Thoughts, ideas, and lessons learned from real-world customer engagements and interactions...
Are you charging for the confusion?
20 Feb 2010 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Pricing, Sales
For some reason, pricing is one of those areas that many companies seem to continually struggle with. Last month we actually held a free webinar where we tackled this topic. A recording of this session is available by going to the Monthly Webinar Series section on our Resources page.
I was recently reminded of the importance of properly pricing your product or service. A couple of weeks ago, I went out to my vehicle and took off as usual. As I was driving down the street I noticed that my windshield was cracked…(after a few choice words) I thought that I had better get it taken care of right away so that it would not spread. When I arrived at one of the local glass repair shops, I went inside and gave the make and model of my vehicle to the person working behind the counter. Within a couple of minutes I was happily given a quote for $800 installed. Again, I mumbled a few unrepeatable words to myself as I went back out to my vehicle and drove home.
Their loss may be your gain
13 Oct 2009 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Competition
As a business, are you using all of the tools that you have available to you in order to keep on top of your competition and to uncover new opportunities? If not, then there really is no excuse considering all of the tools and technologies that are available to us today.
The best way to communicate this point is with a true story that happened today. First off, one of our clients is building a new electronic download/distribution solution. In essence it is a turn-key solution that will help small to medium sized companies to get their software, video, audio, documents, or data solutions hosted and downloadable/viewable from any platform including through the web and on mobile devices. Anyway, while doing some research to help connect our client with some real-world customers, I did a quick Twitter Search. What appeared was a bunch of tweets talking about how one of the current leaders in this industry recently lost a contract with one of their key customers (one of the largest software companies in the world). After sending out the information to our customer to make sure that they were aware of some of these developments, I then went to LinkedIn and did a search on the name of the person from the company which cancelled the contract that was quoted in one of the articles. I noticed that I did not have a direct connection with this person, but did notice that I had a two degree separation from one of the other executives. I then picked up the phone and called them, and then sent them a note through LinkedIn just to see if it would be possible to have a conversation with them. The goal of the conversation is not to “sell” them on using our customers solution, but rather simply to open up the dialogue with them to better understand what they liked…and disliked about the current market leaders solution. This information is extremely valuable to our client so that they can ensure that they deploy and market a solution that truly meets the needs of all of their clients including larger prospects like this major software company.
Co-opetition
27 Sep 2009 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Media
In the October 2009 edition of Profit magazine there was a good article by Brian Scudamore who is the Founder and CEO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. In his article Collaboration – The Enemy Advantage, he talks about finding ways to cooperate and work with your competition. For many of us we have been raised in business to “beat” and “fight” our competition, however there is quite a bit of merit to what Brian shares in this article.
First off, I am not suggesting that you share your books or customer list with your competitors, however for Seed, Early, and Growth Stage companies there is a great deal of value that can come out of some collaboration with your competitors within the industry. By taking the time to get to know each other and to explore common challenges that you face within the industry, you can then begin to find ways to work together for the benefit of everyone within your industry. For example, by working together you may have a bigger voice in order to take on lobbying for some new government regulations, or you can explore new methodologies and technologies that can increase the efficiency and profitability of both of your businesses. In the article, Brian even states “…who knows when I might need my competition for help?”
