Just thought I'd post about an event I'm attending on 10th June called Being Digital.

The format is based on 22 successful mashup* events and, as I've attended a number of shorter formats in the past, I'm excited about this full day event.

Being digital is all about debating the issues that matter when delivering and designing a digital mashup service.

The event has seven themed debates on advertising, identity, content, location, social, retail and search across the important platforms of web, mobile and TV. In each theme there will be leading demo companies showing why it is real and how advanced some actually are.

A couple of our clients are also attending, and another client chaired their TV 2.0 event last year so I know from experience it provides excellent value.

No big company slide deck - just real cutting edge stuff.

A must for any digital entrepreneur. See you there!

Labels: entrepreneurs, networking, new business development, start-ups

A recent book I've been reading is "This Business Has Legs", sub-titled "How I Used Infomercial Marketing to Create the $100,000,000 Thighmaster Craze: An Entrepreneurial Adventure Story".

OK, I'll admit, I have pretty eclectic reading habits :-)

The book is a fascinating insight into the world of infomercials, written by Peter Bieler, the entrepreneur behind the Thighmaster Craze - well worth a read.

Anyway, Peter set out to create a "virtual corporation", outsourcing all aspects of his business from day one, including sales. As Peter writes:

"The nice thing about a virtual corporation is that you don't have to change. You don't have to transform yourself from a frontline manager to a guy that sits at the top of a huge pyramid of employees. The other advantage to a virtual structure is that you can grow rapidly... not only can you grow rapidly, you can shrink - painlessly - if need be"

Given that the infomercial world is driven by instant sales hits with a limited shelf-life, this certainly makes sense.

But, more than this, outsourcing the parts of your business that you don't do well (or don't enjoy!) makes perfect sense.

When we work with business owners they all have a common thread; they're passionate about their product or service, they are typically the creator type... but they all hate sales & marketing.

I'm not talking about meeting with potential customers; all our clients love that part! It's all the peices that run up to and after this single event.

Generating leads, building a pipeline of business, chasing and closing deals - it all takes times and unless you've worked in sales or business dveelopment for any length of time, the knock-backs and rejections that come with the territory can be punishing.

In way, in current Silicon Valley parlance, we "eat our own dog food" here.

We're a classic virtual corporation in every sense. We scale for each client gig with an associate base, bringing a team of telesales, field sales and business development professionals to deliver results. Over time the structure of the team changes to reflect the business stage of each client.

Plus, in a way, we have outsourced our content production. It's almost a reverse-outsourcing, if that term exists :-)

We are the sales engine, but without our clients "content" (ie: their products and services) then we cannot grow our business.

Which makes us an ideal partner for clients seeking to outsource their sales.

Labels: entrepreneurs, new business development, sales outsourcing, small businesses

I was recently reading Randy Komisar's "The Monk & the Riddle". It's a great book and provides an fresh perspective for entrepreneurs on starting a business in Silicon Valley.

In the book, Komisar talks about the different type of CEO needed at each stage of a business.

First you need a "Retriever", able to fetch together the founding team and resources. Next it's the "Bloodhound" who sniffs out the market and sets direction. Thirdly you have the "Husky" who pulls the company towards it's goal.

I thought these were all great metaphors for the different types of interim sales manager that you need at different steps in the evolution of a business.

It also reminded me of an article I posted on Ecademy back in February, Are you a "Renaissance" Salesperson or "Coin-Operated Rep"?.

This looked at how you need different types of salespeople at each stage of a company and/or market.

Renaissance Reps were the visionaries. Enlightened reps were interested in refining the sales process and, finally, "coin-operated" reps (I love that phrase) do what you would expect... go out and fill the order book.

One of the things I see most often when speaking to clients about outsourcing sales is that they fail to understand the type of salesperson they need for the stage they are at.

Hiring someone who simply wants to sell "by the numbers" when you haven't got an established and repeatable process is always going to fail. At best, they'll burn through your prospects and then retreat defeated.

Of course, as Komisar points out, that's when you'll need the last category to pull you out of the deep stuff... the Saint Bernard.

Labels: entrepreneurs, interim sales management, sales, start-ups

Having spoken with many Interim Managers I find that they tend to fall into one of two camps: Serial or Parallel.

Serial Interims are probably what most people consider to be the classic type. They work on an assignment in a full-time capacity for a length of time (usually 3 to 12 months) and then, when they complete it, they move onto the next gig.

But, just as many entrepreneurs have started describing themselves as "serial" or "parallel entrepreneurs", this second category exists in the interim market.

In fact, I would describe myself as a "parallel interim manager", in that I work on a portfolio of client assignments at the same time.

It's a bit like the portfolio worker concept identified by Charles Handy.

It could be that this mode of working is more suited to smaller businesses and start-ups, which are my clients. The necessity to run multiple projects is usually due to clients wanting my expertise without the capital commitment of hiring a full-time Sales Director.

Also, I've personally found that sales and business development are processes that can be effectively segmented into activities run in parallel. Some care needs to be taken not to start two assignments at the sames time (which is when they are most intense and require full commitment) but generally the model works well.

Many of my associates also take this approach, running client or their own business projects alongside other engagements. Again, this is typically a good fit for small businesses or larger companies that want an interim for special project or strategic initiative (such as to validate a new market).

The classic serial approach is best for stop-gap or "business as usual" interim work. However, the reality is that interims are rarely used for "business as usual" within the sales function.

Labels: entrepreneurs, interim sales management

In a recent article "MBA put dotcom man on the map", Sean Phelan, talks about starting his successful internet business, Multimap.

It was interesting to read that sales outsourcing was a part of his company's early success.

"...for a cash-strapped start-up, variable costs are okay and fixed costs are bad. So I outsourced the hosting of the servers to an internet service provider, I outsourced the advertising sales, I outsourced answering the phone to a call centre, and I outsourced the bookkeeping to my accountant."

Last year I blogged about this strategy for start-ups and early-stage companies, "Sales Outsourcing as a Bootstrapping Strategy".

By outsourcing, Phelan took his start-up to a point where he sold 25% to investors for a GBP 1.9m stake without hiring any people. "Up to that point I had no staff at all", says Phelan.

Multimap will have a turnover of GBP 13m this year.

Labels: entrepreneurs, sales outsourcing, start-ups

I read an interesting article for small businesses in the Sunday Times yesterday, "Think hard before selling a stake".

The article looked at the pros and cons of selling equity in small business. Lots of good points in the article, including a quote from Doug Richard, former Dragon and Chairman of Library House:

Any entrepreneurs who can get by without the cash for as long as possible are doing themselves a favour because whatever they can accomplish increases the value of the business and reduces the risk of the business - and therefore it means that whatever equity they do sell, they can sell less for more.

To me this is a very good point. For example, the other day I was speaking with a potential client who was considering a further round of funding to support sales expansion. We were discussing our proposals to help them get traction in a specific new market.

By bringing in a senior sales manager on a flexible contract, we can add value through testing the new market and establishing a beach-head. The company could then resource appropriately once the stage of the market was validated.

Plus any initial traction we achieve will make for a more attractive (and valuable) funding round.

Labels: entrepreneurs, funding, small businesses, start-ups, venture capital

This really is what blogging is all about...

I picked up a site, Trend Hunter, from Guy Kawasaki's AlwaysOn post "Trendhunter Rocks!".

Trend Hunter is a site which recruits people worldwide to spot trends. It has a global network of 8509 trend spotters and cool hunters collectively publishing 13 online magazines dedicated to trend spotting and cool hunting.

I thought, cool... this would be a great way to spot new business ideas.

So, I blogged about it on Ecademy and one member commented that it was similar to Springwise.

Now, Springwise really is cool.

Springwise tracks over 400 online and offline resources for the most promising business ventures, ideas and concepts ready for regional or international adaptation, expansion, partnering, investments or cooperation. Plus it enlists more than 8,000 spotters in over 70 countries worldwide.

Springwise publishes a fee monthly newsletter.

Check it out.

Labels: entrepreneurs, new business development, start-ups

I had a meeting today with a client that is just about to come out of "stealth-mode" with their beta launch.

We were talking through their go-to-market plans and the work that I am doing. The CEO was giving me the run-down of his new team, who he had in each position and what role they were to play in the overall strategy.

This is the bit I love when working with start-ups.

It always reminds me of one of my favourite films, Reservoir Dogs.

Or come to think of it, any "heist" film where the team comes together to pull "the big job". Films like Heat, Ronin, etc... just love 'em.

The bit I like is when they're putting the team together, everyone's got their bit to play. They're specialists.

You know, there's a "grease-man", a "hacker", a "driver"...

I guess, I just like working in teams where everyone had their bit to play, we're all there for our particular slice of expertise; we all know the stakes are high and we have to deliver.

And we're working together for our own slice of the action ;-)

Labels: entrepreneurs, new business development, sales, start-ups

I recently took the Roger Hamilton's Wealth Dynamics profile test online. Roger runs XL Results Foundation, Asia's leading entrepreneur and social enterprise network.

The "Wealth Dynamics" profile test is designed to match your personality, natural style and talents with strategies to create wealth. It's a bit like a Myers-Briggs test with a focus on how to leverage your natural "profile" to create wealth.

OK, maybe it's just a bit of fun, but I thought I'd give it a try.

The test gave me an number of personal insights, and overall, the greatest learning I came away with was the concept of teaming up with complimentary "profiles" to leverage each others' talents.

I came out as a "Star" profile, with strong "Dynamo" and "Blaze" frequencies. Here's my profile.

According to the system, "leaders of the most successful new start-ups are always Creators and Stars with dynamo frequency. The leaders of companies that are acquiring market share and market presence in a consolidating industry are always Supporters and Deal Makers with blaze frequency."

Having worked with so many start-ups and companies with a focus on acquiring market share and new business, this made perfect sense to me.

As a "Star", apparently, my strengths are "quick to deliver; quick to connect; can take an idea and run with it; can think on their feet; can improvise quickly in tricky situations".

And, "Great Stars have entrenched themselves in their niche, so anyone with a new product or promotion is likely to be attracted to that Star to support them."

Also, to build wealth I should align myself with "creators & deal-makers" (read: CEO's & Entrepreneurs) to give me the catalyst of content & deals that I can promote.

In a nutshell, if you want to rapidly grow your start-up... just add a Dynamo!

Labels: entrepreneurs, new business development, sales, start-ups

You've probably seen "Dragon's Den" before. It's the TV programme where entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to secure investment finance from a panel of multi-millionaire business experts — the "Dragons".

It's great television and I'm an avid viewer of the BBC's UK version.

Now, when I say (jokingly) that I could be the next Dragon, it's not because I'm a multi-millionaire business expert (or have a few hundred grand to throw about). No, it's because on a regular basis I get asked by entrepreneurs who want to discuss working with my company on a "success basis", typically that means "commission-only".

In a sense, they are pitching me to risk my time (or the time of my team) to help them sell their product or service.

I read one of the TV Dragons say that only about 10% of the Entrepreneurs they see get funding (and of them, the Dragon's assume that about will 10% actually succeed).

And that's pretty much how I see it.

Only about 10% of the people that ask me to work on a "commission-only" basis have something which I feel either excited about or think has "got the legs" to work. The problem is, though, that if only 10% of those actually take off... where does that leave me?

Investing my time (and money) on high-risk, unproven ventures is not my business model.

I don't mind linking part of our fees to our results, such as a number of qualified appointments; if we don't deliver then we don't get that part of our fees - that's a healthy results-focused model.

But that's a long way from working "for free" on the basis that someone else will make a sale, deliver their (usually unproven) product or service, get paid and then still be solvent to pay us.

No, I think I'll stick to watching the Dragons on the TV.

Labels: entrepreneurs, funding, start-ups

Can you remember that Kevin Costner movie from 1989, "Field of Dreams"? It's about the Iowa corn farmer who, hearing voices, interprets them as a command to build a baseball diamond in his fields.

I'm not sure whether every dot-com startup watched that film, but the phrase "Build it and they will come" seems to have passed into the collective entrepreneurial unconscious.

So when Jackie Bassett told me about her new book "So You Built It and They Didn't Come. Now What?", I just had to read it.

If there was ever a book that should be compulsory for entrepreneurs to read, this is it (and Guy Kawasaki's "The Art of the Start").

Jackie shares her own experiences, as well as stories from CEO's and Investors on what to do when the wheels have fallen off. Does this sound familiar?

So you've burned thru several million dollars of Venture Capital funds,replaced the VP of Sales three times, added 17 more features that each round of salespeople you hired (and fired) insisted their prospects must have before they would buy-then didn't, now what?

You're certain there is a market for your product. You even have a handful of customers who've paid for it. But those "Wow's" aren't converting into sales.

How did this ever happen? Where did things go so wrong? More importantly, how can this be fixed and f-a-s-t!

Jackie shows you how to identify when you are in trouble, and how to stop and restart your business from a customer-centric perspective.

There is a lot in this book that I recognise from my own client experiences. One of the things about working with startups and new product launches is that you're going to see a lot of misfires.

Every now and then I have to write what I call a "Dear John" report at the end of a pilot campaign. Usually it goes something like "I'm sorry, but we don't think you've got a proposition that's really compelling for your market. Let's stop now before it costs you too much" In essence, we tell our client that they've got it wrong.

It's probably one of the hardest parts of the job, but it's something that's core to my values. If it's not working, I'll pull the plug rather than simply burn my time and my client's cash.

Of course, they can try another method of sales, or even another sales outsourcing company, but usually they go back to the drawing board and come back to us to help them test and refine their new proposition.

Our business is no different.

We tried promoting our services to startups as "market due diligence". Essentially, we'd pilot test a proposition with potential clients. However, we found that there really was little appetite for it. Entrepreneurs are pretty free-wheeling and their due diligence is usually to just launch and see what happens.

It's what we call the ultimate "Live R&D").

Labels: entrepreneurs, new business development, sales, start-ups

A recent post on the Small Business Trends blog caught my attention with a great quote. It's from a US News article:

'If all you know about starting a business came from reading the financial pages during the 1990s, you might think the process works like this: Think up a killer idea, write a business plan, raise money from venture capitalists, launch the business. "Then you pitch the money on a bonfire and hope there's a company there before you run out," jokes Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow Technologies, a business software company he founded in 1997.'

The Small Business Trends blog points out that, for the majority of small businesses, bootstrapping (ie, funding your business from customer revenues) is the right, and often only, option. In fact, studies from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor say that only 38 out of 10,000 businesses receive venture funding.

From our perspective, most of our startup and small business clients are "bootstrapping" their businesses and our services are a low-cost and low-risk option for them.

Labels: entrepreneurs, funding, new business development, start-ups

Mike Southon's Sales on a Beermat is an excellent, down-to-earth and pragmatic book on selling for entrepreneurs and SME's.

I met Mike recently at a networking event in Barcelona; he's a great guy.

At the end of the book Mike makes some interesting points about sales people and entrepreneurs.

Mike says, "Entrepreneurs, and no doubt some bosses of SME's, senior partners, etc think they can sell. They ususally can't". That's not to say they don't have some of the attributes of great sales people, such as charisma, but that they often lack many of the traits which really count.

A couple of key distinctions that Mike makes are that salespeople are very good listeners, where as entrpreneurs are usually too focused on their own ideas and projects.

Another is that Entrepreneurs are often impatient (they need to be to get things done), whereas sales people have to be patient and remain focused over long sales cycles.

These differences, as well as others, are why Mike advocates that every startup and SME has a sales cornerstone in the business: someone who can compliment the CEO's own skills with those necessary to winning business.

Labels: entrepreneurs, sales

The Investor Fair is held in London every Spring and Autumn, the next one being held on Tuesday 9th May 2006.

This prestigious event has recently drawn nearly 200 active investors to meet with clients on the day. Investors are likely to be syndicate members, VCT's, small institutions and some wealthy High Net Worth individuals.

Last Autumn's Investor Fair was filmed by BBC TV for the Working Lunch business programme. One client at that fair received two offers of investment, and that was before the company was subsequently featured on BBC TV's Trouble at the Top. Fair clients have also appeared on BBC2's Dragon's Den.

The Investor Fair can be a stand-alone method of reaching potential investors or, even better, used as part of the full Business Angel service which gives you access to nearly 1500 angel syndicates, VCT's, small institutions and HNW individuals in the largest Angel network in Europe.

Spaces are limited to 30 clients, who can be from any sector and at any stage of development, on a first come-first-served basis.

If you're interested in attending, contact me and I will introduce you to our associates.

Labels: entrepreneurs, small businesses, start-ups

Last night I watched Dragon's Den on BBC. They had a follow-up on the businesses that the Dragons had decided to invest in and the results were quite interesting.

A large number of the investments fell through after then show (down to due diligence or just simply people falling out) and quite a few of the entrepreneurs were still trading having found funds elsewhere. The Dragon's would insist that they may be trading but were they profitable, and I'm sure they're right in the main part.

Having recently been following a poll on Ecademy, How did you raise the last round of finance for your business? it seems that the majority of startups and growth business (65%) found their funding from friends, family and other sources (which is predominantly self financing). According to the poll, only 7% financed through Angel Investors, and 1% through VC's.

That certainly ties in with my own personal experience and the results of the Dragon's Den.

Many of the clients we work with on sales outsourcing and venturing projects are self financing.

Typically, we work with clients who are looking to expand from an existing (usually low) revenue base and so they want a low cost, shared-risk way of increasing sales. We don't work with everyone; we also have a selection criteria. In many ways we are similar to angel investors.

Maybe I should have called the firm Dragon Associates? ;-)

Labels: entrepreneurs, funding, sales, start-ups, venture capital