Thoughts, ideas, and lessons learned from real-world customer engagements and interactions...
Have you ever been your own customer?
20 Aug 2009 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Operations
Let me set the stage for you. Recently I had one of my bank cards “compromised”. If you have never had this happen to you, it is basically where someone in one of the locations where you have used the card clones the card and then starts to try and drain your bank account without drawing too much attention to it. So there may be $200 missing today, and then $380 missing the next day….etc.
After getting the call, I had to go into my branch of the bank to “get a new card” according to the person who contacted me from the security department. I thought that this would be a simple 5 minute stop at my branch. 35 minutes later after filling out a number of forms, reviewing recent transactions on the account, and programming my new temporary card, I was finally out the door.
Building Start-up Sales Teams:Tips for Founders
17 Aug 2009 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Operations
Recently I was involved in a conversation on LinkedIn that was focused around the question as to when is the right time to hire a VP of Sales. I am a bit opinionated about this as there really is a “right time” to do this. Many people argue that you need to have a VP of Sales right out of the gate with your company, but I actually disagree. The focus and money should be spent on getting closer to your potential customers to better understand their needs and requirements. Once you have this nailed, and have built a solution that meets these needs and demonstrated that customers will actually pay for your solution, then bring in some sales talent to help you get some traction for your solution. Then go out and hire your VP of Sales.
Anyway, one of the answers to the question pointed to the following article Building Start-Up Sales Teams:Tips for Founders written by Dharmesh Shah who is an entrepreneur and founder of the OnStartups.com blog. I think that this article does a great job in putting this decision into perspective….so why reinvent the wheel, as Dharmesh has done a great job in framing this discussion. I particularly like items 6 and 14.
