Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 3, 2014

Specifically what is often not in the DNA of founders are sales skills. The result is a lack of knowledge of the process and of sales people themselves. I had never had any sales training so everything we did for the first couple of years was instinctual. I boil it down to this: sales people are sales people.

Sales 382

Sales Help Startup Pricing 382

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 20, 2023

Instead, they need to validate a customer problem and real market need first. Don’t create solutions looking for a problem , since investors ignore these, and customers other than early adopters will be hard to find. I say again, customers buy solutions, not technology. Your passion isn’t enough to create a market.

Customer 110

Customer Custom Social Media Technology 110

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 1, 2022

Marketing is everything these days. You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. Yet I see many technology entrepreneurs that focus on the basics of marketing too little and too late.

Marketing 141

Marketing Startup Social Media Technical Review 141

Berkonomics

APRIL 11, 2019

An entrepreneur pitches using a deck with no slide for competition. We have no competition.”. Your potential customers could choose “do nothing.”. Perhaps buyers cannot obtain attractive financing in the current market. So, do your homework especially well by putting yourself into the minds of your potential customers.

Competition 120

Competition Slides Sales Research 120

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 14, 2021

With the advent of the Internet, social media, and instant communication via texting, customer expectations for service, as part of their entire customer experience, have changed. They expect you to be there, to know their history as a customer, and to treat them with priority and respect.

Custom 171

Custom Customer Social Media Design 171

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2020

Having the best solution is a good start these days, but a solution alone is no longer enough to keep customer attention and loyalty. The challenge is to transform and hardwire your entire team to think in these terms, rather than the default focus on distinct towers of product quality, closing the sale, or fixing a complaint.

Custom 168

Custom Customer Services Startup 168

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 30, 2022

Today’s customers are much more in control of their buying decision, as they have more choices and more information than ever before. Bloom’s classic book, “ The New Experts: Win Today's Newly Empowered Customers.” This is a key moment where your customer acquisition costs go way down, and your profits go way up.

Customer 146

Customer Custom Startup Course 146

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 19, 2019

Image via Flickr by jardenberg Your marketing launch is the most important element of startup success these days, to get customer attention in this world of information overload. Even great products need great marketing “content” to fuel the ascent of their online message. Lacks a sales angle. Educational.

Customer 93

Customer Custom Marketing Tips 93

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 23, 2021

As a consumer, I rarely pay attention to your marketing pitch, but I certainly always remember a exceptionally positive total experience with your team, based on a memorable set of interactions from first contact to discussions with friends. Incent and reward employees who delight customers. That approach still is meaningful today.

Customer 147

Customer Custom Technical Review Metrics 147

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 16, 2023

Contrary to popular opinion, viral marketing has not eliminated the need for old-fashioned lead generation to bring customers to a startup. His professional background includes having held marketing-executive roles at big companies as well as startups. Email marketing. Direct mail marketing. Display advertising.

Marketing 114

Marketing Invest Social Media SEM 114

Startup Professionals Musings

JULY 30, 2021

While you all recognize that reacting to weak market signals is critical to staying in business and staying competitive, I find that many don’t have the skills and focus to trigger change decisions on a timely basis. You may be getting killed today by customer expectations you never worried about just a few years ago.

Marketing 162

Marketing Social Media Metrics Custom 162

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 11, 2020

They forget that adapting their company and themselves as their customers evolve is the key to long-term survival. Think of Blockbuster and Toys ‘R’ Us , both of whom missed customer changes and the move to online. Create an overt strategy to react to emerging customer trends. Expand into key new sales and delivery channels.

Customer 143

Customer Custom Examples IBM 143

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2022

In my role of business advisor to startups, I often recommend these to increase initial brand identity and market penetration. With the rate of market change today, and the advent of worldwide competitors, you need every strategy you can muster to keep up, and respond quickly to new threats. Show potential customers that you care.

Marketing 119

Marketing Social Media Mentor Conference 119

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 4, 2023

The world of marketing is changing faster than technology these days. Winning entrepreneurs have long since supplemented conventional print and video “push” marketing with digital online interactive “pull” marketing, and a while back added social-local-mobile ( SoLoMo ) to the mix. Proactively seek out win-win alliances.

Marketing 107

Marketing Technical Review Startup Innocal 107

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 5, 2011

Specifically what is often not in the DNA of founders are sales skills. The result is a lack of knowledge of the process and of sales people themselves. I had never had any sales training so everything we did for the first couple of years was instinctual. I boil it down to this: sales people are sales people.

Sales 316

Sales Startup Pricing Custom 316

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

Since 2009 we’ve been in an unequivocal bull market. It’s when the noise stops and you can actually get customer attention, press articles and VC meetings. People attending marquee conferences with rock bands, prominent speakers, Gartner Group prognosticators and lots of other happy customers.

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 10, 2020

The world of marketing is changing faster than technology these days. Winning entrepreneurs have long since supplemented conventional print and video “push” marketing with digital online interactive “pull” marketing, and a while back added social-local-mobile ( SoLoMo ) to the mix. Proactively seek out win-win alliances.

Mobile 173

Mobile Marketing Technical Review Startup 173

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

This is part of a series on sales & marketing. I previously covered how early phase sales teams should be “evangelical&# and consultative in nature. The first post on scaling sales dealt with “aiming&# your sales teams – making sure they were focused on the right opportunities.

Sales 289

Sales Startup Training Pricing 289

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 22, 2021

As I talk to many of you in my role as business advisor, I still often hear the concern for maximum return to the business and stakeholders, more than a passion for sustainably enriching the lives of your customers and team. This applies to your own team, as well as customers. Make every customer experience memorable.

Custom 114

Custom Customer Metrics Satisfaction 114

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 13, 2014

Of course, one sale isn’t really enough, so you need to get the first customer to recommend you to a second, and make sure the rate of sales ramps up quickly enough to keep the business alive and growing. Customers don’t buy the impossible dream. If you lose money on every sale, it’s hard to make it up in volume.

Sales 99

Sales Customer Custom Entrepreneur 99

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 31, 2010

This is part of my ongoing Sales & Marketing Series. In the first part of this post I talked about how sales in a startup is often evangelical , requires as consultative sale and needs constant adjustments based on customer feedback. We had 4 or 5 sales reps that had been around since the early days.

Sales 286

Sales Newsletter Technical Review Activity 286

TechCrunch LA

SEPTEMBER 7, 2021

But LA-based performance marketing agency MuteSix didn’t wait that long to build its business around scaling DTC brands. If you have growth marketing agencies or freelancers to recommend, please fill out our survey !). In today’s highly competitive ad environment, both content and data are kings. The key takeaway?

Commerce 211

Commerce Content Marketing Startup 211

Berkonomics

JUNE 27, 2019

And that behavior results in leaving little time for outreach to the most critical component in your chain – your key customers. Then, what is a benchmark for customer outreach? But, do your customer know that they want? Do customers know what they want from their suppliers for future products? That’s bad behavior!

Customer 120

Customer Custom Course Email 120

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 19, 2020

Instead, they need to validate a customer problem and real market need first. Don’t create solutions looking for a problem , since investors ignore these, and customers other than early adopters will be hard to find. Customers buy solutions, not technology. Your passion isn’t enough to create a market.

Technology 127

Technology Marketing Social Media Custom 127

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 3, 2020

Today’s customers are much more in control of their buying decision, as they have more choices and more information than ever before. Bloom’s classic book, “ The New Experts: Win Today's Newly Empowered Customers.” This is a key moment where your customer acquisition costs go way down, and your profits go way up.

Custom 124

Custom Customer Startup Course 124

Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 20, 2022

Your marketing launch is the most important element of startup success these days, to get customer attention in this world of information overload. Even great products need great marketing “content” to fuel the ascent of their online message. To get to the core of what’s relevant to customers, you need to know them well.

Content 146

Content Newsletter Competition Writing 146

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 16, 2019

Most businesses spend big money testing their brand logo, catchy marketing phrases, and demographics, but spend little time training and validating that their employees can and do deliver exceptional experiences to their customers. They have to out-behave and outperform your competition. Walking the talk is the place to start.

Customer 84

Customer Custom Training Satisfaction 84

Berkonomics

APRIL 19, 2012

Professional investors laugh when they hear an entrepreneur state, “We have no competition.” Perhaps buyers cannot obtain attractive financing in the current market. It could be that a larger competitor has met with its customers, promising to extend its product line into this very niche. Consider the state of the economy.

Competition 189

Competition Slides Sales Ideas 189

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 2, 2022

You can’t succeed in business without an operational model that delivers value to customers at a reasonable price, with an underlying cost that allows you to make a profit. The most common failures are solutions looking for a problem, lack of a defined market, or an inadequate revenue model. Target market. Sales/Marketing.

Sales 102

Sales Customer Custom Outsource 102

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 26, 2023

Often, despite your passion and expectation, customers don’t immediately see the value and need that you see, and you have no idea why the initiative is stuck , and what could be the real customer issue or fix. Customers won’t buy what they can’t find or don’t understand. Customers need supporting approvals to fully benefit.

Product 141

Product Services Technical Review Artificial Inteligence 141

Berkonomics

NOVEMBER 24, 2022

In one industry I know well, the dominant player with 22% market share was acquired by one of the largest companies in the technology world. What if you had abandoned that market, reallocated your resources, and focused instead upon other non–competitive geographical or industry segments? Been skewered for slow customer service?

Resource 156

Resource Competition Examples Custom 156

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 23, 2012

Of course, one sale isn’t really enough, so you need to get the first customer to recommend you to a second, and make sure rate of sales ramps up quickly enough to keep the business alive and growing. Customers don’t buy the impossible dream. If you lose money on every sale, it’s hard to make it up in volume.

Sales 96

Sales Custom Customer Pricing 96

Berkonomics

JULY 26, 2018

These are so succinct, so well defined, so precise that everyone in sales and everyone involved in marketing must be able to answer these three questions without pause, and convincingly. It would pay you to work over this set of questions in a special session with sales, marketing and senior management in the room at once.

Sales 226

Sales Custom Customer Pricing 226

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 4, 2019

Marketing is everything these days. You can have the best technology, but if customers don’t know you exist, or they don’t know how your technology solves a real problem for them, your startup will fail. Yet I see many technology entrepreneurs that focus on the basics of marketing too little and too late.

Marketing 97

Marketing Entrepreneur Startup Technical Review 97

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 14, 2021

For example, I believe that Starbucks surprised most people by proving that they could take a commodity business, a coffee shop, and make it a worldwide profit winner, just by justifying premium pricing with a quality product, the right locations, personalized service, and appealing to the professional customer personas.

Pricing 145

Pricing Startup Competition Examples 145

Startup Professionals Musings

MARCH 10, 2023

Entrepreneurs need to document a process of responding to a market need, sizing opportunity, assigning a specific business model, and planning for marketing, sales, and customer satisfaction. Customer receivables collection and vendor payments. Marketing, sales, support, and service operations.

Outsource Development 115

Outsource Development Startup Ideas Competition 115

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 4, 2011

Of course, one sale isn’t really enough, so you need to get the first customer to recommend you to a second, and make sure rate of sales ramps up quickly enough to keep the business alive and growing. Customers don’t buy the impossible dream. If you lose money on every sale, it’s hard to make it up in volume.

Sales 97

Sales Customer Custom Pricing 97