Business Development Advice For Start Ups !

Small start-ups should not use the marketing styles used by large and profit making companies. Instead, they must use their advantage.

Presenting your offer to potential customers is important in any business – big or small . Marketing is therefore very important in any business.

However I see many start up firms spending far too much money and time on what they see around them – fancy stationery, sleek brochures, good looking web sites, glitzy booths at tradeshows, buying listing space in target industry directories and sometimes even advertising. They do not realize that these activities are undertaken by businesses where owners are making enough sales and profits already to hire a separate marketing department - or an ad agency - to focus on these activities which improve their visibility, create awareness and attract customers. But the case of start ups is different - and in a positive way.

They are the main (sometimes the only) resource of their businesses and when they go out there and begin talking to their potential customers, their infectious energy and sense of purpose rubs off on their customers. Nothing can ever substitute the power of person to person conversation.

If you are the kind of business I am talking about, you should not come from the viewpoint that you are stooping down to sell. You should speak from the conviction in your value proposition. Speak from the sense that you are serving your customers in a unique way which they have not been served before. Speak like a doctor and uncover the goals and challenges of your clients and tell them how what you are offering; helps. Communicate what your product will do for them.

Before you talk to your customer write down on a card the following (1) your value proposition (2) in what way you will serve them the way they have never been served before (3) what challenges and problems of your customers you will address (4) what success, in their own language, they will get when they deal with you.

Now go out and locate customers. Do not be discouraged if everyone does not buy. Take that as an opportunity to learn in each contact and then use to improve yourself and your activities. You will make progress faster in this way than through traditional marketing of media and materials.