Posts filed under 'tshafer'
August 18th, 2008
Last week I attended Marketing Strategies in a Down Economy by Steve Moore. Steve stressed the importance of why you are different than your competition. One key differential can just be the reason why you started your business: what is the passion you bring to this business?
Following that meeting, I updated our website home page. Here are the questions I hope our home page answers:
- Who we are?
- What we do?
- What type of clients we work with?
- What type of projects we take on?
- Why we started this business?
- Why existing clients use us?
This should be a good list for most businesses.
August 17th, 2008
I am always surprised by how many basic mistakes CEOs make when giving demos. Learn to avoid them at Cohan’s Great Demo workshop.
- Starting the demo with your company history … who cares?
- Too many bullets on one slide. See Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 Rule of Powerpoint
- “Why I should care about your product” is left to the end of the presentation (long after the high level execs have left the room).
- Live demo that does not work.
- Detailed explanation of every product feature. Regardless if the audience want to see them or not. Gear it to your audience, ask them if you don’t know.
This is an interactive workshop with Peter Cohan geared especially for startup entrepreneur. If you bring a copy of your demo, we will review it in the workshop and provide you feedback on how to improve it.
“SKMurphy’s partnership with the Second Derivative has allowed entrepreneurs at smaller firms access to the same world class sales training normally only available to Fortune 1000 companies. In the class my team developed a presentation that allowed us to explain our offering much more clearly to our prospective customers.” said Miles Kehoe, President at New Idea Engineering. “We have also reshaped how we help our clients present results to their end users. The temptation so often is to start at the beginning of the story and tell them here’s what we did first…then we did this…and really the only thing the they care about is the results, the improvements they will see.”
Postscript Aug 18: I struck a chord with Chris Edwards, who saw parallels between poor demos and poor press briefings, causing him to ask the question “Does Anybody Enjoy Presentations?” Some excerpts follow:
Basically, all these presentations are done backwards. Point three in the SKMurphy list is the most important one for me: “‘Why I should care about your product’ is left to the end of the presentation.”
Many briefings are like some ghastly cross between company brochure and time-share sales. Most presentations make you feel like you’re being set up for a con. There is slide after slide of selective evidence, all meant to make you think that the thing to be unveiled at the end is the answer.
[…]
People really need to think about the thought processes that their intended audience are likely to use. A journalist is, in the case of a briefing, looking for a story. They may well not take away the story you presented but if you start off with what you think the story is, things might at least unfold in the right order.
So, make the claim early. And then provide the background for why this claim might be true. And then you can move onto the background. Why this way round? Because it’s a structure that fits the inverted pyramid of news; it fits the thought processes that journalists are most likely to use: what’s happened; how it happened; evidence to back it all up.
This is the reality of most demos as well, you have to convince the prospect in no more than a few minutes that you can help them in a meaningful way. And the first part runs more reliably on PowerPoint as a platform than Linux, so hold off on the interactive portion until you have established very clearly what the value for your audience is.
August 13th, 2008
We’ve recently expanded the website to add a Startup Stages area that organizes the content based five distinct stages of evolution for a startup. It’s designed to offer you a perspective on content that’s directly relevant to your needs based on the logical next steps to build on what you have achieved. It’s an effort on our part to stand in our customer’s shoes and present what’s immediately relevant to their needs. Like anything else on this site it’s still under construction but far enough along we welcome your feedback by e-mail, comment, contact form, or phone; whatever is easiest for you.
August 9th, 2008
One of the strategies we cover in our Getting More Customers workshops is blogging.
Below is a 90-plan developed by a workshop attendee last year, anonymized and presented with permission. Actual implementation took more than 90 days but he has been blogging for a little less than a year and has 60 blog posts that have been gathering readers. He also uses the blog to answer questions that keep coming up, treating it like a FAQ in progress.
Any good action plan builds on your existing strengths and successes. If you are comfortable with writing, a blog is a good way to gently remind your prospects that you are out there and are available to help them when they have a problem.
Here is the blank worksheet he filled out, answers in italic
One Page Customer Development Plan
Chose the techniques you are going to implement and have a plan! Figure out how you are going to measure it and track the outcome.
Objectives:
- Who are the NEW customers you want to attract?
want to target customers in financial space
- How will you develop NEW business?
use blog as a way to reach and influence prospects
- How will you grow EXISTING business?
same
90-day Plan
2 weeks: Identify blogs where I can guest blog or comment on4 weeks:
- Select blog software and domain name
- Check out at typepad, wordpress, blogger
- Does my hosting service have one?
- Comment on other blogs - 3 times/week (Can I keep this up?)
8 weeks:
- Develop a plan for one/week blogging topics
- Start writing one blog per week
13 weeks:
- Start my blog
- Write one blog a week on my blog
- once a week comment on someone else blog (linking to my)
We checked in with him briefly at each of the milestone dates (basic follow-up is included in the workshop fee) and recently spoke with him now that he has been blogging for about 10 months to get his assessment of the results achieved.
I got busy so it took about 5 or 6 months to do. It takes a lot more planning, reading and thought than I anticipated that it would and readership is smaller than I would like (at least compared to our newsletter). I need to get better at commenting on other blogs. When I am busy this is the first thing to fall off, yet it is critical to building my readers. I have seen it boost my website traffic but I have not seen it generate sales leads directly yet. It was been useful to answer inquiries we get by writing a blog post, and doing this has made them easier to re-use. It’s also been helpful when we wanted to respond quickly to an event (e.g. an acquisition) that our customers and prospects are looking for a quick take on. But it’s a different writing style from a forum post or a newsletter article that requires practice to master.
July 27th, 2008
Getting More Customers (a Do-It-Yourself marketing and self-promotion workshop) leads SKMurphy’s fall workshop schedule. SKMurphy workshop combine lecture, written exercises, and interaction with a roomful of entrepreneurs. We guide you through your one-page plan and provide time dedicated to your business. You leave with a one-page action plan that’s based on sound principles, reflection, and review and feedback both from us and peers..
- Thursday August 21, 2008 8:15-1:00pm Getting More Customers Sunnyvale CA
- Saturday Sept 13, 2008 8:15-1:00pm Great Demo San Jose CA
- Wednesday Sept 24, 2008 11:30-1:30pm Financial Modeling for Start-Ups Sunnyvale CA
- Tuesday October 14, 2008 8:15-1:00pm Engineering Your Sales Process Redwood Shores CA
- Dec 2008 Idea to Revenue (TBA)
This workshop has consistently enjoyed very positive feedback and the last couple have sold out, so register early.
July 17th, 2008
Consulting is a referral business. Four things you can do today to build referrals:
- Make a list of at least 30 people you have had shared success with. Go back at least 15 years or college/university. Taking the time to go back to your first job is worth it.
- Contact those people and tell them
- What you have been up to
- Here’s what I am looking for, please refer people to if they are looking for my services
- Please let me know what you have been up to and call if there is anything I can do to help.
- Keep their needs in mind and pro-actively notify them if you run across articles, people, events, or opportunities that are relevant or likely to be useful.
- Write 2 testimonials for people in the shared success category in LinkedIn
July 16th, 2008
What is an advisory board?
An advisory board is a formal or informal group of advisors who give advise, contacts, and feedback. Unlike the board of directors they do not have a fiduciary responsibility but are critical for start-ups. Also see Forming an advisory board.
How can they help me?
There are three broad ways that an advisory board can help you. The first is domain or technology knowledge. Secondly, industry knowledge advisors will understand the real ins and outs of how your market works and what the market needs are, they may also be able to open doors. Domain or technology folks maybe able to open door to potential partners and suppliers, but market knowledge folks maybe able to bring in the prospects or at least have you talk to people that prevent strategic misfires as you go into the market. And thirdly, if neither of the other two groups have been in a start-up before, it’s good to have at least one person either on your team or as an advisor who has rapid growth. So, if you are fortunate and you start to really takeoff, you have some somebody that helps you make decisions in a timely way and understands what to look out for and how to scale the company.
What do I give them?
Normally advisors which add credibility to your firm in a variety of ways, will trade expertise or services for equity.You typically are going to give them founders’ equity stock which is coming out of your pocket. It is frankly a negotiation, how much time they give you or how much equity they get, and that brings anywhere from 0.1% or 1%, in some very rare cases perhaps 2%, that’s the negotiation. Usually there is some kind of vesting schedule maybe on a 2-year or 3-year schedule with a 3 month or 6 month cliff. Because you want to make sure that things are working out, you don’t have a values’ conflict or getting value, you normally have a 3 or 6 month cliff. If things do not work out, then they walk away, they don’t get anything. During those early months
How do I use them?
You want to actually bring them together as appropriate to do at least a quarterly meeting, might be a phone call, might be a nice dinner. This time you can brief them on your business, dry run your demo, and get feedback on your plans. you would like to be to able get some introductions. They are a great source for contacts for employees, partners, prospects, or investment partners.
What do I ask of them?
- You are looking typically for 2 hours a month, 4 hours a quarter. Schedule either monthly, or twice a quarter, once a quarter formal meeting where you present a briefing for them. These become a proxy for your real board meetings until you have a real board of directors, this is a board of advisors.
- You want to be able to call them when urgent things come up. They are busy people, so you only want call for urgent things, but when urgent things come up, you want to be able to reach out to them.
- You want to negotiate use their name. You would like to announce in a press release that they have joined you, would like to be able to use their name on your website, you would like to be able to have folks call them to get their opinion of you, it might be investors or it might be a major prospect you are talking to.
Normally about two-thirds of that value is the advice they give you and one-third is the doors they open and the value that their reputation sheds on your company. VentureHacks has three relevant posts that are more focused on VC related issues than bootstrapping but still worth reviewing:
April 29th, 2008
For Silicon Valley our favorite location to meet clients is American Executive Center. Depending on the requirements for the meeting we use a number of places outlined at meeting locations.
Full Calendar is another great source for meeting venues. It’s a great list and far more encompassing than ours. Enter “venues” in the search form.
April 2nd, 2008
Do you think selling as dishonest and manipulative? Some of the teams we encounter are looking for the most accomplished liar they can find to jumpstart their sales process. Perhaps you feel that way?
This post “You are a Doctor, not a Salesperson” from eLAMPROS might change your mind. Some key points:
“Studying the ’sales process’ the doctor uses to sell a cure, you will notice …
- A doctor is important enough for you to go to them.
- Generally a long wait is worth your time to get to see the doctor.
- The more important the problem you have, the more important the doctor becomes. And, by the way, you don’t try to go the least expensive route.
- Doctors don’t sell you – they diagnose you using data points you provide. And you believe them and act on it.
- Doctors can tell you about a problem you don’t even know you have.
- The diagnosis and recommendations you get from doctors always trump those you get from a friend or family member … or even a website.
- The ’sales cycle’ is very short.
- Doctors are always going straight to the decision maker for the decision.
- Every time you have a problem you go back for another consultation.
We tell our team, “You are not a salesperson, you are a DOCTOR”. When we find ourselves working with prospects to DIAGNOSE their problems we seem to end up in a doctor-like situation. Our prospects buy more quickly, they trust our recommendations, the decision maker is involved early and often, and they appreciate our advice and come back for it often.”
For the record we believe that integrity is essential to the startup sales process, many times you are promising future performance and the team needs to be mindful of the consequences not only to the customer and but to their reputation. We follow Steve Blank’s “Four Steps to the Epiphany” customer development model, which means that we believe the founders must sell. Why? Sometimes it’s the presentation and sometimes it’s the product. In the early market it’s too easy to blame the messenger if you weren’t part of the conversation with the customer and don’t want to hear that your product needs to be changed.
We have a roundtable next Tuesday that will look at sales issues for SaaS firms. In particular how does SaaS change sales management, sales compensation, and selling strategies. It’s over a lunch from 11:30 to 1pm at Plug and Play, 440 N Wolfe Rd Sunnyvale, California 94084. You can Register here.
March 10th, 2008
If you missed us at SDWest last week, here are pointers to firms and organizations we had in the Startup Resource Center.
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