Most people, when they start their business, do whatever they think will get them in front of prospective clients the quickest.
That’s why they typically choose things like cold calling, networking or direct mail.
And there’s nothing wrong with this, at least to start out with – after all, that stuff often works.
But what happens next is that you get busy, stop doing those things, and then the flow of prospective clients dries up. [click to continue…]
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I didn’t appreciate what a tough job my parents had until our daughter arrived. Until then, I’d always thought that raising a child looked pretty easy.
Now I realise exactly what it entails: being completely responsible for another human being. One who is totally dependent on you, and has no idea that juggling with scissors or eating bleach could be bad for them.
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‘Fire your worst customers’ is great advice.
Particularly if your business has been going a while, things aren’t turning out how you’d hoped, and you’re getting to that stage where you dread picking up the ‘phone.
Almost everyone I know who’s done it has come out the other side with a more enjoyable and profitable business.
(Unless you’re the sort of person who always gets carried away with everything and ends up firing all your customers in a fit of pique. Don’t do that.)
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When I started in business in the 90’s, I knew of only two sources of market research available to a buddingentrepreneur with no funding: reading out-of-date “market reports” for free in the library, and cold calling people from Yellow Pages to ask them questions.
The first, although interesting, didn’t give me a great deal of useful information.
The second was more valuable; it gave me direct experience of what my prospective clients were like, and I even won some business from doing it.
But it was very time-intensive, and only gave me a narrow view of my market.
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Have you heard the story about the desperate mill owner?
I first heard it about 8 years ago when I was running my IT business. It totally changed the way I looked at the value of what I did.
You may have seen it before (it’s something of an ‘urban legend’), but it’s worth a re-read.
Oh, and there’s homework for you at the end!
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