Podcast 01: First Steps to Marketing and Sales When Getting a New Business Off the Ground

In the early days of our company, we worked with a lot of start-ups and individuals looking to get companies off the ground.  We were just starting as well and we were very passionate about helping our peers grow along with us.  We worked with Start-Up Hubs, Incubators, Culinary Kitchen Start-Ups, etc.  We found it to be very rewarding but also very challenging.  Through this process, and by going through it ourselves, we have learned a quick path to launching a new product or business.  In this podcast we explore how to begin marketing, branding and sales while starting a new business. It is not an easy path but getting to turn your passion and skills into a living is worth the risk.  

Listen to the podcast here:

During the podcast we discussed steps to take to get your marketing and brand started when getting a new business off the ground.  Those steps are outlined below.  

1. Vision and Service – Solidify your vision and the service/ product you are providing. Why are you passionate about this vision or offering. What problem is it solving?

2. Target Market – Once you understand who you are,you want to look at who “they” are. Defining who your target audience is and really understanding what makes them tick is a crucial step in growing a business. What are their values and beliefs? What challenges or problems do they face?

 

Buyer Personas

3. Value and Alignment – With a defined audience, you need to determine what value you can provide your audience and how that aligns with their values and need in solving their problems.

4. Message – Having a very clear and concise message is the key to building and sustaining a new business. People need to clearly understand what you do and why you do it. Make it as simple as possible but it must remain compelling. We typically focus on creating a message map and a sales story for the client. We focus on communicating who we help, what their pain points are, and how we solve those problems.

Branding-101

 

5. Sales – Once your message is clear enough to deliver it is time to get some sales. Your first project or sale will lead to the next, so we highly encourage just getting started. Call, email, network, ask people who they know and even offer one or two projects for free or discounted.

6. Learn – Not only will getting a few projects started to get more exposure, happy customers, word off mouth and overall sales started, it will also give you an opportunity to learn. During this process make sure you are investing the time to observe and focus on gaining insights. What in the process is working, not working? Where can you improve? What was profitable? What took too much time? Should you narrow your focus?

7. Deployment – Use social media, emails, blogs and other tactics to deploy your message. Use your first sales to generate revenue and re-invest into building a wider audience online.  During the podcast we discussed account based marketing and LinkedIn.  Curate your feed with your potential customers, engage with them, like and share their posts, post valuable content and follow up with them via email, phone calls and paid ads.  

Listen to the podcast here:

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