What are the solutions to the answer "never heard of it" when you're starting a company or website service?
What kind of things can an entrepreneur do, so that more people hear of it, and they don't have to hear, "I never heard of it" as an answer. I know everyone hears of something when it gets on Oprah, what are some lesser known secrets to creating mass word of mouth in a short time?
Provide case study examples of overnight successes, where people never heard of something, and then everyone heard of it.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$4 Answers
So what is the potential customer really saying?
- He doesn't know my needs
- I'm not going with a start-up company. I've been burned before.
-If this person isn't listening to me now, he won't listen to me after I sign a contract.
To counter these underlying reasons the rejection of your proposals:
- research the company you are going to be talking to. Know their industry. Know about the person's position in the company.. An IT professional will be interested in different aspects of your product than would a purchasing agent.. Always be ready to answer the question the person on the other side of the desk has in their mind: "How is this service going to make my life easier? My company more profitable? My customers more loyal? Put the answers to these questions into your contact with the company - from emails, proposals or face-to-face discussions.
- Realize that your investment will not be recouped in your first few orders. Price accordingly. Also, make sure the prospective customer knows your background. What industry leaders did you work for?
- Listen, listen, listen. Pick up on the information the customer is telling you. Reframe and feedback what you think you are hearing. An example: "What I am hearing is that you need assistance in the area of . . . "
As far as being an overnight success. It takes to make it. If you look at the bio of a superstar in any profession, you will see the years of small walk-on parts or seasons spent in the minor leagues. A start-up company I worked for gave themselves 6 months to make their first sale. The first sale came in at month 5-1/2.
Look into becoming a member of a software business incubator in your area. It will give you support, resources and possible first clients.
The articles below should be useful.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Firstly, if there were any guaranteed, cheap, easy way to have your company / product / website be widely known, everyone would be doing it.
Whatever ways people suggest in answer to your question, I am willing to bet they will have one of more ot these characteristics...
- They are very hit-and-miss. They'll tell you three examples where the method worked. Problem is, the ten thousand times it was tried and failed are not documented. e.g. "Make a viral video".
- They cost more money than you have, or is worth paying. e.g. Hire a PR firm to make a big splash for you.
- They are not available because they rely on special characteristics of you or your business. e.g. They could work if you are already somewhat famous or well-connected, if your business is something especially newsworthy, if your business partner has supermodel looks, or the company owns a psychic octopus.
In short there are no guaranteed, quick, cheap, easy methods likely to be available to you to achieve *widespread* recognition.
For more realistic methods to achieve greater recognition, read my answer to a similar previous question...
I need to create some buzz for my upcoming web startup. Where to start?
Now to my second point, which is as important.
In reality, there are some people that are willing to try a product or company that is an unknown quantity, while a large majority of people prefer to go with something that is more proven.
If your company or product are not a known quantity, your job is to identify and go after the relevant group of early adopters that will be willing to give you a try anyway. i.e. Don't even try to reach the more cautious consumers until later.
For starters, read this fine NYT article on why *some* people will stand in line for hours for an iPad when the 1.0 will be buggy and they could get a cheaper and better version if they waited a short while before buying.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/business/09every.html
Then read some more about early adopters and what their characteristics might be...
http://www.zonalatina.com/Zldata99.htm
http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2010/04/startups-and-early-adopters-checking-in-on-conventional-wisdom.php
One thing to watch out for... in the popular press and the blogosphere, people will talk as if there is one group of people that are the potential early adopters for everything.
That is not so, and what you need to figure out is what that group is for your particular product.
For example....
- They could be the affluent.. they can afford to take a chance on buying a possible dud
- They could be the poor... all the well-known options are too expensive for them
- They could be the geek... they want to try out everything new and aren't scared of tech
- They could be the chic... they care about being the coolest and hippest kids on the block
Then your job is not to become well-known to everyone, but to that target group. Which is often do-able using the methods outlined in the Q&A I mentioned above.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$Only focus on goals that you set and continue struggle to achieve them. People have problem to criticize or involve in others' work. The dream is only fulfilled and business only successful if work according to predefined objectives and also passion of achieving.
Though positive feedback/criticism is good but it's not necessary to think on it at start up. Focus on achieving goal only that entrepreneur set previously.
Tolerance and risk taking are two important traits of entrepreneur that let him/her do working without noticing what others say or think.
Thanks
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Well, I think easy boy better know the answer. However, if you feel like that then ok.
Everybody has the right to comment and criticize other.
But I think, Entrepreneur penetrates in the market by carefully analyze the strategies he/she follow and by tracking his/her website continuously plus market research. And this all done, as I mention before by 'persistence efforts' and hard work.
By focusing on goals/objectives he set and by consistently work on achieving those, he sure to success.
There are several grammatical errors and you fail to answer the question as easyeboy has requested with case studies and facts. Additionally, the question does not ask what qualities a entrepreneur should possess, but what should an entrepreneur do to penetrate a market.
Excellent and professional answer. I'm speaking more so of Web services and products such as Mahalo Answers. For instance, I would tell people about Mahalo Answers, and they would say, "never heard of it" and they just took no interest, thinking that they were already on another answers website that was popular.
Research everything you can about your potential competitors. such as number of members, and online reviews of the sites, hit rankings. Make a presentation sheet showing the advantages of your software over each competitor / how it matches over the other software on every point. Take along a screen shot of a great sample page of each competitor and show one from your package.