Learning how to grow a business is much harder than starting a business. In my case, starting from scratch with only few hundreds dollars is not difficult at all. What challenges me is the growing pain, sales and marketing.
Writing a decent and solid programming is by far the easiest part. How to sell, market and brand the business is really difficult to me. Since I am no business major and no business experience, learning how to become a true successful business man is a challenge.
Recently, something came out of blue. A competitor in the same industry IM me a great opportunity to form a mutual partnership. This is a great news to me. A much larger competitor is seeing the value of my business and is willing to cooperate with a much smaller fish in the pound.
If you can’t fight it, work with it. My philosophy is not to have one enemy but lots partners.
Now. This magic happens again today. A second competitor had conference me with the same type of opportunity. Although we did not come up common agreement, we will see if there is any chance to work together in the coming months.
This is a great lesson to me. A much bigger company is willing to work with a small one instead of eating them alive or destroying them. This means I have something really valuable to offer. Or they, indeed, need extra help to move their business forward. Either way, I prove my business provides the value.
Now I have to be sure that mutual partnership works exactly like it is planned.
If all goes well, I will be growing much bigger and faster. Finger crossed.
At mean time, I need to stop selling my owner products once for all. It’s not what I do for living. Hiring a talented regional sales and marketing people is the right way to move business forward.
I need to grow and grow faster.
That is where the power of networking come to rescue me. After talking to a banker, I decided to interview people I know in the networking group. I am sure people will be more interested in helping me out with 40% commission.
My bottom line is that the personal who is good at selling something must also be a user of the products. If he/she has never use the product, how can he/she sell that to others?
That’s for now!
Sounds like you are getting crucial elements lined up and into place.
I like the team effort approach to business a well. It just seems more rewarding when everyone can benefit. Although, when you are only a small part of the team it can be somewhat intimidating. I believe that is where actions will end up speaking louder than words.
Approaching with honor and integrity can go a long way and make a big impression.
Thanks! Still working on it. Now I am seriously looking for sales person. It’s a long way, but I like the process.
Good advice. I agree that startups (companies as a matter of fact) should learn to leverage off other people as much as possible.
I don’t get why so many people don’t seem to get this.
Feel free to email me privately, but out of curiosity, how are you looking for this sales person?
@Yst:
It’s easy to answer your question. The best person to help me sell is the one who use my service.
If your sales person don’t see the value of your products, they won’t be able to sell that for you.
The other great sales person is those who purchase the service. If they like my services, they will tell other people to use it. It’s word of mouth.