I need a discussion done for week 7 for My New Business Venture and Enterepship class and a response to 2 other classmates

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JWI 575 New Business Ventures and Entrepreneurship

Week Seven Lecture Notes

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BRANDING AND SALES What it Means

Once your new venture is launched, one of your team’s most important priorities is to create and grow a pipeline for sales. Building a customer base takes time, but there are some key steps you can take to bring

your brand to the attention of prospective buyers and to bring those prospects into your business pipeline.

Eventually you will develop a distinctive brand and a sales process that works for your particular product and

the target audience you have identified. However, in the early stages, a clearly defined brand, along with some proven sales techniques, can help you and your team to build strong relationships with prospective

customers and convert many of those prospects into actual paying customers.

Why it Matters

• Staff in a new venture must identify prospective customers and build a pipeline for sales • Branding helps sales by succinctly describing the product and its benefits for customers • The sales process should be viewed and practiced as a form of relationship management

“Positioning is more powerful when it’s personal, because it’s easier for potential customers to imagine how a product fills a

need.”

Guy Kawasaki

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FROM BRANDING TO SALES

Everyone in a startup must always be selling. Even before the launch, you need to sell your vision to

investors, partners, and other stakeholders. Once you launch, finding prospects and converting them into paying customers is a key focus. You and your team should constantly hone your value proposition and use

it to communicate your brand to prospective customers. This process creates a community through which

your innovative product or service can be introduced into the marketplace.

How Branding Supports Sales

The best business leaders think both broadly and specifically about sales. While you have to sell the big

vision for the company and your new product, you must also develop a marketing strategy and work out how

to turn prospects into paying customers. As you refine your product and develop your brand, keep in mind what it will take to build your customer base.

Your brand defines what benefits your product or service offers to the customer. It is rooted in the unique

value proposition that differentiates you from your competitors. Your brand should be the foundation for all your customer interactions and promotional events. As you grow, gather feedback from prospects on the

pros and cons of your offering and from customers on their actual experience with your product or service.

Use this information to adapt your product or service to better fulfill the wants and needs of your target

audience. Then refine your brand to reflect the changes you have made.

Sales as Relationship Management

In a small startup venture with a few employees, everyone must be involved in selling the product or service.

However, many people doubt their own ability to be an effective salesperson. In reality, selling is not so different from any other business activity that is built on relationships. Setting aside impulse buys, most

buying decisions are rooted in a business relationship built over time and based on trust and rapport.

Like other relationship managers, salespeople track their contacts. To create a pipeline of customers, they use a system called the funnel, which tracks prospects and their level of interest. It starts as a long list of all

prospects, and gradually narrows down to the few people likely to purchase tomorrow, next week, or next

month. A basic spreadsheet is all you need to track customer prospects in the early stages of a new venture.

Instead of focusing on the sales transaction, let’s explore how a good relationship between the seller and the customer is built. Whether you communicate with prospective buyers in person, on the phone, via email, on

the web, or through any other channel, the following principles will work for you.

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Basic Principles of Sales

Product Knowledge: Customers want to buy from people who understand the product they are selling. You must know all the product features and how they translate into benefits for the customer. While you must know how the product works, it is more important to describe how it improves the life of the customer.

Positioning and Listening: Good salespeople are good listeners. You have to connect with customers and learn about their concerns. You will not develop trust and rapport with prospects if you focus only on the hard

sell. People buy from people, and customers want to feel good about the person they buy from. Enthusiasm

is contagious, so be sure to convey your excitement about the product and its benefits for the customer.

Handling Objections: Be ready to offer special configurations of the product or discount pricing. Think of being turned down as an invitation to improve the product or the terms of your offer. State the objection back

to the customer, confirm that you have heard it properly, and then try to counter it with a creative solution.

Persistence and Follow-up: Always be closing is a well-known maxim in sales. You must constantly move the relationship forward towards a buying decision. A written proposal should follow any sales meeting and a thank-you email is appropriate after a sales call. Use this communication to thank the prospective buyer for

their time, to reiterate the main points you heard them make, and to address any concerns they expressed.

Account Mapping: If you are selling to a big account, you will need to persuade many people, across multiple departments. In a large company, you might talk with a technical decision-maker, an economic

decision-maker, a vendor coordinator, and a department manager. You will need to approach each of these

buyers with a unique persuasion strategy, while keeping your core brand message consistent.

Asking for the Order: All your careful relationship management is preparation for making the ask. This is the key step, the action that converts your prospect into a customer. At the right time, you must build on the rapport you have developed by asking your prospect to commit to that first purchase. Of course, your

relationship does not end there. You should follow up and find out how the customer liked the product or

service. Addressing any initial concerns will go a long way towards gaining you a repeat customer.

Meeting your Commitments: Be relentless in meeting your commitments. This is especially important for a startup company that has no track record yet. Customers are watching to see if your company can deliver

reliably. If you offer to send a proposal the next day, have it done the next day. Before you commit to ship an item on a certain date, consult with your team to be sure you can meet this deadline. As the leader of a small

company, you are personally involved in all major decisions and in close touch with your team; use this fact

to your advantage, to ensure that you are always able to honor your commitments to the customer.

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GETTING THE MOST OUT OF THIS WEEK’S CLASS

As you read the materials and participate in class activities, stay focused on the key learning outcomes for the week:

• Understand the distinction between marketing and branding

What is different about the ways in which marketing and branding can support you as you build your customer base? Marketing is fundamentally the means you employ to reach your target audience, inform them about your new product or service, and express the benefits that it offers them. It includes a wide array of outreach options to reach people who are likely prospective customers. Branding, by contrast, relates to the core definition of your product or service, including its unique features and key benefits for users.

• Examine how branding can help you market more effectively

As you strive to develop trust and rapport with your prospects and move towards a commitment to purchase your product or service, your brand is a key element to keep in mind. Your brand expresses the core value of your product or service and it describes the benefits that your product offers to the customer. How can you use this power of branding to market your innovative idea to prospective customers and to generate excitement about your new product or service?

• Build and refine the brand for your innovative product or service

As your new venture starts making sales, your product or service will be tested by the hard realities of the marketplace. Your dissatisfied customers will certainly let you know where your offering falls short. For you, this is an opportunity to see through the eyes of the user and to learn what it missing from their perspective. You also need to know what features customers like best, so that you can be sure to retain those qualities in your product. How can you build in a feedback component to your communications with prospects and customers? How will you use that feedback to improve your product or service, and to refine the branding that describes it?