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things that I learned from my startup experience PART 6 – Marketing, Selling Suhas Dutta
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30 things 6/7 - MARKETING /SELLING - 30 things that I learned from my startup experience: Part 6/7

Oct 19, 2014

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This is the sixth of the seven part series on my experiences from Entrepreneurship. The previous parts covered the idea formation, the starting, the execution, funding etc.
This part covers marketing and selling your products.
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Page 1: 30 things   6/7 - MARKETING /SELLING - 30 things that I learned from my startup experience: Part 6/7

things that I learned from my startup experiencePART 6 – Marketing, Selling

Suhas Dutta

Page 2: 30 things   6/7 - MARKETING /SELLING - 30 things that I learned from my startup experience: Part 6/7

“Everyone lives by selling something.“

Robert Louis Stevenson

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So far…• In the previous part of this series, we went through funding

and investment solicitation.

• Whether its for your product, or to get investment you will need to spend serious effort and brain power in marketing your product and selling. That is what will be covered in this sixth part of the series.

• I don’t intend covering “how to sell” in these slides. You will find plenty material all over which would cover that.

Idea

Starting Executing

Results

Funding Marketing Selling

People Emotions Learning

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In my experience, marketing is about…

• Marketing is really about story telling, and it overlaps to a large extent with selling.

• Story telling is about creating an emotional connect over a period of time and love for the brand.

– That is how companies are able to sell their logo merchandise.

• Ask yourself again – do you have a compelling story about your product or service?

• Ask yourself again – how well do you know your customer?

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Marketing is a continual effort• Your efforts towards

marketing have to be continual and maintain at least a minimum level.

• The focus of the effort through a particular medium or a product feature can vary. Marketing type / language should vary if you are targeting a wide spread demographic.

• Have seen and experienced, that during cash crunch marketing spend gets chopped. Bad thing to do.

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Field of dreams. © Aaron Dryden

TIP: “Build and they will come” – is a crock of horse manure.

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Plan for marketing• You will need to plan for

marketing, and go per plan.

• The plan will help figure how much you need to spend, what you expect to get for that spend.

• There will be times when you will need to be flexible and change plans too.

• As mentioned earlier your marketing strategy has to be all encompassing, and work in an integrated fashion across media.

• But you can choose to spend more in certain areas than others depending on what the target demographic of your product / service is.

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AdvertisingAdvertising, besides through social media can also be:

• On web related media– Direct advertisements e.g. google ads

– Surrogate advertising by paid publications on popular websites

• On print– Regular advertisements

– Paid press releases, interviews and features. All magazines, trade periodicals and newspapers do this.

• Radio / FM – not very costly, but has decent reach

• Television – of course, costs a lot and will be unaffordable unless you get plenty funding.

Works well.

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The most powerful marketing tool• Word of mouth is

perhaps the most powerful of all marketing mechanisms.

• Word of mouth spreads on the basis of your delivery to customers. One failed delivery can ruin a lot of previous hard work and success.

• Needs a lot of hard / smart work to achieve this, but has no real direct cost in a way.

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Social marketing is great, but…• Though necessary,

clearly not sufficient for your marketing efforts.

• Advertising of all kinds will be required and so will be some press coverage from time to time in electronic and other traditional media.

• And word of mouth marketing still is the most credible.

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TIP: Ensure that you measure performance of your marketing spend and reorient spending accordingly.

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Making yourself visible• Find a way to be visible:

– Network through industry groups, without overdoing it.

– Try to get public speaking slots even in smaller conclaves, industry groups, conferences. Most of these events are visited by potential investors and clients.

– If you have large amount of experience in a relevant area, check if you can be a mentor-on-panel somewhere

– If you can get your writing published, do so

– The corollary to that is, you will need to polish up your public speaking and writing skills.

• Get some press coverage if you can manage to, either on traditional or electronic media. Newspaper coverage, of course, has the widest reach.

• Little bit of advertising in conclaves, conferences, meet ups etc. does go a distance because of the focused audience and doesn’t cost much.

Avoid press

coverage

till your

product /

infra are

ready.

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Glamour and glitz?

• Glitz and glamour has its place in marketing and it does cause brand recall for sure.

• If you have the funding, use it effectively to your advantage.

• Getting funding from celebrities does help in marketing too. E.g. yatra.com (Salman Khan), justdial (Amitabh Bachchan), ubqool.com (Juhi Mehta)

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In my experience, selling is…• Selling, usually preceded by

marketing is all about converting the story that you narrated while doing marketing.

• No one cares how many ads you run, but did you make an impression? Did you capture the customer’s imagination and manage to relate it to your product / story?

• It really is about whether you managed to get a share of the wallet of your customer, or not.

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30 second sales pitch• Know exactly where to go – and it is okay to communicate the end

result to the person you are pitching to, upfront.

• Prepare, prepare and prepare:

– Bullet point it inside your head, so that you remain on your prepared pitch and don’t stray too much.

– Tell them a story – have mentioned this a few times already. But a long winded story doesn’t help. Time yourself while preparing.

– Run the sales pitch with your friends and colleagues and ask for feedback.

• Eliminate jargon – in the last three years, while selling a software based service to schools , I learned quickly to stray away from tech jargon and focus on the benefits and the service. Not many will catch your jargon anyways, and some people get turned off by jargon too.

• Ensure that your pitch engages and invites conversation and participation. A bored potential customer most likely won’t convert.While preparing this slide, I found some material on businessinsider.in which rang all true from my experiences, and I repurposed

to some extent. These basics worked for us, especially because I have never been a direct salesperson before.

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While selling• Identify your customers

well. If you are creating a pipeline, there is no point chasing potentials which will surely not convert. Qualify your leads and keep funneling.

• Don’t let the sales be all the responsibility of sales people (if you have any). Get on the road, meet real customers.

• You need to be bi-polar in a way. While you aggressively sell, you need to be very aware of the deficiencies in your product. Your being critical of the product will help improve it.

• Be gung-ho about the product but be honest to the customer.

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If you have a sales person / team• Ensure that the sales person /team

– Understands the product / service that they are to sell, very well.

– Is able to do a demo (if appropriate) on her own

– Creates and runs the relationship and ensures delivery (of the product / service)

• Make them accountable

– For not just sales, but collection and recoveries

– To report their efforts, visits etc every day or every other day

– To be on the road for most of their time, but report into office either every evening or at frequent intervals.

• Sit with them

– For weekly face to face reporting

– And go through the pipeline, and help qualify leads

This slide

should have

been in the

people part,

but what the

heck! Fits in

here too

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Closing a sale• Understand that you should be

involved in closing sales – in the beginning and for every possible large sale later.

• Create some sense of urgency by using a carrot (discount, promo offer or the like). Keep some cards up your sleeve which you can reveal at this time.

• In some cases the fear of competition helps too – that if the person across the desk doesn’t deal with you, you will deal with their competitor. Be careful how you play this though.

Ask for it. It is okay to tell the client that you want their business.

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Closing a sale• Understand the client’s sales

process, know the people involved and set timelines.

• Try not to pull wool, try not to use tricks. If you are having to do this, you most likely do not have a sale, or this will come back to haunt you later.

• Be prepared to walk away as well. But stay confident and positive. Treat the prospective customer as a customer.

• People say “winners never quit”. I think winners always quit, in every field. It is just that they know when to quit. [isn’t that what Seth Godin says in The Dip]

Win credibility in the sales process and open doors for repeat business

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APPENDIX

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APPENDIX: Useful starting points• Trust based selling, by Charles H. Green

• HBR Guide to Persuasive Presentations Ebook + Video Case Study: http://hbr.org/product/hbr-guide-to-persuasive-presentations-ebook-video-/an/11150V-KND-ENG?referral=01121

• Marketing Simulation: Managing Segments and Customers V2: http://hbr.org/product/marketing-simulation-managing-segments-and-custome/an/7018HB-HTM-ENG?referral=01121

• Dismantling the Sales Machine: http://hbr.org/product/dismantling-the-sales-machine/an/R1311H-PDF-ENG?referral=00929

• How to Sell in 60 Seconds: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/65972

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Brand Activation

Segmentation Insights

Market

Intelligence

Market Dynamics

Market Diagnostics

Market Assessment

Internal Diagnostics

Market Entry

JV / Partner Evaluation

Implementation

APPENDIX: Go to market processThere could be various other methodologies, prescribed or subscribed by various organizations. The basics of the process are still more or less about the same.

MetricsCustomer Feedback

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Lead Generation

Social Media

Search Engine

Optimization

Getting Found

Getting Shared

Generating Leads

Idea courtesy: Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute

APPENDIX: How does “SEO” work?• SEO does not work

effectively in isolation. Don’t let digital marketing companies tell you that.

• You will need to generate – Content through press

releases, blogs etc besides doing keyword population for search engines to find you.

– Interest in your product, or leads through a combination of advertising, and use of social media.

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• I have shared experiences and lessons that we learned from marketing and selling our services. I deliberately did not talk about how to sell, or how to market because you will find plenty of that material on that web and in many books which you can choose to read.

• Go on to the last part of this series which will talk about people, partnerships etc..

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• Have questions or feedback? Write to me.

• If you need a little help in terms of mentoring, reviewing material, vetting a plan or the like…I would be happy to help a fellow entrepreneur start her/his journey. It will cost you just a cup of coffee.

• If you have already started and could do with some strategic advice, helping create your business plans or your investment pitch, marketing strategy, fulfill your company’s training needs, need advice on the pitch etc, please feel free to reach me.

• My coordinates are:

[email protected]

– linkedin.com/in/suhasdutta/

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