I had never heard of a "one sheet".....but simple concept...but everything important on one piece of paper...a snapshot if you will and have it ready to go for when customers ask!
Here are some examples:
http://www.thecoca-colacompany.com/ourcompany/pdf/Company_Fact_Sheet.pdf
http://www.gatorade.com/Content/pdf/2006_Gatorade_Fact_Sheet.pdf
http://www.sagenonprofit.com/company/fact_sheet
I liked the Coca-Cola Layout and used this as my model.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Sales Breakthrough!
I had lunch with a friend on Tuesday that I think directly lead to my breakthrough on Wednesday. His comment was: Maybe you need to do some informational interviews to better understand the market....
Brilliant!
I finally had my first REASONABLE sales call on Wednesday. (I won't call it good until they ACTUALLY become a customer.) The key is to get a hold of the right person and ask good questions.
They will screen me....but I also need to screen them. If they have no power to buy...If they have no need for my product...or don't see VALUE in the things I have to offer....it is a waste of breath to go any further in the conversation.
Asking good questions helps me get there fast.
I am feeling MUCH better about doing sales now!
Hopefully things will go well tomorrow!!
Brilliant!
I finally had my first REASONABLE sales call on Wednesday. (I won't call it good until they ACTUALLY become a customer.) The key is to get a hold of the right person and ask good questions.
They will screen me....but I also need to screen them. If they have no power to buy...If they have no need for my product...or don't see VALUE in the things I have to offer....it is a waste of breath to go any further in the conversation.
Asking good questions helps me get there fast.
I am feeling MUCH better about doing sales now!
Hopefully things will go well tomorrow!!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
My life as a Bad Telemarketer...
Sooooooooooo I think I'm a tele-marketer.
Yep.
I am pretty sure.
Sales are hard to learn.
We have a great product, and lots of people do and want to buy it....
but how do you find the people who have the desire and power to buy?
It's an art.
I'm getting more comfortable making sales calls....but I still haven't been able to turn any of them into SALES. Yikes!
More to learn...much much more to learn!
Yep.
I am pretty sure.
Sales are hard to learn.
We have a great product, and lots of people do and want to buy it....
but how do you find the people who have the desire and power to buy?
It's an art.
I'm getting more comfortable making sales calls....but I still haven't been able to turn any of them into SALES. Yikes!
More to learn...much much more to learn!
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Doing it the Easy Way and BEING the expert.
Today was my Saturday to run the Retail Ship.
I definitely have a love/hate relationship with retail. I hate (i.e. get majorly embarrassed) when I get asked questions that I CLEARLY do not know the answer to.
One thing that is good, I suppose, is that when I actually work a Saturday and get the crap embarrassed out of me due to my own ignorance regarding the products I am trying to sell....or if it takes me forever to find something because the information is not easily available.......that embarrassment is a big motivator!
And I get to experience small issues that go un-fixed multiple times....another motivator!
I am working on OWNING the expertise.
This again is requiring me to get a lot more knowledge than I have now....QUICKLY.
Actual product knowledge...but also general knowledge in the field.
You have to love the Internet............in not long you can find basic info about basically anything.
I definitely have a love/hate relationship with retail. I hate (i.e. get majorly embarrassed) when I get asked questions that I CLEARLY do not know the answer to.
One thing that is good, I suppose, is that when I actually work a Saturday and get the crap embarrassed out of me due to my own ignorance regarding the products I am trying to sell....or if it takes me forever to find something because the information is not easily available.......that embarrassment is a big motivator!
And I get to experience small issues that go un-fixed multiple times....another motivator!
I am working on OWNING the expertise.
This again is requiring me to get a lot more knowledge than I have now....QUICKLY.
Actual product knowledge...but also general knowledge in the field.
You have to love the Internet............in not long you can find basic info about basically anything.
Friday, August 20, 2010
You Tube, Skills Grab, and Scalability
Finished up the form today.
Thankfully.
It is amazing if you are resourceful and motivated how quickly you can learn.
You Tube.
I found step by step tutorials on you tube last night....
One of the things that is challenging is to try to make everything you do scalable.
Really to try to think....if I have to do this 200 times....how do I want to do it??
I think this form is now set up for 200 customers....we'll see!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
VLook-up and the principles...
Principles from the book:
Doing a form with VLook up is important and I thought it would take an hour....so I limited it to an hour...and scheduled another meeting after an hour of concentrated work on that task..... little mis-calculation there.....
The big thing is I need to figure out ways to learn faster by myself- i.e. with free resources available in help menus or on-line.
The ONE thing I miss from my old job in corporate cube land is that I could always ask a neighbor how to do something.....there was always an expert around......now as the Entreprenur...I AM the expert.....just have to figure stuff out!
But figure it out much more quickly that I have needed to in the past.
In the past I got paid regardless of how long tasks took......and I would also have to stay there a certain number of hours regardless of how much I got done....NOW that has all changed. If I am not quick....I might not get a sale/get paid....and now when I get the important tasks done quickly....I can just quit for the day.
I really enjoy having daily goals and quitting when they are completed!
So now I'm going to watch a you-tube video on v-look up......here we go!
- Limit tasks to the important to shorten work time.
- Shorten time limit on tasks to the important.
Doing a form with VLook up is important and I thought it would take an hour....so I limited it to an hour...and scheduled another meeting after an hour of concentrated work on that task..... little mis-calculation there.....
The big thing is I need to figure out ways to learn faster by myself- i.e. with free resources available in help menus or on-line.
The ONE thing I miss from my old job in corporate cube land is that I could always ask a neighbor how to do something.....there was always an expert around......now as the Entreprenur...I AM the expert.....just have to figure stuff out!
But figure it out much more quickly that I have needed to in the past.
In the past I got paid regardless of how long tasks took......and I would also have to stay there a certain number of hours regardless of how much I got done....NOW that has all changed. If I am not quick....I might not get a sale/get paid....and now when I get the important tasks done quickly....I can just quit for the day.
I really enjoy having daily goals and quitting when they are completed!
So now I'm going to watch a you-tube video on v-look up......here we go!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Long Day
Today was our first company off-site.
It was good. Really good.
It was actually the first time the whole team was together- ever.
We reviewed pretty much all major items. Including going over the constitution. I do think it is a good start to things. I also had an opportunity to voice my opinion re: Ethics and seemed to get basic buy-in from the team.... we'll see how things progress....
I also read a little more in the 4-hour work week.
I think Entrepreneur in Training is actually going to be a good title for this blog. I have used so many different approaches to trying to start a biz.
What I tried so far:
It was good. Really good.
It was actually the first time the whole team was together- ever.
We reviewed pretty much all major items. Including going over the constitution. I do think it is a good start to things. I also had an opportunity to voice my opinion re: Ethics and seemed to get basic buy-in from the team.... we'll see how things progress....
I also read a little more in the 4-hour work week.
I think Entrepreneur in Training is actually going to be a good title for this blog. I have used so many different approaches to trying to start a biz.
What I tried so far:
- "Intra-preneurship"....i.e. trying to do a "start-up" inside of a major US Corp....couldn't make it through all the layers of management.
- "meet with a buddy and come up with an idea"......this one was only marginally more successful than the first. The idea we came up with: kids engineering summer camps. We ran the numbers it just wasn't scalable.... too much work for not enough $$....then my buddy decided to have a baby......and I went back to the drawing board.
- Next- I tried out my local university....there is a commercialization class....specifically targeted at getting businesses started with technology from the University.........3 months of class and 1 year of meetings later....still little progress...more or less a "living dead" start-up.
- I also tried to come up with some i-phone applications to get my partner to make....but pretty much everything you can think of is already available for free.....so that one wasn't going anywhere too quickly...
- Next is my current venture......a couple of friends that were bootstrapping a green business and needed help....and the best way to get help for free....is to give the a slice of the pie....hence.....my new "Entrepreneur in Training" status in life..........
What are you made of?
Ethics.
Real ethics.
This Entrepreneurship stuff really makes you figure out what you are made of!
It is humorouse because something happens almost every day that feels like a cheesey case study in a Biz Ethics class.
For example:
Here is the situation.
You are in a business and the biz owes a customer about $7 worth of product- but it is on backorder and you can't get it to them......3 weeks pass and the biz gets the product but gives it ALL to one of the BIG customers (who ordered a lot more than just $7)....this small order completely falls through the cracks. Finally the customer runs out of product and calls another teamember frantic...they have to figure out a solution.....which they end up going to the big customer and getting some of the product back to give to the small customer.....however when they deliver the the small customer the small customer has completely forgotten that they have already paid for the product and the other teammember has too. Sooooooooooo they pay again. Now at the end of the day you ask for a status update.......and the whole story comes out.......some of the members on the team think you should just let it go....the customer is always right....if they say they didn't pay...they didn't. However, you are confident that they really HAVE paid. They also point out how frantic and angry the customer is and that by pointing out that you had made the mistake that they will get more angry and you might loose them as a customer. You feel strongly that the company needs to fess-up and give them the additional product. The other teammember agrees that we should give them the extra product...but make it sound like it is "just a gift" because "we don't know for sure that we owed them the product"....and "this way we are covered"....however this just seems like a little bit of a skeezy cop out.....
example:
A teammates creates a marketing flyer with suspicious statements....what do you do?
Real ethics.
This Entrepreneurship stuff really makes you figure out what you are made of!
It is humorouse because something happens almost every day that feels like a cheesey case study in a Biz Ethics class.
For example:
Here is the situation.
You are in a business and the biz owes a customer about $7 worth of product- but it is on backorder and you can't get it to them......3 weeks pass and the biz gets the product but gives it ALL to one of the BIG customers (who ordered a lot more than just $7)....this small order completely falls through the cracks. Finally the customer runs out of product and calls another teamember frantic...they have to figure out a solution.....which they end up going to the big customer and getting some of the product back to give to the small customer.....however when they deliver the the small customer the small customer has completely forgotten that they have already paid for the product and the other teammember has too. Sooooooooooo they pay again. Now at the end of the day you ask for a status update.......and the whole story comes out.......some of the members on the team think you should just let it go....the customer is always right....if they say they didn't pay...they didn't. However, you are confident that they really HAVE paid. They also point out how frantic and angry the customer is and that by pointing out that you had made the mistake that they will get more angry and you might loose them as a customer. You feel strongly that the company needs to fess-up and give them the additional product. The other teammember agrees that we should give them the extra product...but make it sound like it is "just a gift" because "we don't know for sure that we owed them the product"....and "this way we are covered"....however this just seems like a little bit of a skeezy cop out.....
example:
A teammates creates a marketing flyer with suspicious statements....what do you do?
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Monday
Right now I am in a rapid learning phase and I'm instinctively seeking information to try to do some self-training. It is a bit of a self-imposed MBA bootcamp.
Last week I decided not to apply to MBA programs and since making/embracing that decision I read: The Little Red Book of Selling, Growing a Business, and have started The 4-Hour Workweek.
(Just for fun I also read Sway and a book on relationships/marriage by John Gottman....both of which are technically more about relationships and human interaction than business...but that is such a critical part of business I'm counting them.)
All the books have given some great bits.
But the one thing my mind keeps coming back to tonight is from the 4-hour work week. Namely, the key principle of ONLY doing the important things and imposing a short deadline for them and stopping energy and time wasting activities.
I did a trial today....but I definitely have a LONG way to go.
Last week I decided not to apply to MBA programs and since making/embracing that decision I read: The Little Red Book of Selling, Growing a Business, and have started The 4-Hour Workweek.
(Just for fun I also read Sway and a book on relationships/marriage by John Gottman....both of which are technically more about relationships and human interaction than business...but that is such a critical part of business I'm counting them.)
All the books have given some great bits.
But the one thing my mind keeps coming back to tonight is from the 4-hour work week. Namely, the key principle of ONLY doing the important things and imposing a short deadline for them and stopping energy and time wasting activities.
I did a trial today....but I definitely have a LONG way to go.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The Start
Today is the Start.
An ephiphany hit me last night.
Or, perhaps more accurately- very very early this morning.
All the things I have feared most in life- have either already happened or can no longer happen because the time has already passed.
I have been fired, layed-off, disowned, dumped, depressed, and completely lost, alone, and afraid in a foreign country. I have also stood up for myself when I didn't think I had the strength, graduated with a degree I wasn't sure I could hack, lived sucessfully abroad, had an 8 year career at a major American Corporation, found a wonderful life partener, and quit a job that was not personally satisfying in the mist of an economic crisis (this one was arguably the most difficult)......
All of these things leading up to my current adventure and new title in life..... Entrepreneur....this blog will be my daily reflections in this journy.
An ephiphany hit me last night.
Or, perhaps more accurately- very very early this morning.
All the things I have feared most in life- have either already happened or can no longer happen because the time has already passed.
I have been fired, layed-off, disowned, dumped, depressed, and completely lost, alone, and afraid in a foreign country. I have also stood up for myself when I didn't think I had the strength, graduated with a degree I wasn't sure I could hack, lived sucessfully abroad, had an 8 year career at a major American Corporation, found a wonderful life partener, and quit a job that was not personally satisfying in the mist of an economic crisis (this one was arguably the most difficult)......
All of these things leading up to my current adventure and new title in life..... Entrepreneur....this blog will be my daily reflections in this journy.