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How to Grow your startup business?

Not all startups are successful. The reasons could be a combination of – business planning, revenue model, leadership team, target segments, product, and most often execution. I have seen startups that had almost all the elements needed to transition into a sustainable, high-growth business, but lacked guidance and experienced leadership team. Building a startup is difficult but converting it into a high-growth business is even more challenging, and often requires a different skill set than that was required in the early days of a startup.

So what are those ingredients for that secret sauce of building a startup, successfully?

Having right business mentors and startup consultants are critical success factors for a startup to be successful. According to the first research report of Startup Genome Project in 2011, it was found that founders who learn are more successful. Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders, raise 7x more money and have 3.5x better user growth.

Bill Joy, Founder of Sun Microsystems once said, “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people don’t work for you”. So it is best to avail professionals / mentors to support your growth mission; and in building a successful and sustainable high-growth business. You can avail mentor support across functions like marketing, sales, accounting, human resources, operational excellence, training, etc.

To ensure sustainable growth you need to have:

  Right business model that acquires customers

  Leadership with ideology, beyond just passion and vision

  Ability to seize opportunities

  Creating a high impact, marketing and sales engine

  Retention strategies

Have the right business model that aligns with customer acquisition. Do not build products / services that just excite only you and not your customers.Focus on long-term AND short-term goals and activities. Most often, companies tend to forgo short term profits thinking of reaping those profits in long term, but practically they are only digging themselves deeper.

Your ideology has to reflect upon your culture and beliefs. Like how Walmart’s ideology is focused on customers, Hewlett Packard – its employees, 3M – its innovation, Ford – its products, your activities and outcomes need to be consistent with your ideology.

Most often when you start to scale, you might stumble upon some great opportunities. Do not leave them since they are not products or services that you are currently pursuing. As long it fits the core of your ideology and purpose, do give it a try. 3M came out with Post-it product just by accident; Johnson & Johnson accidentally introduced baby powder which then climbs up drastically to have over 40% of their revenue share; Marriot Corporation got into the airport services business by accident and that became a roaring success. All these were once a small startup which later became large corporations. These successes are not attributed to great business or strategic planning, but show their abilities to seize opportunities. Explore options, pick what works for you and discard those that don’t work.

Most startups fail to scale due to lack of customers. There may be initial success but if you rest on your laurels you will get run-over. Set an effective, high impact marketing and sales engine. In my numerous meetings with CEOs and entrepreneurs, marketing and sales have been predominantly mixed up. Both are like chalk and cheese, so you need to have dedicated professionals for marketing (especially digital marketing) and sales functions.

Building revenues is paramount, a non-negotiable factor and laser focus on sales is very critical while you are scaling up. Hire ‘smart’ sales persons, and keep them on optimum heat so that they fire in the right areas. Fuel their passion and increase your revenue visibility.

Do not stop with lip service on customer satisfaction; honestly walk that extra mile to ensure that you stay on top of your customer’s mind, always. Incorporate customer feedback into your system and ensure that it is acted upon at the earliest. It is difficult to win customers, and if you lose them it takes more than 7x efforts to win another; not to mention, that their potential could be far lesser than what you had lost.

Your employees should be taught not to just please their bosses, but to ensure that their customers are taken care of. Make them treat customers like their CEO and success will look easy.

Your employees should be taught not to just please their bosses, but to ensure that their customers are taken care of. Make them treat customers like their CEO and success will look easy.

Beyond startup phase, while you are scaling up, it might be easier to afford more salaries to recruit key resources. While you might be able to attract talent, it is important that you have strong retention policies. Have small celebrations, cheer songs and team meetings to share corporate values and beliefs, from time to time.

Be tolerant for honest mistakes. We all know that while a startup is beginning to scale there are bound to be mistakes. Just make sure that the same does not crop up in future. Even large organizations do make mistakes. Allow them to experiment and bring out their best, as long as it does not become a corporate failure.

Finally, it is all about consistency; consistency in winning deals, consistency in getting customer appreciations, consistency in building robust products or solutions, consistency in delivering high quality services and consistency in collecting payments on-time that separates winners from those who also-ran!

Startup Xperts is a business growth and consulting firm with an objective to transform CEO’s vision into achievable, actionable goals that deliver results.  Our mission is to help companies to steeply accelerate their revenue growth, profitably.  Be it family run business, small or medium enterprise or a boutique firm, Startup Xperts have all the right answers to step up their growth.  Startup Xperts help clients in a range of service areas including business consulting, strategic consulting, sales and marketing consulting, digital marketing, Sales Process Outsourcing (SPO), HR, Operations and leadership training, sales training, business mentoring and executive coaching.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

Author Shyam Sekar acts as a Chief Mentor and Strategist at Startup Xperts and provides business consulting and execution support to numerous startups and SMEs, helping them build their enterprises successfully.

The views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content.  In case of any objection in content, IP violations, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com.   We will do our best to act on it at the earliest

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Posted on Author admin Categories Blog

How to Grow your startup business?

Not all startups are successful. The reasons could be a combination of – business planning, revenue model, leadership team, target segments, product, and most often execution. I have seen startups that had almost all the elements needed to transition into a sustainable, high-growth business, but lacked guidance and experienced leadership team. Building a startup is difficult but converting it into a high-growth business is even more challenging, and often requires a different skill set than that was required in the early days of a startup.

So what are those ingredients for that secret sauce of building a startup, successfully?

Having right business mentors and startup consultants are critical success factors for a startup to be successful. According to the first research report of Startup Genome Project in 2011, it was found that founders who learn are more successful. Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders, raise 7x more money and have 3.5x better user growth.

Bill Joy, Founder of Sun Microsystems once said, “No matter who you are, most of the smartest people don’t work for you”. So it is best to avail professionals / mentors to support your growth mission; and in building a successful and sustainable high-growth business. You can avail mentor support across functions like marketing, sales, accounting, human resources, operational excellence, training, etc.

To ensure sustainable growth you need to have:

 Right business model that acquires customers

 Leadership with ideology, beyond just passion and vision

 Ability to seize opportunities

 Creating a high impact, marketing and sales engine

 Retention strategies

Have the right business model that aligns with customer acquisition. Do not build products / services that just excite only you and not your customers.Focus on long-term AND short-term goals and activities. Most often, companies tend to forgo short term profits thinking of reaping those profits in long term, but practically they are only digging themselves deeper.

Your ideology has to reflect upon your culture and beliefs. Like how Walmart’s ideology is focused on customers, Hewlett Packard – its employees, 3M – its innovation, Ford – its products, your activities and outcomes need to be consistent with your ideology.

Most often when you start to scale, you might stumble upon some great opportunities. Do not leave them since they are not products or services that you are currently pursuing. As long it fits the core of your ideology and purpose, do give it a try. 3M came out with Post-it product just by accident; Johnson & Johnson accidentally introduced baby powder which then climbs up drastically to have over 40% of their revenue share; Marriot Corporation got into the airport services business by accident and that became a roaring success. All these were once a small startup which later became large corporations. These successes are not attributed to great business or strategic planning, but show their abilities to seize opportunities. Explore options, pick what works for you and discard those that don’t work.

Most startups fail to scale due to lack of customers. There may be initial success but if you rest on your laurels you will get run-over. Set an effective, high impact marketing and sales engine. In my numerous meetings with CEOs and entrepreneurs, marketing and sales have been predominantly mixed up. Both are like chalk and cheese, so you need to have dedicated professionals for marketing (especially digital marketing) and sales functions.

Building revenues is paramount, a non-negotiable factor and laser focus on sales is very critical while you are scaling up. Hire ‘smart’ sales persons, and keep them on optimum heat so that they fire in the right areas. Fuel their passion and increase your revenue visibility.

Do not stop with lip service on customer satisfaction; honestly walk that extra mile to ensure that you stay on top of your customer’s mind, always. Incorporate customer feedback into your system and ensure that it is acted upon at the earliest. It is difficult to win customers, and if you lose them it takes more than 7x efforts to win another; not to mention, that their potential could be far lesser than what you had lost.

Your employees should be taught not to just please their bosses, but to ensure that their customers are taken care of. Make them treat customers like their CEO and success will look easy.

Your employees should be taught not to just please their bosses, but to ensure that their customers are taken care of. Make them treat customers like their CEO and success will look easy.

Beyond startup phase, while you are scaling up, it might be easier to afford more salaries to recruit key resources. While you might be able to attract talent, it is important that you have strong retention policies. Have small celebrations, cheer songs and team meetings to share corporate values and beliefs, from time to time.

Be tolerant for honest mistakes. We all know that while a startup is beginning to scale there are bound to be mistakes. Just make sure that the same does not crop up in future. Even large organizations do make mistakes. Allow them to experiment and bring out their best, as long as it does not become a corporate failure.

Finally, it is all about consistency; consistency in winning deals, consistency in getting customer appreciations, consistency in building robust products or solutions, consistency in delivering high quality services and consistency in collecting payments on-time that separates winners from those who also-ran!

Startup Xperts is a business growth and consulting firm with an objective to transform CEO’s vision into achievable, actionable goals that deliver results. Our mission is to help companies to steeply accelerate their revenue growth, profitably. Be it family run business, small or medium enterprise or a boutique firm, Startup Xperts have all the right answers to step up their growth. Startup Xperts help clients in a range of service areas including business consulting, strategic consulting, sales and marketing consulting, digital marketing, Sales Process Outsourcing (SPO), HR, Operations and leadership training, sales training, business mentoring and executive coaching.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

Author Shyam Sekar acts as a Chief Mentor and Strategist at Startup Xperts and provides business consulting and execution support to numerous startups and SMEs, helping them build their enterprises successfully.

The views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content. In case of any objection in content, IP violations, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com. We will do our best to act on it at the earliest

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Posted on Author admin Categories Blog

Email marketing, a powerful way to expand your business | Startup Xperts

This article appeared as a column in the ‘Small Enterprise’ Entrepreneur Business Magazine in Oct 2014 issue.

Marketing is all about creating great customer experiences, consistently. It has transformed itself significantly over the last few years, thanks to digital marketing. Today, marketing is not just meant for large corporate (which were the case decades ago) but for every startup, SME can boast to benefit from.

A study by MIT Sloan Management Review and Capgemini Consulting on ‘Embracing Digital Technology’ finds that, according to 78% of respondents, achieving digital transformation will become critical to their organizations within the next two years. This was the study on traditional large corporations. This underlines the importance of digital technology that needs to be embraced in order to achieve success. In other words, without this you do not dream of taking your organization on a success path!

Digital technology is changing the industry and competitive landscape. Though many CEOs acknowledge the importance of digital marketing, it is the question of time and consistency with which these are being managed and executed. Though digital marketing can be encapsulated into inbound and outbound marketing, the strategic pieces still can lie with the CEO themselves.

Out of the many outbound marketing techniques that include display ad like Google Adwords, Webinars, Virtual conference, email marketing stands tall. Being an advocate of email marketing myself, I cannot resist saying that it is one of the most potent weapons that a company can use; more importantly even for a small enterprise, or a startup venture.

According to a McKinsey report, reaching people through e-mail is 40 times more effective than Twitter and Facebook combined. Yes, it is a mind boggling 40 TIMES! These stunning numbers prove that you as an enterprise cannot afford to miss out on this great marketing tool.

Why is it so powerful? Everyone (certainly most) of us checks email at least once a day, and probably the first thing in the morning. Besides, almost 3/4th of customers prefer to receive marketing messages through an email. Having now understood its importance let us see how best you can put to use this strategy.

The first step is to build an email list. You can buy the list, and/or you can start collating this over a period of time. It is kind of an ‘always-on’ activity. Beware of anti-spam challenges.

A tip – you can pick your connections from social media (relevant ones), other contacts, and prepare a list to start with.

The next importance element is the ‘messaging’. Your message should build trust and be relevant.

Customers do not want to see just ‘sales mails’. At some point in time it will be treated as spam and junked. So share information that are worthy, informative, a note as to how you can possibly solve their issues or challenges or save money, general insights, reports, etc. This will help you position as a thought leader in this space.

I have recommended and helped my clients build their brand and reach through smart email marketing techniques. For one of my consulting clients, we had shared an interesting article to a senior level vendor management person with a billion dollar enterprise in the US. Reaching out this contact over email or phone, might be next to impossible as they would be flooded by sales calls/mailers every other day. But with a non-sales, informative mailer that was shared, my client received a response from this billion dollar prospect requesting them to fill up an RFP that they sent along with their mail. Bang! What a smart and powerful way this email marketing can be? And this is without any sales effort, without thousands of dollars spent in sales follow ups (and still doesn’t guarantee an RFP though).

Create an interesting subject line. Most often, mails get read based on the excitement / interest that the subject line provides. There is no one standard thumb rule to say how exactly the subject line should be. Some may argue to short ones, while some for a lengthy one. But fundamentally make it look interesting, and that addresses ‘what’s in it for me’?

Personalize as much as possible, your email contents. Rather than just sending one mass mailer you can address the person by his/her name in the starting place; or you can even have their name addressed in the subject line itself. Human touch is essential in creating engaging content and that will be a key.

Engage a good content writer and keep churning out articles of interest, blogs that can position you as a thought leader in that space. Though developing content in-house is best, I have noticed most often that in companies the priorities would be different at different times and good articles do not come through as planned. In such cases, best is to engage content writers to ensure that messaging is happening with consistency; your strategy should define the frequency of such posts, timing, etc.

Include Social Media links in your posts / email. This way, it will help share these articles through popular social media sites directly. It can turn viral and your brand / offering can reach through extended connections that you would not have dreamt of.

Most use mobiles to open emails, so it is imperative that your content gets displayed across all devices fine. Care should be taken so that rendering is checked across devices before your email campaign is triggered.

Now, how do you send this? Though outlook? A strict no-no! Use CRM solutions and the beauty of that is ‘analytics’. You could slice and dice your data, contacts, and send targeted messages, and campaigns.

Here is an important point; I am not suggesting you to drop other modes of digital marketing and advocate only email marketing. Email marketing can be used, along with other digital marketing techniques like retargeting, etc. the right combination when used can be very powerful. When your digital strategy is encompassing a few areas synchronized well, you can take your enterprise to a significantly higher level in building up your brand and business.

Startup Xperts is a management consulting firm with an objective to transform companies into the next level of growth. Our mission is to help companies to steeply accelerate their growth. Be it family run business, small or medium enterprise or a boutique firm, Startup Xperts have all the right answers to step up their growth. Startup Xperts help clients in a range of service areas including business consulting, strategic consulting, sales and marketing consulting, digital marketing, HR, Operations and leadership training.

To know more about Startup Xperts, visit us at www.startupxperts.com or write to us at info@startupxperts.com

The views expressed in this article are that of the author’s and Startup Xperts is not responsible for this content. In case of any objection in content, IP violation, incorrect or inappropriate information, please inform us at ceo@startupxperts.com. We will do our best to act on it at the earliest.

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