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Casual Articles - 10 Things to Consider When Starting a New Business
Selling high-tech products and services is much more difficult than selling most other products and services: Truth, or just a popular myth?Selling anything that is not a known commodity can be difficult. However, most of the difficulty is created by salespeople themselves. Here are some of the reasons why high-tech Sales seems so difficult - and how the typical selling process just reinforces that myth.1. Most salespeople are unable to describe their product or service clearly and briefly enough.Most people take 20 to 30 seconds to decide whether they want what the salesperson is selling. Prospects get frustrated and annoyed at the salesperson who doesn't communicate with immediate clarity.An effective prospecting offer should ideally be about 45 words. It takes many top salespeople about 2 hours to design an effective and concise prospecting offer. Most salespeople don't even know where to start.2. Pressing prospects for an appointment before they are ready to buy greatly reduces the probability of ever getting the sale.Most salespeople believe that they should convince any prospect that has an apparent need for their products and services to buy. However, most prospects are not rea
Once you have product to sell and it is selling very well, why stop there? Despite the enormous profit potential of upselling, millions have no idea just how much money they are turning away with every initial sale. Upselling is so easy and requires little to no extra work on your part than what is done at the time you sold your customer a service, product, or item in the first place. People either don't know about upselling, or they do and are under the false impression it requires lots of additional work from them.When you see an infomercial on TV that sells a product, did you ever notice they almost always mention the fact that you can get an additional discount if you buy more than one item? Often the announcer will say... "makes a great gift" or "buy for the home and another for..." etc. This is the classic upsell.There is another version of the upsell which is also known as "back end" sales. All you do is offer your customers additional items or services at the same time you are filling their original order. It's so simple to include a cover letter thanking the customer for their order. The cover letter is an excellent opportunity to tie the upsell to the "thank you" and actually increase sales! Here's an
1. What product or service will you provide?
Most people start a business based on their existing knowledge and experience of working in a particular industry sector, whilst others spot a gap in the market, but you need to establish whether there is a market in the gap. Make sure you carry out research, with companies and individuals who don’t know you – friends and family will generally tell you what you want to hear!
The next question you need to ask once you have decided on your products and services is ‘so what?’ In other words, what are your key differentiators, what makes your product or service unique? What can you do that is better, faster, or cheaper than your potential competition? If you don’t have an answer to this question you could end up as just another me too! You need to work out how to position your company and create a proposition for those all-important sales calls.
2. Nobody plans to fail....
but many companies don’t make it past the first year because they fail to plan. You can increase your chances considerably by putting together a business plan even if you are the only one that will ever see it. A business plan should provide you with a map of where you intend to go supported by information on how you will achieve it. After all, you wouldn’t plan a journey abroad without first establishing the costs, time scales, the language you need to speak when you arrive, and how you would reach your destination. ‘The Definitive Business Plan by Richard Stutely is th
There are two distinctly different markets. Oddly enough, both markets need the exact same marketing process to work. As elsewhere described, the first market is the selling of commodities, either as products or services; commodities meaning a known value, i.e. a commonly accepted result. For example, a $.69 can of green beans and a $4.95 car wash represent expected results. The second market is, obviously, products and/or services with either an unknown result and/or an unknown price. (Result + price = value)Interestingly, both markets compel the same 3 components to produce acceptable results. They are1) make the big promise, 2) document your claims, and 3) make the irresistible and/or risk-free offer.In the marketing of commodities, you need to add value in order to cause the desired response, "I'd be nuts not to buy from these guys." In order to get that response, it isn't enough to say "You'll save money" or "You've tried the rest, now try the best." You have one shot to convince them that they'll really save money (which is 1 - the big promise). So, you'll have to prove that it's for real; i.e. who says so besides you and your brother
1. What product or service will you provide?
Most people start a business based on their existing knowledge and experience of working in a particular industry sector, whilst others spot a gap in the market, but you need to establish whether there is a market in the gap. Make sure you carry out research, with companies and individuals who don’t know you – friends and family will generally tell you what you want to hear!
The next question you need to ask once you have decided on your products and services is ‘so what?’ In other words, what are your key differentiators, what makes your product or service unique? What can you do that is better, faster, or cheaper than your potential competition? If you don’t have an answer to this question you could end up as just another me too! You need to work out how to position your company and create a proposition for those all-important sales calls.
2. Nobody plans to fail....
but many companies don’t make it past the first year because they fail to plan. You can increase your chances considerably by putting together a business plan even if you are the only one that will ever see it. A business plan should provide you with a map of where you intend to go supported by information on how you will achieve it. After all, you wouldn’t plan a journey abroad without first establishing the costs, time scales, the language you need to speak when you arrive, and how you would reach your destination. ‘The Definitive Business Plan by Richard Stutely is t
Remember the cleaning business is all about time ratio to money. You want to be making at least a $1 a minute when doing concrete work at a minimum and aim for $100 to $200 per hour if you can get it. If you are not achieving this income level then you work too slowly or you did not bid correctly on the accounts you are taking. You need to have a work order form. This form should have an area for time it took to do the job, how many people were on the job, gas to get to the site and mileage to get to the site. If you need a sheet like this the trainers we believe the best program to create this in is the new Microsoft Word, it has some incredible new features which make the formatting so easy you might think of yourself as a graphic designer.For your pressure wand you need to use a green tip for steam and a yellow or 15-degree tip for breaking up dirt from an area or pushing the dirty water from an area so you can see what you are doing. You need to have an extra one hundred feet of pressure hose with your work truck or trailer mounted set up. This extra hose needs to be available when you are at a job site where there are many contract workers and space is limited. More then two hundred feet of hose will be re
The next question you need to ask once you have decided on your products and services is ‘so what?’ In other words, what are your key differentiators, what makes your product or service unique? What can you do that is better, faster, or cheaper than your potential competition? If you don’t have an answer to this question you could end up as just another me too! You need to work out how to position your company and create a proposition for those all-important sales calls.
2. Nobody plans to fail....
but many companies don’t make it past the first year because they fail to plan. You can increase your chances considerably by putting together a business plan even if you are the only one that will ever see it. A business plan should provide you with a map of where you intend to go supported by information on how you will achieve it. After all, you wouldn’t plan a journey abroad without first establishing the costs, time scales, the language you need to speak when you arrive, and how you would reach your destination. ‘The Definitive Business Plan by Richard Stutely is t
No matter what you do, you will be noticed by others. If you do not give a reasonable tip at a restaurant or you stick the other person with the bill, you will be noticed. Your reputation is on the line whenever other people are involved. When you go to a meeting with a client or you help someone on the phone, your name and how you respond will be noticed. You cannot do anything or go anywhere without dragging your reputation behind you. It takes a long time to build trust and only one incident to tear it down. Once it is torn down, it will take years to build it back up again. Look at some of your personal experiences that led to your current reputation. Do your actions support that reputation? If you are known as a procrastinator, are you really that person? If you are known for getting things done on time, do you really live up to it? The chances are likely the answer is yes.If you deal with people in a friendly, efficient manner then your reputation will be good and you will be noticed for good work. Every customer has a relationship with you; treat them as if they are your only customer even if they are difficult to deal with. Even difficult customers will give you referrals if you can make them happy with your se
2. Nobody plans to fail....
but many companies don’t make it past the first year because they fail to plan. You can increase your chances considerably by putting together a business plan even if you are the only one that will ever see it. A business plan should provide you with a map of where you intend to go supported by information on how you will achieve it. After all, you wouldn’t plan a journey abroad without first establishing the costs, time scales, the language you need to speak when you arrive, and how you would reach your destination. ‘The Definitive Business Plan by Richard Stutely is t
Communication failures are common in industry and government. In many cases the poor communication stems from a lack of knowledge by managers, supervisors and team leaders in how communication works in the human brain. A result of this poor understanding is lower levels of productivity than is otherwise possible.Communication models suggest that problems in communication are as much about listening as they are about speaking. It is not only the receiver who needs to listen well, but also the speaker.A common theme amongst modern communication models is that people filter, interpret, attach meaning and significance to what they hear based on their thinking styles, their life experiences, their relationship with the speaker and their emotions at the time of hearing the communication. Their response is based on this complex series of mental interactions which may only take a few seconds.Most of us have experienced the feeling that a speaker we listened to was from another planet. For example, whilst waiting for the big picture to be painted all we heard was detail, detail, detail. Or all we heard was high level generalities with no detail as we wait patiently to relate what they are saying to what we actuall
3. Where will you work?
For countless people the prospect of working from home may be a life long ambition, but scores of people in this position already, find it difficult to focus and often feel isolated. Marcel Ekkel, independent project manager and consultant (SynergyhSnyQ Ltd) as worked from home for many years and said he copes by “planning regular meetings out of the house, doing grocery shopping to get some fresh air and uses online messenger applications to talk regularly to team mates”.
Today there are many options of where to work open to us from leasing unfurnished office space, sharing with other businesses, to working from managed offices such as Regus and HQ. With more competition in this market it is worth shopping around, but make sure you compare like for like, as some serviced offices offer no frills whilst others provide no end of value added services. You also need to be aware that if you need a registered office address not all managed offices will facilitate this requirement.
4. What’s in a name?
The choices are endless, but there are a number of things to consider before naming your business. Will it be a family business? Do you want to grow it with a view to exiting after a period of 5 years? Do you need a web presence? Should the name of the business reflect what you do? Are you going to register the name as a trademark? The answer to all these questions is an article in itself but you should carry out a
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