Thoughts, ideas, and lessons learned from real-world customer engagements and interactions...
The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur
5 Oct 2009 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Entrepreneurship
In a recent paper published by The Kaufmann Foundation of Entrepreneurship, the motivation and family background of “typical” entrepreneurs has been examined. The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur is a pretty interesting read if you are interested, and there were some things that really jumped out at me in this research:
1. Do you think that most entrepreneurs are under the age of 40? If so, then you would be wrong. The majority of the founders started their companies at the age of 40+.
2. Entrepreneurship is genetic! Nope. Only 15.2% of the entrepreneur surveyed had a sibling that had also created a company.
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.
Are you truly listening?
13 Jul 2009 | No Comments | posted by admin | in Customers, Potential Clients, Requirements Gathering, Sales
Are you truly listening?
There was a post on the Forbes.com – Entrepreneurs section titled Learning the Art of Listening. It was written by Dr. Steven Berglas, and it covers the topic of knowing how to truly listen. Where this comes into play is that our business is about not only uncovering the truth of your product or service from your customers and target markets perspective, it is about knowing how to truly listen to them to uncover the opportunities that exist. Until you know how to actively listen, you may be missing out on some great opportunities to grow your business.
