Introduction
I understand that for some reason you don't think of yourself as a business person, but you are. You made money at this thing right? There are a couple of things you can do to get this up and going, but you are going to have to begin thinking like a business owner rather than a hobbyist.
Everybody has insecurities and uncertainties when dealing with this sort of thing, just take it one step at a time, focus on improving each area before moving onto the next.
What you are going to need at this stage of your business falls into one of six areas;
- Level of Commitment
- Your Offering
- Your Marketing Message
- Lead Generation
- Sales
- Partnerships
What is Your Offering?
You need to know what you are going to offer. You should know what inspires you to stay up late and get up early. You should know what inspires you to continue in light of challenging times. If you have an idea make sure you think it through. Sit and brain storm or mind map it, visualize it from every angle possible and make your modifications.
Technology
If you are going to offer a type of technology, then it's important that your focus is on core capabilities, create stages of development, at each stage make sure its' functional enough to sell. Make sure you plan for key development areas based on what you discover to be a competitive strength in the market place. If your 'research' shows you that consumers want 'A' from this genre of software, but your competitors don't offer 'A', than perhaps you can roll out feature 'A' first so that you have a competitive advantage. Make sure that you don't focus on capabilities that consumers are not interested in, you risk the chance of creating a bottle neck for yourself. Understand that your competitors are in the middle of developing their next version also, and that you could end up wasting valuable time and resources.
VARS
If you are a reseller, than the difficulties have already been thought through for you. It is important that you take time to get your hands on as much information as possible regarding your market and product or service. Have long conversations with the executives in the organization you are reselling for and ask about their target market or market information so you can decide how to position yourself.
Service
If you are offering a service that you put together based on your level of expertise, than most of your work is based on thinking and rethinking things through. Since you will ultimately sell concepts make sure that your ideas are well thought out. Prepare several programs that you can take potential customers through. Think on paper go through the tedious steps of writing and re-writing your offering down.
Conclusion
If time and finances allow it I would suggest taking your business on a test run before solidifying plans. You can offer your new services or products for free or at a discounted rate. You can do this until you are confident that you can raise your prices or start charging people altogether. Your confidence should be based on your knowledge of the industry and customer feedback.
Having your FREE evaluation with a business coach is a $500 value.
PDF
0 comments:
Post a Comment