Dear all,
I am reading all these responses - which are 'on the dot'.
Also, i see a trend these responses are towards : from the 'starter's' point
of view only.
Are'nt we missing one more thing :
- to have good marketing team / person.
He should be able to find good (and needy) clients - for which you could
satisfy their needs. This is very important.
Even if you have a very good product - for instance (Mr. Girish - wont mind
me - for taking this as an example) the 'Spam Cheetah' , is a very good
product, but not able to shown to the right audience. whereas in the same
category a lot of new products which satisfies the same need are doing very
good business.
Try to find: Internals (where you have a lot of control - if not full)
- first of all what you can do
- what you want to do - in the long run
- what compromises you could endure - in the short term (till you get a good
amount of revenue generated)
And then : External (which you have no control)
- the needs of a general customer (should have platform, need, etc)
- attack these segments (first time and low budget customers), these may not
be the corporate segment, but some private customers and of course factories
/ production houses etc.
- keep meeting them, month after month - since the more you go, the customer
will have the confidence in you, your product and also your company, and
finally your confidence in solving his problem
- quote a low (not lower than your cost break-even), and show him that you
are doing this specially for him.
FIRST - YOUR FULL EFFORT SHOULD GO TO GET A FIRST CUSTOMER. As soon as you
get your first customer, through him, you should be able to get more
references, customers.
Efforts should be made to get more - enquiries, build up more funnels.
Interaction with more potential customers will give you more confidence,
which leads to more endurance.
Most of the businesses wind up - not because of money ("There is no lack of
Money, Only LACK OF IDEAS" - robert schuller), but because of not having
enough confidence on the solutions / capabilities of the person / company -
to endure the problems.
It should be a point - that though the MS Windows was inferior to others (at
least at the time of their beginning), it not just survived, but grew to
become the default. So concentrate on others which are not under your
"control" (I know that I am going to get more responses on this point) that
is the CUSTOMER ANGLE.
If you can find your customer, his needs, the solutions to solve his
problems - then you can win. Getting people to code, and other after sales
etc, can be done without too much of a problem.
If there is anything wrong - please just point them out, and requesting not
to criticize me.
Happy Selling,
with warm regards,
s.sivakumar
mumbai
98200 10728
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