DEVELOPING A LUCRATIVE MARKETING & SALES MODEL

Developing a marketing & sales model from scratch is perhaps the most important thing an entrepreneur is going to do for his or her new business. The end result is formalizing exactly how your revenues are going to be made. There are many considerations that go into doing this right and engaging marketing & sales expertise like ours is likely to yield great value compared to trying to do it all on your own. This is especially true when the entrepreneur's background is not heavily grounded in marketing & sales. For example, if the entrepreneur is an inventor of a product or service he or she is not automatically best equipped to do the marketing & sales functions too. If you've developed the next big thing you should hire or engage a team (like the one pictured above) to help you do the many supporting roles to the fullest... so that the upsides in taking your baby to market can be realized in best possible ways.

Too often the inventor wants to wear ALL of the business hats. But they lack the background, experience and specialized competencies to do those crucial jobs well. Many terrific products & services flop every year due to this very common strategic mistake. A surgeon generally knows- or thinks they know- how to do the various nurse's jobs… and the anesthesiologists… and the other specialists involved in an operation. But whether he or she has all of those skills or not, a great team gets the job done better. And if he doesn't actually know how to do all those jobs correctly the expertise in the team helps the patient live thorough the surgery. If you have a great product or service to take to market assemble the best team you can. You might be able to do the whole team's jobs to some degree but wouldn't you rather maximize your patient's chances too?

An Entrepreneurs or Managers Checklist of Ideal Sales Model Analysis Focal Points

Assembling a great sales model involves end-to-end thinking:

• from where (specifically) are quality leads for our products or services going to come?
• exactly what kind of person or company represents our target market(s)?
• what specific kinds of products or services will this business offer and why should customers be interested in them?
• itemize (then prioritize) specific revenue streams we expect from this business (exactly how will we make money?).
• is there anything likely to be important to customers that is uniquely ours... something(s) buyers won't be able to get anywhere else?
• how can we most efficiently qualify the leads so we can put greater focus on our best candidates?
• what kinds of marketing creative should we use to attract leads and move them toward becoming customers?
• who are the key (or nearest) competitors and what are they doing to drive sales of similar offerings?
• what is the best way to utilize the Internet for our purposes?
• what exactly will each lead experience from first contact to last contact?
• what specific kinds of efforts will we make to convert each lead?
• how much are we willing to spend on each lead trying to motivate a sale?
• what specific strategies & tactics will we employ to try to nurture relationships and close sales?
• what kinds of marketing, advertising and/or sales creative is required?
• what exactly happens when a lead is converted into a customer and when do those steps occur?
• what specific kinds of interactions will we have with customers?
• what specific kinds of service after the sale will we offer?
• what opportunities to grow revenue-per-customer will exist in this business?
• how can we leverage our customer database to help us realize more sales?
• what kinds of technology & infrastructure is needed for this business?
• what business functions do we want to build up internally and which would we rather outsource to a team like BI?
• could we enter the massive & lucrative mobile app market?
• can we build any recurring revenue features like membership or subscription models into this business?
• what are the legal considerations?
• etc. (there are many more. If you don't have definitive answers to nearly all of the above, it's one of the reasons to tap into our brains: we think about this kind of stuff all the time.)

Your sales model should be fully documented almost checklist style for how you will go about luring prospects to take a look, convert prospects into leads, motivate leads toward becoming buyers and what happens after the sale. It is important to spell out how the marketing will conjure opportunities to sell and how the sales function will actually turn those opportunities into revenue. The model will be influenced by factors like time, resources, budget, etc and will almost certainly involve doing more than just building a better mousetrap and hanging an e-shingle up on the world wide web.

It's always good to test variables within the sales model for validity and effectiveness. Test marketing the product or service on a small scale is one element of this. The test can reveal weaknesses in your model and reveal opportunities to do something(s) better. Selling a few, real customers and then working closely with them can help you polish weak links in the process and identify customer applications (how they use it which may differ from how you think they will use it). An objective approach to constructing and refining the sales model is vitally important as biases will skew it away from optimal design which only translates to lost revenue potential. That lost potential is not just short term but also long term (and up to forever). Let us help you get it right

Raising Money To Start or Accelerate the Growth of Your Business

If you need to raise money to go to market you'll minimally need a solid, professional business plan. There are countless entrepreneurs with big ideas in search of backing and a business plan is the business equivalent of an individual using a resume to try to win consideration for a job opening. Consider it the minimum requirement to potentially interest bankers or investors. If you need to go this way, keep in mind that your plan must wow... as it will have to stand out from a crowd of other professionally-created plans. We were surprised when a source of investor cash we work with showed us how many polished business plans they receive each month (many more than you might expect). He told us that regardless of what the product or service is about, if the entrepreneur doesn't have a great business plan they don't get any consideration at all. Similarly, if a plan appears cheaply constructed, haphazardly assembled, etc, it is also quickly filtered out to their rejection bin. There's simply too much competition serious about raising cash for their businesses. Compete head-to-head or that competition wins the financing.

Other tangibles helpful for those needing to raise money involves various forms of media. A good Power Point presentation that summarizes the executive summary of the plan is useful as is an elevator video (a quick, just-the-greatest-highlights rundown of why an investor or banker should be interested in your opportunity). The Power Point should run about 5 to 15 minutes while the elevator video should fully play less than 3-5 minutes (about the time it would take to describe your opportunity while riding with someone in an elevator).

One of the most crucial drivers of financial backing consideration is how much the entrepreneur themselves have put into bringing the business to market. Business plans based only on an idea get less priority than business plans based on an idea fully fleshed out (so that the product or service is ready to go to market). Even greater interest is given to those that have already gone to market as this proves genuine interest in the offerings from buyers. With tangible proof of concept potential investors see less risk and are thus more easily motivated to want to invest.

Financial backers are most interested when the entrepreneur is heavily invested in their own business... not just intellectually invested but also financially. The entrepreneur asking an investor to take all of the financial risk in going to market is either going to end up having to sign away nearly all of the upside potential or they are not going to get the backing. The entrepreneur that is heavily (financially) invested in their own business has a big, personal stake in the plan working out as described: such opportunities get much more serious consideration because the latter really needs the business to be a success while the former doesn't have much to lose if it doesn't work. If you were the investor which entrepreneur would you want to back?

Engage BI To Construct & Refine All of the Money-Making Business Variables the Right Way

Our team has deep experience with all of the business growth disciplines. As such, we can help you develop a marketing & sales model from scratch superior to what any individual can create on their own. Our diverse network of specialist contractors can lend niche competencies to help best answer questions like the small sampling shared near the top of this page. We can also work with the entrepreneur looking for financial backing helping them develop an impressive plan & related materials then shop their opportunity to targeted investors or bankers or even participate in the road show.

Yes, going it alone is cheaper but also thoroughly disadvantaged. If you really have the next big thing you should engage expert talent to help you monetize it to the fullest. Edison didn't personally build every light bulb or cover every function at General Electric. Henry Ford didn't personally build each car nor do every function at Ford. Steve Jobs didn't personally handle every business function at Apple. The guys behind Google engaged several talented teams long before Google went public. Etc.

We would love to help you develop a great marketing & sales model. Contact us for a free consultation.