in sales or influence today, or this quarter? How much effort do you want to put into it and what payback do you seek?
  • Be patient. Take the time to develop quality content. This time is an investment which pays back both medium and long-term.
  • Stop treating people as though they are stupid and can be manipulated into buying from you. There is a karmic cost to this approach. Look instead at the potential benefit that you can provide that will attract people to your content. Think in terms of reciprocity – give first and let others decide how they will respond.
  • Some time ago I tried an experiment. I proposed a simple question: “What do you want?” I asked the question three times, each time with a different thought in mind – first annoyance, then confusion, and finally empathy. But rather than speak the questions, I sent them via instant message one after the other. The words on the page were exactly the same each time, “What do you want?” Yet without tone of voice, expression or body language, the receivers could instantly tell me what I was thinking in each case. The same works in social networking. People can read where you are coming from based on how you position your content. So if you want to increase the value of what you have to say or offer, offer it openly and invite your audience to respond.

You can contact Kenneth Vogt at kvogt@croonerlabs.com

Key Words: Social Network, Discussion, Focus, Objectives, Value  [like]

How Do You Communicate Your Solution to Potential Clients? Eight Recommendations

Interview with Eric Bauswell, President, SurfaceInk

Situation: For a domestic engineering solutions company, one of the challenges is engaging potential customers with the idea that a domestic solution can cost-effectively meet their needs. If you can combine a manufacturing solution to the service solution, this helps. What have you done to effectively communicate your solution to potential clients?

Advice:

  • Know your clients. Clients have expertise of their own. However, they may lack expertise in all the disciplines necessary to create a full product. How will you fill the gap?
  • Know your strengths.
    • Design is an iterative development process. If you increase process efficiency you can complete more process cycles in a given timeframe, advancing to final product more quickly.
    • Identify your key differentiators. Target clients for whom your differentiator is a critical need. For example, we do not encourage all of our clients to manufacture overseas, but if they insist and lack experience managing overseas vendors, we can handle this for them.
    • Consistency of personnel across the life of a project is important, particularly the core team.
    • “Invention & Innovation” require a plan to mitigate the risk they represent.  Develop the design along parallel paths, stage higher risk components or pieces of the design that represent critical path inventions such that they are proven prior to moving forward, or even take that feature out of the current design in order to develop it to a production ready solution for the next product on the client roadmap.  Sometimes an invention or innovation is THE reason for the new product.  In these cases the key is managing the client’s expectations regarding the significantly elevated risks that come with invention and proceeding with the understanding that the phase gates and even the production dates will slide according to the progress against developing that critical path invention or innovation.
    • Expertise in material selection and understanding what can be done with materials in the manufacturing process is non-trivial, as is vendor qualification, particularly with new materials.
  • Know your competitors. How do they handle similar challenges to those that you face?
  • Know your vendors. “Right-sizing” your contract manufacturer to your client’s product is important. Things will go wrong, and you must assure that the contract manufacturer will give you the priority to get things back on track to meet your launch date.

You can contact Eric Bauswell at bauswell@surfaceink.com

Key Words: Engineering Services, Domestic, Outsource Partner, Strengths, Differentiators, Materials, Prototype, Parallel Path, Vendor Selection

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How Do You Build Meaningful Participation on a Social Web Site? – Six Thought Starters

Interview with Ken Ross, CEO, ExpertCEO, Inc.

Situation: We have built a good online community. Between our site and newsletter, we are in contact with tens of thousands of executives weekly. We constantly seek new ways to encourage active participation in our discussions. What have you done to effectively build regular participation in meaningful discussions?

Advice:

  • Know your audience and focus on topics that engage people. For example, we do a semi-annual compensation survey and get a great response when we publish the results.
  • We often learn more from mistakes than we do from success. Also, people love to talk about business blunders, particularly if the discussions include some well-intentioned humor.
  • Reach out to individuals with interesting backgrounds, experience and situations. Encourage them to post, or feature them in a discussion.
  • We send out weekly emails with titles and synopses of articles posted in the last week. This enables newsletter recipients to quickly scan topics and click on those of interest.
  • A common challenge is filtering posts which are trivial, self-promoting and lack relevance to the focus of the site.
  • The bottom line is that there is no magic bullet. Social networking sites are rapidly evolving so you must continually seek creative additions. This takes time, work and investment.
  • Now it’s your turn. What has drawn you to a social networking site? What have you done to effectively build regular participation in meaningful discussions?

You can contact Ken Ross at ken@expertceo.com

Category: Sales & Marketing, Strategy, Technology

Key Words: Online Community, Social Network, Social Web Site, Participation, Discussions, Mistakes, Humor, Newsletter, Creative

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