Month: September 2009

Don’t forget about accounts receivable

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Having run my own consulting company and been part of several start ups at this point in my life, I can't emphasize enough the need to focus on accounts receivable.  This is the life blood of your venture and your ticket to freedom (if you are venture backed) – inbound cash flow.

Yes, it is important to get that first customer or client but pay attention to payment terms and cash flow implications.  Big companies are big and don't always promptly pay an invoice…so be diligent and understand that your near term cash needs are not the most important thing for your customers.

Be creative, structure pre-pay agreements, and provide incentives for early or complete payment.  It will benefit you in the long run. 

Sales is support

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

This is one of my current favorite sayings especially since we have just released Gist in public beta.  Because on-demand software can be accessed, tried, and consumed with relatively little front-end involvement by the company or its staff, support has become the sales function.

Knowing when, where, and how to engage is critical as is doing so without being to "salesy" or self-promotional.  Answer people's questions, address their concerns, and let the product do the marketing for you.

Doing this requires not only a singular focus on users and user experience but having the infrastructure in place to hear what is being said (reference listening framework), a system to manage incidents/tickets, and the technical expertise available to quickly address questions, fix bugs, and even take ownership of a feature request and deliver it for that specific user.

If you nail it, word will spread about your attentiveness and laser focus on the end-user.  This isn't really an earth shattering concept as world-class companies have known for many years that you can truly differentiate from your competitors with outstanding customer service.  You make it an afterthought at your own peril.

Gist is open, come on in!

/ Robert Pease / Leave a comment

Gist_logo

Winding down a seriously busy week that included the public beta launch of Gist.  This project has been in the works for some time and Tuesday marked the public debut.  If you have not tried it out yet, please do. 

I have done many product and company launches with varying results over the years.  Launch something no one cares about and the sound of the crickets is deafening.  Launch something people want and the ride is exhilarating.  The Gist launch was the latter and here is a sampling of the coverage we generated:

Most amazing was watching Twitter come to life with people talking about what we built and their thoughts about it…in real time.  Trust me, Twitter has a purpose and is one of the more revolutionary sales/marketing/support platforms to come around in a long time.

There are still many things to figure out and no shortage of work to be done but we are off to a strong start and it only gets better from here.

Why Positioning Matters

/ Robert Pease / 1 Comment

Happy Labor Day everyone.  I thought a post on "positioning" was timely because not only is it something we are continuing to focus on and evolve at Gist but it also came up last week in one of my mentoring sessions as a NWEN Advisor.  Also, it is no small effort to get right so thought it appropriate to discuss on Labor Day.

What is positioning and why is it important (according to me)?

The positioning strategy is a competitively focused statement of what makes a company different and better than the competition.  It is a description of how prospective customers, partners, etc. should think of the company relative to the competition.  A fundamental of good positioning strategy is creating perceived differentiation in an area that is important and relevant to those audiences.  Since positions are “relative to the competition,” it is important to understand how competitors are currently perceived and how they are trying to position themselves.

How do I come up with it (not sure where I got this from originally, so apologies for no source reference)?

[Company Name] provides  [product or service category]
For [your beachhead target customer]
So they can  [product’s primary benefit].
Unlike [the product alternative]
We [key differentiator]

This is definitely an exercise about picking the right words but in order to pick the right ones you must understand the broader landscape and how companies operate within it.  In an early stage company this is not a one time effort that you complete and move on.  It is a constant and iterative process as you learn more about your customers and market and the difference between how you want to be perceived and are perceived becomes clear.