Category: Selling

Top 10 reasons your start up will fail

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Top 10

  1. You don’t really believe in what your doing, making or selling
  2. You’re only motivated by money
  3. You took funding from people who are only motivated by money
  4. Your start up defies the laws of sustainability / health and wellness
  5. You believe that your ‘remarkable’ product will gain automatic distribution
  6. You have a long & complicated supply chain
  7. You think viral marketing is easy
  8. You don’t really understand the importance of cash flow
  9. You lose interest because you took too long to bootstrap it
  10. You believe that having the ‘best’ product will make you successful
  11. Bonus reason: You give up when things get hard.

Your thoughts?

Trial

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

We should use these words selling our start up to a first time customer:

‘Let’s do a trial’ 

It might be a small order, even one box. 

It’s a great fear remover. In their mind they’re not really buying it. In reality, nothing is different, except their risk perception is lowered. We’re just confirming that nothing is fixed and it’s Ok to try something new.

Limiting distribution

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I’ve just done this without writing an entry for two weeks (it wasn’t intentional). An interesting thing happened. Loyalty remained and traffic increased.

When someone values something having less of it can increase anticipation and desire.

 It won’t last forever. In the long run people will get annoyed and disappear…..

But sometimes limiting exposure can ensure our worth is enhanced and not diminished. We’ll remain exclusive.

Start ups with premium goods take note.

Trust

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Today I remembered why brands like Kraft, Nestle, Heinz, Kleenex et al have done so well. It’s because they were trusted. Trusted to deliver a remarkable product experience. The problem is, that what was, remarkable in 1963 is no longer remarkable in 2007.

Their trust was built on being safe, reliable, to have function and form. We wanted to feel confident that our cheese slice was safe to eat, hermitically sealed, made with quality milk, that the factory was clean. But now, that’s just table stakes. Cost of entry. The government has created laws which raise the stakes for remarkable products. This is a good thing. Raised standards on all things makes life better, but it does make entrepreneurship harder.

The problem is that trust has been abused by yesterdays’ heroes. Their products are still safe, but they took out all the good bits to make it profitable. Kraft Singles have reduced the cheese in them to the point that they are officially known as ‘Cheese Spread’ – check the label.  

Trust is great, but if we abuse it, we leave the door open for those who are authentic.

Pricing Dubiety

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

If we’re first to market how do we know a price the market will accept? There’s no precedent. 

In the early stages we get knock backs. People are change averse. They’ll often say it’s too expensive. It’s their default response to your sell in, even if it isn’t true. In these times we suffer Pricing Dubiety. The trick is to stay the course, knock on all the doors first. Sometimes we simply need a foundation customer to lead the others to a new paradigm. 

If the price does turn out to be too high, it’s the easiest thing in the mix to change. Besides, it gives us a reason to go back and see ‘the rejecters’ again if we do reduce it.

Losing interest

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

It’s vital to get our projects to market quickly.  When projects drag on, we can lose interest in it. We’re tired, bruised and scared from the battle – the battle of bootstrapping. We often lose interest when it counts most, close to launch. We get sloppy.

Our audience doesn’t care. Why should they? All they see is our offer and our enthusiasm when we engage them. If we’ve lost interest in our project then, why should they be interested?

Consumer Promotions

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Consumer promotions simply don’t work anymore, they’re old world. Bribing your audience with the allure of a car or holiday won’t build your brand, rather damage it.

 They remind me of the kid with no friends who bought companionship because they had a motorbike or pony. There is a sense of desperation.  Occasionally someone will end up liking what’s really on offer (the person / the product), but more often, once the offer disappears so does the loyalty.Motorbike

If you’re thinking of running a consumer promotion on your start up, maybe you should think about improving your business model. Reinvest the money and time into your proposition. Something is wrong.