Maidsfield Blog - Partnering and Business Development

The CEO’s Job in a growing organisation:

In building your company, as the leader in your organisation, it is your job to architect your company. This means enabling your business to learn what works, putting a process in place and improving the process, while structuring to scale your business. As your business process begins to work, from marketing, sales through to delivery, support and product development you step back to put talented people in place for this process to work without your constant involvement. Then as CEO you focus on where to best use your skills to continually build the organisation, depending on your skills of course.

What does the Process look like?

(10 Companies Only)

HPSU Skillnet will host a full day workshop on the Commercial Value of Partnering on Wednesday, 24th March 2010. In order to grow a technology business internationally, corporate partnerships are an essential element. These partnerships help broaden the company’s market access and grow revenues. Business managers/owners need to understand partnering strategies, how to identify partners, the dynamics of successful partner relationships and the varied types of partners that can operate in generating revenues for a business. These are all critical and vital to succeed in selling through corporate partnerships.

This workshop will provide participants with an overview of partnering as well as demonstrating the commercial added value of engaging in a partnering strategy. The workshop will also touch on some of the tools and methodologies to use when considering a partnering strategy.

Profile: Donagh is the founder and Managing Director of Maidsfield Associates, providing business development and partnering consultancy for globally focused technology companies. With almost twenty years in technology development, sales and business management Donagh has been operating his own businesses since 1994. Donagh’s first business, Vistech Software, was featured in Deloitte & Touche Ireland’s Technology FAST 50 for three consecutive years.

Target Participants: The programme is suitable for CEOs and Senior Managers of young or established hardware or software technology product, software-as-a-service and specialist service businesses. It is expected that participating companies are already selling their products or services in the market, whether domestically or internationally.
Programme Summary: The programme consists of a full day workshop and a follow-up 1-to-1 next day meeting (1.5 hours) with each participating company to assist in partnering strategies and implementation plans.

Session 1 Partnerships Fundamentals
Partnering Introduction and Stories, The Partnering Objective, Business Readiness to Partner, Partnering in a SaaS Business, Business Models and Pricing
Session 2 Partnering Strategy – Workshop
Partnering Objective Workshop, Selecting Your Partner Types - The Market Ecosystem Approach, Devising Your Market Ecosystem - Breakout Session, Reviewing the partner types in the Ecosystem
Session 3 Partner Management (a)
The Business Flow - Capabilities and Responsibilities, Partner Recruitment & Partner Fit, Partnering into new Industry Regions, Partnering into new Industry Sectors
Session 4 Partner Management (b)
Multi-Level Relationships, Management & Reporting, Agreements - Heads of Terms – Commercials, Mixing Models - Partner types and Direct Sales, Building your Partner Programme

TO BOOK: Please email Gert O’Rourke - gorourke@hpsuskillnet.com

I had an interesting discussion with a long-time fellow traveller in the Irish tech scene yesterday. When my first business was 4 years old, we were his first customer to get him started. This business competes in a commodity service space against very large competitors. The reason I bought from him then is still the same reason when the company is selling its offerings today; that is ‘trust’ in the level of service and reliability.

So how does a small company internationalise commodity service and beat the big boys?

Two areas to think about:

1) Sectors Specialists
In a small geographical market, specialising on specific industry sectors may not provide enough market to sustain and grow your business, so you provide your services to many sectors within your region. When going international, unless you’re a big brand with deep pockets you need to focus on specific sectors and understand the key business issues in those sectors and how this relates to the service you provide. Being able to provide some specific features and knowledge that shows your specialist focus will make you stand out and beat generalist players.

2) Partner for Market Access and In-market Capability
Seek the type of partner that makes sense for your business. In reviewing the customer journey of what you sell from Gaining Awareness to Customer Support, what elements are imperative that you should keep and what elements can a partner provide with in-market credibility?

In my friend’s example, we discussed him seeking partnerships that bring proven relationships with his target customer base that can bring his business qualified leads and even assist in the delivery and support. The prime supplier-customer relationship will need to be retained.

In a bizarre mix of partner roles Referral and Support Partner responsibilities were discussed. Of course a referral partner network could be established with a separate support partner network could be progressed also.

Bottom line, partner according to what you need across your entire customer journey.

talk soon, Donagh Kiernan, www.maidsfield.com

So, you have a technology product and are seeking partners to get into new markets. Your offering is easy to explain, you know what type of customer you want, why they will buy and what’s involved in selling to them.

You think big and want to partner with the largest companies in the market? After all, they do have the broadest reach and the greatest financial strength and could deliver great sales revenues for your business and really broaden your user base. Have you considered the effort, the elapsed time to decisions and ultimately the time to get to your target end-user customer who is going to pay money? Have you considered the time-to-revenue in partnering with the big guys?

Would you prefer to get decisions quickly at a strategic level, quickly get an understanding of the commercial arrangements between both parties, understand how the sales team really sell and where your product fits neatly in their clients’ businesses? Will you get this with a SAP, Oracle or any other monster size, broad product portfolio and with diversified organisations?

For faster decisions with a narrower and clearer focus on their growth strategies and a much easier task in educating their sales teams, I recommend you seek out the “Aggressive Followers” in the market.

These are the companies that want to be an SAP or an Oracle, but today they have not yet saturated their primary markets and have not yet diversified to broaden the portfolios. In SAP’s ERP market they are still organisations with up on $1B annual sales revenues.

How do you identify the Aggressive Followers in the market?

1) Look at the leaders in the following pack

In reviewing the annual sales figures of the top players in the market, you will typically see a small group of the top players being much bigger than the second group of companies. Then, well below this second group is a group of much smaller companies at various stages of development.

The “Aggressive Followers” are likely the second group or the following pack. Review the leaders in this group. This depends of course on the size and the maturity of the market.

2) Look for focused acquisitions, not broad diversification (or ‘deworsification’ as Warren Buffett might call them)
The Aggressive Follows want to be leaders, but currently are much more focussed and not over-diversified. The value in working with these organisations is that they are focussed and will be capable of faster decision making around whether your products will fit or not.

Their sales people have a much smaller and more focussed product portfolio to sell and thus will have more mind-space to include your product in their suite, as long as it fits.

3) Look for clear focus taglines - what customer need do they solve?
Their focus can be seen clearly in how they market themselves. Their horizontal, vertical and regional focus is stated clearly and can be seen in announcements and trade events. They are usually the best in their selected niche industry sectors.

4) Look for strong year-on-year revenue growth, signifying strong execution and successful solution delivery
Their ability to execute on their business plans and deliver great solutions, services and support to their markets is very clear in their year-on-year growing sales revenues. They are aggressively tackling their markets and beating back weaker competition to grow their market-share and revenues.

5) Look for regular announcements of good customer wins
Review their website news sections or press releases to find that they have a growing number of customer success announcements and are working to capitalise on each one with effective PR and promotion materials.

6) Look for Culture and signs of life, awards won, clear company leadership and a general good feel about the company and people running it – It feels like a good team effort.
Look for awards they won that may signify the company to be a performance driven and having a strong team culture. Look for announcements, conference speakers with very capable people across their organisation and not only the CEO being mentioned. This likely signifies a strong team culture or multiple leaders driving an effectively structured business strategy and plans. Review the background and expertise of key senior team members to understand what they bring to the team. This will give you a greater feel of the culture of their organisation.

The Agressive Followers want to move fast. They want to make decisions fast, both YES and NO. So they won’t waste time, theirs or yours, on what they believe doesn’t fit. They are hungry to progress, so if you can give them something to progress their plans faster or better, they will listen.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t seek partnerships with the largest companies in the markets, but just be aware of what effort it takes to secure an effective partnership and how long it may take for the big wheel to turn and deliver revenue into your organisation.

So rather than thinking of partnering with the leades in the market, you might choose to have a number of the Aggressive Follower in different markets to gain faster return on investment and spread your risks and efforts to many companies.

Over the past week in meeting almost 90 business people in events with Niall Devitt of Beyond the Boardroom and David Brock of Partners in Excllence at 4 different events and hearing some great stories, the question of combining strategies of Direct Sales and Partners Channels Sales came up a number of times.

The story goes as follows:

A company builds up its business with an effective international direct sales organisation targeting their primary markets in a very focussed manner. Secondary market opportunities are presented to the company but the organisation is not structured to sell or deliver outside their primary markets and thus the opportunity is not responded to. The direct sales focus on the primary market is essential but it leaves the secondary market untapped.

The business has the opportunity to established sales-side partnerships to sell and deliver into their secondary markets.

Your Secondary Markets could be defined as:
1) Alternative geographical regions that are outside your primary focus. Western culture or English speaking markets may be your primary market, then gaining access to non-English speaking regions is typically executed through corporate partners.
2) Alternative industry sectors for existing product outside your primary sectors. You likely do not know your secondary sector markets as well as your primary markets. It may be more effective for your company to focus on partnering into these sectors than to distract your primary direct sales teams in building up expertise in a new sector.
3) Alternative uses of your technology into different types of customers. Some of your technogy may be applied to solve different business needs targeting buyers outside your current industry or current target customers.

While your organisation stays focussed on its primary strategy consider establishing a secondary strategy to tackle secondary markets through partnerships, whether OEM, Strategic Partnerships or System Integrator reseller partnerships.

Based on the interest in our morning event, we have decided to run the event again in the afternoon of Tuesday 29th. 

Internationalisation is the biggest single challenge facing the Irish Tech Sector today. Having ambition in Ireland, means you’re looking international quickly. Irish Tech companies almost immediately face great challenges to make their business successful.

On Tuesday the 29th of September 2009, between 2:30pm to 6:30pm at the Hampton hotel in Donnybrook, Dublin 4, we invite CEO s of Irish Technology Companies to join us - Register Today, limited to 30 attendees.

The event will present talks from leading International and Irish experts, case studies from successful indigenous Irish Technology companies, and an opportunity to discuss the challenges and pitfalls of the International business landscape with your peers.

On the back of their recent partnership announcement Donagh Kiernan of Maidsfield Associates, Niall Devitt of Beyond the Boardroom and David Brock from Los Angeles based Partners In EXCELLENCE, will present and discuss how Irish technology companies can to succeed in international markets.

The Partners In EXCELLENCE, Beyond the Boardroom and Maidsfield Associates Strategic Partnership’s focus is to help Irish Technology companies accelerate the results they achieve through their Internationalisation efforts. The partnership brings together experience and track record in helping companies successfully expand globally. Leveraging the capabilities to access new regions, markets, develop new channels and alliances; this partnership will help Irish Technologies improve the results they achieve in competing in a global market.

Whether your organisation is seeking to go international or already trading abroad the internationalisation partnership can assist you to ensure you achieve the highest levels of performance and the best results possible.

Together, Maidsfield Associates, Beyond the Boardroom and Partners In EXCELLENCE have helped Irish and other organisations achieve tremendous results in Internationalising. Organisations like Qumas, InnerWorkings, Decare Systems Ireland, Helix Health, Dolphin Software, Enterprise Ireland, IBM, HP, Canon, Motorola, Ericsson, Dassault Systemes, NCR, and others.

Timetable

14:30 Arrive, Coffee and Registration
15:00 Welcome and Introduction - Donagh Kiernan & Niall Devitt
15:10 Corporate Partnering into Markets - Donagh Kiernan
15:50 Hi Tech Globalisation Options - David Brock
16:30 Internationalisation Workshop - facilitated by Niall Devitt
Breaking into roundtables / groups and discussing internationalisation challenges and potential solutions
17:50 Coffee and Networking
18:30 Close

Attendees are limited to 30 - register today

I had a meeting this week with one of my client companies who are at the leading edge of the industry with their expertise and technology. They really have a tremendous market opportunity. Talking to the board members and key individuals of this small innovative company led to addressing the question:

“How we best capitalise on this international market opportunity in the marketplace?”

“We can target the market directly and talk to 30 of the relevant companies. This will definitely produce more than enough consultancy and follow on technology sales to establish us in this space.”

“The downside to this is that once we get into delivery mode it will tie up the key people very quickly and it’s hard to keep selling to continue to grow and we really only have a limited window of opportunity here”

My thoughts: “sell direct, but include securing strategic partners in your sales process.”

Then “If we can sell direct, why should we consider selling through strategic partnerships?”

How about the following reasons for selling through corporate partners:

1. The offering is defined and easy to explain. The benefits can be communicated easily. Partners will understand quickly and see the opportunity quickly.
2. Reduce Cost of Sales - You could partner with organisations who have strong commercial relationships with your target clients. They can get you straight in the door on a commercial basis, thus greatly speeding up the sales process.
3. Focus on Your Strengths - You have a limited window of opportunity before other organisations establish themselves and take over your opportunities, so there is an element of land-grab working with your selected leading organisations. They may deliver the bulk of the services, but at least you can sell the premium services and grow your team accordingly and sell software licences also.
4. Access to larger sales force - Partners will present and sell your offering in their market far faster than you can. They are more established and in the market sector and/or region you want to be in.
5. Access to broader market - You can’t be everywhere at once, but you can build up a partner network to get you into key sectors and regions.
6. Increase revenue sources – you cannot have the full pie from each customer, but should target to have a more premium piece of the pie from many customers
7. Increase licence revenue growth – increased number of consulting customers brings more software licence revenue opportunities
8. Increase shareholder value – a wider spread customer base means a more stable business and growth path, thus increased business potential and increased shareholder value.

Besides, if the company’s strength is not in sales, why not let other people sell what we do. We can always sell direct as well.

Donagh Kiernan, Maidsfield Associates

Internationalisation is the biggest single challenge facing the Irish Tech Sector today. Having ambition in Ireland, means you’re looking international quickly. Irish Tech companies almost immediately face great challenges to make their business successful.

On Tuesday the 29th of September 2009, between 10am to 2pm at the Hampton hotel in Donnybrook, Dublin 4, we invite CEO s of Irish Technology Companies to join us - Register Today, limited to 30 attendees.

The event will present talks from leading International and Irish experts, case studies from successful indigenous Irish Technology companies, and an opportunity to discuss the challenges and pitfalls of the International business landscape with your peers.

On the back of their recent partnership announcement Donagh Kiernan of Maidsfield Associates, Niall Devitt of Beyond the Boardroom and David Brock from Los Angeles based Partners In EXCELLENCE along with guest Kevin O’Leary CEO of Qumas, the internationally successful Irish software company, will present and discuss how Irish technology companies can to succeed in international markets.

The Partners In EXCELLENCE, Beyond the Boardroom and Maidsfield Associates Strategic Partnership’s focus is to help Irish Technology companies accelerate the results they achieve through their Internationalisation efforts. The partnership brings together experience and track record in helping companies successfully expand globally. Leveraging the capabilities to access new regions, markets, develop new channels and alliances; this partnership will help Irish Technologies improve the results they achieve in competing in a global market.

Whether your organisation is seeking to go international or already trading abroad the internationalisation partnership can assist you to ensure you achieve the highest levels of performance and the best results possible.

Together, Maidsfield Associates, Beyond the Boardroom and Partners In EXCELLENCE have helped Irish and other organisations achieve tremendous results in Internationalising. Organisations like Qumas, InnerWorkings, Decare Systems Ireland, Helix Health, Dolphin Software, Enterprise Ireland, IBM, HP, Canon, Motorola, Ericsson, Dassault Systemes, NCR, and others.

Timetable

10:00 Arrive, Coffee and Registration
10:30 Welcome and Introduction - Donagh Kiernan & Niall Devitt
10:40 Corporate Partnering into Markets - Donagh Kiernan
Guest: Kevin O’Leary, CEO Qumas
11:20 Hi Tech Globalisation Options - David Brock
11:50 Internationalisation Workshop - facilitated by Niall Devitt
Breaking into roundtables / groups and discussing internationalisation challenges and potential solutions
13:10 Lunch and Networking
14:00 Close

Attendees are limited to 30 - register today

The bottom line in all things business, is delivering effectively, delivering and exceeding the ultimate customers’ expectations. Learning what works can be highly expensive when we have to backtrack and go again in a different route. Strategic Partnerships can deliver great success when it works, it can be enormously frustrating, disappointing and expensive when it doesn’t.

A key part of what we do in Maidsfield Associates is to focus on matching our clients’ business objectives to suitable partners in the chosen target markets. As defined in Maidsfield’s Corporate Partnering Process we review seven criteria in evaluating partner-fit and develop an understanding of the potential partners business to see how they could work together with our client to meet the market opportunities.

So many Strategic Partnerships fail because of the most obvious of reasons, in hindsight:

1. The partner’s sales people sold their own product before yours, because it was easier to sell, they met their targets easier and made more commissions not focussing on selling your product.

2. The partner company’s management hadn’t taken on board the full opportunity to grow a new business area and wasn’t fully committed. Things slowly died away and eventually people faced reality.

3. The partnering plan didn’t go much further than a good idea and good story press release. It helped the profile of your business in your existing proven markets and possibly your investors but it didn’t produce revenue.

4. Your partnership was based on an initial opportunity identified by the partner, and that’s great, but it was not their core business area and they simple seized an opportunity that presented itself. They were ill equipped or not interested in pushing further. So be aware of your investment time in once-off opportunities with partner companies that approach you.

5. There was too much effort in getting the partner up to speed in selling your solution and their expectations of your pre-sales department were excessive. They probably wanted you to do all the work and they get the sale. They weren’t doing their share. You expected them to start selling immediately and transfer the cash to you on a monthly basis. The expectations on both sides were just not right from the start.

The real cost in getting it wrong is opportunity cost. Basically the lost time and opportunities in the time spent working on something that doesn’t produce. You need to gain an understanding of the target market through a “Market EcoSystem and Trends” summary analysis, identify your potentials, rank your targets, make your decisions and then follow up.

Watch out for part 2 with what it means to get Strategic Partnerships right.

Can any company at any stage successfully secure and sell through corporate partners?

With the right commitment from both sides, the partnership can of course produce revenue, but will it be profitable given the amount of time and energy needed to produce the results?

A successful profitable partnership needs to be based on a reasonably compelling offer for both parties. When you seek partners you should be ready, somewhat.

An ideal scenario is outlined by the 10 points
1. You have a product that is proven with strong referenceable customers
2. You have defined marketing and sales process that works in your existing markets
3. You have good marketing and sales materials, including website that really supports the sales process
4. You are operating in a proven business space with growing market opportunities
5. You have a clear Value Proposition and Competitive Advantage that wins customers
6. You’re business success is not dependent on a small number of people
7. You have defined charging model across consulting, product, options, implementation and annual maintenance
8. You have a product and services development roadmap responding to or leading market requirements
9. You have defined clear responsibilities and revenue splits for a real mutual beneficial relationship with a partners
10. You are committed to a Corporate Partnering approach to the market and are realistic in your expectations

So how does your company score in meeting these requirements?

If you score high in all these, in full spirit, then you’re likely ready and a Hearty Congratulations, as these 10 points are a big achievement for any company.

The good news is that you don’t need to have all 10 fully defined and proven to be successful. This is more like a weighted scoring system rather than one requiring a full score in each. Like everything else, being very strong in some areas can make up for being weak in others.

I know early stage companies who have a very compelling offering easy to explain with experienced management, they are likely very ready to partner.

I know established companies who have a very complex offering and where it is difficult to explain and this more difficult to sell. More difficult to sell means much more difficult to get a partner to sell successfully.

Remember, partnering into a market should be taken as seriously as establishing an in-market office, just much more cost effective.

The Internationalisation Partnership - Partners In EXCELLENCE, B2BTraining and Maidsfield Associates

Cork, Ireland – August 7th 2009 – Maidsfield Associates, a business development and sales-side partnering consulting company for the Irish technology sector has entered into a three-way partnership with Beyond the Boardroom, an Ireland based Sales Leaderships, Consulting and Training company and Partners In EXCELLENCE, a US based sales, partnering and globalisation consulting and service business.

The focus of the partnership is to help Irish Technology companies accelerate the results they achieve through their Internationalisation efforts. The partnership brings together experience and track record in helping companies successfully expand globally. Leveraging the capabilities to access new regions, markets, develop new channels and alliances; this partnership will help Irish Technologies improve the results they achieve in competing in a global market.

Whether your organisation is seeking to go international or already trading abroad the internationalisation partnership can assist you to ensure you achieve the highest levels of performance and the best results possible.

Together, Maidsfield, Beyond the Boardroom and Partners In EXCELLENCE have helped Irish and other organizations achieve tremendous results in Internationalising. Organizations like Qumas, InnerWorkings, Decare Systems Ireland, Helix Health, Dolphin Software, IBM, HP, Canon, Motorola, Ericsson, Dassault Systemes, NCR, and others.

“I’m very excited about the impact this partnership can have on helping Irish Technology companies Internationalise. A key growth strategy for these companies, is globalisation. Together, we bring both a track record, experiences, and resources that can accelerate the results companies achieve, while significantly reducing risk in these programs.“- David A Brock, President of Partners In EXCELLENCE

“The future of Irish business lies in our ability to deliver internationally. This unique initiative is about giving Irish Tech companies the tools to overcome the challenges and pitfalls of the International business landscape. Our aim will be to deliver results, quicker and more effectively than has previously been seen.”, - Niall Devitt, Managing Partner of Beyond the Boardroom

“I’ve experienced first hand the challenges of internationalising Irish Technology companies. In expanding the capabilities and international reach of working with such good people as in David’s and Niall’s organisations, is about delivering faster and more effective results for the international success of Irish Technology Companies. ”, - Donagh Kiernan, Managing Partner of Maidsfield Associates

About Maidsfield Associates
Maidsfield Associates is a business development consulting company providing services to established internationally focussed technology companies. Maidsfield helps its clients meet their growth aspirations through delivering consulting services in Sales-side Corporate Partnerships and Strategic Business Development. Maidsfield clients include with internationally focussed technology companies in Dublin, Limerick and Cork.

Maidsfield’s founder, Donagh Kiernan has 20 years experience in working in, owning, driving and delivering results with international focussed Irish technology companies. In 2007/2008 Donagh was selected by Enterprise Ireland as one of 32 Irish business leaders to participate in a year long “Leadership for Growth Programme” for globally focussed business leaders delivered by the prestigious Stanford University in California. He is an active contributor to Irish Technology industry development organisations through it@cork, NSC Campus, Irish Software Association, CIT Alumni and on Enterprise Ireland initiatives.

About Beyond the Boardroom
Beyond the Boardroom is a leading Irish business development consultancy, working in the areas of sales leadership, sales management consulting and sales excellence programs.

Niall Devitt is the founder. He is a member of Top Sales Experts International team and the founder of Sales Leadership Ireland. His blog on sales know how is one of the mostly widely read sales resources on the net.

About Partners In EXCELLENCE:
Partners In EXCELLENCE is a global consulting company, focused on helping its clients achieve the highest level of results and performance in Sales, Marketing, New Product Introduction, and Globalisation. The firm is known for its pragmatic approach to driving significant growth and profitability for its clients.

Definition: Missionary selling = having to sell the concept and then having to sell your solution and your company. Usually creating a new market or selling a revolutionary or disruptive solution.

Technology visionaries see how it should be. They see the blatant inefficiencies, stupidity and  wasted money. They create fantastic solutions from leading edge technologies that can change how we work and live, whether the market is ready or not. The visionaries, with great energy and enthusiasm, start preaching “the changing world” and how things should be and thus their solutions are introduced to the market.

“People NEED to change”
“Businesses NEED to adopt new ways to compete and stop the wastage”

But people won’t change until the market tells them to do so and not just because there are efficiencies to be gained. There is risk in change and there are vested interests in not changing. When a market begins to decline, innovative solutions come to play from existing market players or from new entrants.

When an industry’s players are making money in the current industry structure how do you get in with a disruptive offering?

Geoffrey A Moore has written much on this. A great author. Great books. I’m currently reading and highly recommend “Dealing with Darwin”. It was recommended to me by a client, Kevin O’Leary, CEO of Qumas.

I’ve seen this, experienced it and learnt the hard way. When you sell the visionary sell, it’s very hard work to get things moving. The visionary becomes an evangelist with unwavering belief converting a number of strategic thinkers in senior positions in key target client companies. The business can become a sequence of paid pilots and trials rollouts or projects to demonstrate the value to their operating teams. But slow to grow to full scale projects.

How do you get over the hump of “just too many vested interests keeping things as they are”?
“The market will change, it only makes sense!”,
…quoting a great Irish technology business leader “But will they starve in the meantime?”.

You see this visionary thinking within university research projects, and rightly so. They are projecting years ahead on how things should or will be done and providing solutions to meet this need, not taking the challenges in the current market structure into account. If it takes five years to change the industry, what’s going to feed us in the meantime?

So how can visionaries get to the market and build a business to reap the rewards of their efforts; like eating an elephant, bit-by-bit and not a whole elephant on a plate.

Firstly, how do you know if you’re visionary selling?
1) You have no direct competitors. Others are likely solving the business need very differently and maybe even labour intensively
2) It’s a regular discussion on the various ways to communicate ‘what it is’ and every sales presentation may be different (making very difficult to learn what works)
3) If you had market success, some businesses types would be no longer needed in the marketplace
4) The passionate visionary tends towards seeking appreciation for the creation or idea from like-minded people and finds it difficult to talk to the tough decision makers
5) The visionary takes it personally, when its suggested we focus on solving more mediocre problems and not the revolutionary sell

So what do you do?

1) Don’t give up on your vision
But don’t be so firm on every detail. Think about what you want but don’t get caught up in the detail of how you will get it. Lets work that out on a step-by-step real world basis.

2) Sell at an operational level and get faster decisions
Change the language and consider the needs at at operational level and how these needs may change over the years. Unless you have loads of investment, stop trying to stomp all over the structure of the industry and work within the current structures to start the change.

3) Sell what the customer wants today
Consider the baby-steps towards the vision. Breakdown the value in your solution and offer it bit-by-bit in easy to swallow low-risk chunks of success for your client.

4) Make it easy to buy. Make it easy to say yes.
Low pain, low risk, easy to get started, clear value proposition, no great dissenting voices…

5) The greatest competitor of the full vision maybe a great partner in the bit-by-bit approach
Can you help the other solution providers move towards the vision? These are the companies that are operating successfully in the market. They have the relationships and have the money. Do you have an offering for them that can improve their business without threatening to take away their lunch?

6) Build slowly by nurturing good beta customer relationships
Bit-by-bit, step-by-step, crawl-then-walk-then run. When you’re clients say you have something then go talk to 10 potential clients, with the same message. Learn, change and progress from there.

7) Learn from leaders
Remember how Google started; slowly, offering something of value and low-risk from the start.
Remember WebVan; crazy, huge investment and changing the world.
Remember how Amazon started; slowly, low investment and learning with every sale.

8 ) Work with good advisors and find a strong industry partner to help commercialise your idea

9) Read Geoff Moore’s books

I’ve never been to a BizCamp but heard great things about how it works. Thanks for heads up Fran. I’m registered. http://www.bizcamp.ie

The event is on all day on Saturday, Sept 19th in the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin.

From the adhoc description of what I heard, it sounds like a free-for-all, speakers everywhere and people can go to what they want to hear.

They have a video of what happened last March - RTE News footage.
http://www.bizcamp.ie/2009/07/rte-coverage-of-the-last-bizcamp/

Where the industry can share experiences and help each other, it’s a worthy event for me.

With Ireland being such a small market, many start-up software companies start with internationalisation in their plans. Many make moves internationally too soon or with too little knowledge and experience of making their business a success in their initial markets. I’m not referring to any lack of business knowledge or experience of the management team, but to the fact that it takes time for businesses to learn what really works for the business.

Many successful international Irish CEOs would give some variations on this advice about going international:

1. Understand what it is to sell and deliver your offering in your initial market first before considering going international.
The challenges in doing business in a new market are sufficient enough without having to learn the basic lessons in how to communicate, sell, deliver and support your offerings as well. You need to be building on the strong track record of your initial market to be credible in your first internationally market. You should really know your Value Proposition for your target market.

2. The business should understand its key business processes.
I’m not talking about becoming over corporate or bureaucratic but simply that everyone in the business has the same understanding of how things are done. When it gets busy, does your business operate efficiently through a series of processes or does it over depend on too few people?

3. Do you really know your target international market?
Is the buyer’s ‘Customer Journey’ the same as in your initial market? Do buyers value the same things? Does the competitive landscape in this market negate your current Value Proposition? Do a ‘Value Map’ with the market’s buying criteria comparing you against your competitors for your specific target market. Validate your assessment with prospective clients in your new market, as market research.

4. Leverage of your existing customers successes.
Can some or one of your existing customers bring you into your target international market? Do they have a sister or associate company that they could refer you into? Gaining a reference customer in the market is great start.

5. Focus on getting your beach-head customer so limit the number of target customers to get started.
Don’t go chasing 20 prospective target customers to get started. It takes time to understand the needs of 20 companies and build relationships with the decision makers. It’s better to really focus on the ones that you know you can deliver real value to and make it easy for them to buy. Get a little business from them and then build on it. Meanwhile don’t lose focus on continuing to build success in your initial market.

6. A local presence in the market is not always necessary but helps.
It depends on your product or service on whether you need a local team to sell, deliver or support your offering. This could be achieved with local support partners who are also gaining business from the sale. There are many different types of partners that might suit; it depends on your business. The selection of the right type and best-fit partners is a key component of what Maidsfield offer in its services to Irish software companies.

7. Should you Sell Direct or through Partners?
Selling direct is faster, more expensive and of greater risk. Going through Partners is slower, much less expensive and much more cautious, as long as you pick the right partners to suit your business objectives. A hybrid model would be that you sell direct with the support of a local support partner. This way you get the local knowledge and maybe delivery and after sales support from the partner but you bring the domain expertise to close the sale. Maidsfield provide services in identifying and opening doors with the best-fit partners for your business.

There are many variations within the points above depending on your particular business but the principle are basically the same.

It would be interesting to hear stories of first-time internationalisation experience…..please share stories, questions or comments.

Two events of interest in the coming weeks - interactive lunchtime sessions in the NSC Boardroom: (limited seats available)

1) Tuesday June 9th 11:30 - International Services Success with Pat McGrath of PM Group and Jim Costello of SouthWestern (SWS BPO)
register on the it@Cork website - http://www.itcork.ie/index.cfm?page=events&eventId=156

2) Tuesday June 23rd 11:30 International Product Success with Denis Kennelly of Tivoli at IBM and Richard Cooke of Lincor
register on the it@Cork website - http://www.itcork.ie/index.cfm?page=events&eventId=157

I thoroughly enjoyed Jerry Kennelly’s talk last night at the it@Cork Summer Event in Murphy’s Brewery.

In StockByte, Jerry established a clear vision and opportunity early on and went after it fabulously and whole heartily with great success. That is $135M worth of success when Jerry sold his companies last year.

With the vision at the very start and quickly establishing that they were ahead of the market, Stockbyte established themselves as market leaders and acted accordingly. StockByte were innovative on business model, marketing, delivery of their offering and collecting feedback from the market.

I really really liked:
1) how they marketed the ‘personality’ of the business to set them apart.
2) the constant objective to drive more streamlined scaleable business across the entire business
3) the fast response feedback loop to generate new product directions
4) the focus on high quality, high value and premium service at a relevant high margin price
5) the fast pace
6) the fun of it all, constant innovation coupled with constant business growth, there’s nothing better!

Well done Jerry.

This story and how Jerry delivers it should be bottled and used by Enterprise Ireland as one potential model in building an international successful business. BUT it’s definitely a lesson that it’s well achievable with the right mindset to start with.

I’m going back to work.

also see great write-up on the event at http://www.waveson.com/itcork-and-jerry-kennelly/trackback/

My current Dell has served me well for over the past 3 years. Some of the keys have the letters worn off and it’s starting to be a little beaten in launching applications. Anti-virus, Anti-spyware, firewalls and elaborate screen desktop systems are taking their toll on my processors’ capacity.

I’m looking at HP, Lenovo and Toshiba models. I think it’s the Toshiba M7 series with the 14.1″ screen. The others only have 12.1″ screens.

“Why a Tablet?”, a friend asked me. I’m an early adopter and I believe there are efficiencies in a using and becoming used to using a Tablet PC…..

I’m just spec’ing and pricing, but we’ll see…

Lost Opportunity Cost is typically the lost revenue while doing one thing as opposed to earning cash someplace else. The cash that would have been earned someplace else is the Lost Opportunity Cost.

I’m not saying that we should respond to every opportunity. I believe in quite the opposite. Pick your focus and move fast.

It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that Pace is imperative and not acting with a sense of urgency causes you to lose out. Particularly as a small company on a growth path, you need to act fast when you see a relevant opportunity.

The core of the problem is this:

When we estimate the time to complete a task, we rarely try to do it faster, thus losing that time forever.

Completing the task faster is reducing your lost opportunity costs.

This is why I’m becoming a big fan of Eli Goldratt’s “The Theory of Constraints”. Part of which is about estimating individual tasks to be completed under ideal conditions with 50% certainty and manage the uncertainty at a more all encompassing level.

Being able to do forecast sales and meet them is magic. Isn’t it?

Recently, I’ve being reading many books on sales management. Many of theses books were from a large company point of view, with 268 sales reps and such. They were typically public companies with quarterly results to report and shareholders expecting the continuous growing sales and profitability. These companies would talk about the certainty required in the measurement of the sales process. “Having a few in the bag, just in case” was always a safety being used. “You must be paranoid”, another would say repeatedly.

When you can pay for the best of everything:
1) You have strong market intelligence of what the buyer wants
2) You know what the markets’ purchasing plans for the coming year
3) You know what you can produce and can move fast to add capacity for contingency reasons
4) You know your sales cycle and lead time to sales
5) You have a pipeline and understand the probabilities at the various stages
6) Your team of 268 sales reps are well trained and managed by the best

So what if you have none of these.

The principles still apply. Do what you can do.

Progress is everything.

People complicate business plans.

A business plan is a profit and loss forecast and the exhaustive set of assumptions to meet or beat this forecast.

Every number in your spreadsheet has a great number of assumptions behind it.

What are the list of questions that Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Your Accountant, Your Enterprise Ireland Development Advisor, and others would ask?

« Previous entries