After trying to do everything myself for many years, my buddy Jeff finally beat me over the head enough to realize that it is impossible. For those you that know me, you know that I like to be self-sufficient. I depending on other people, I hate waiting for others to get things done, so often I just do things myself. Here’s the problem with that approach.
- Time is the most valuable commodity I have.
- The best of my time should be spend doing what can make me the most successful.
- No one can be an expert at everything.
- All the time I spend doing it myself, could have been spent doing something more valuable.
You get the idea. Well, finding prospects is one of the most important things any business can do. The problem is that I had misguided notions that if I talk to my friends, past clients, doing a little blogging and have a website the sales will just start flowing in. Well, for any of you in business, you know that isn’t the case. Software seems to be especially difficult, at least in the SAP space, because to get in the door you need to convince a lot of people. You need to convince the business, business managers/directors, and then IT needs to sign off on it since you’ll be installing programs in their environment. But even before you get to that point… you need to find people to talk to, you need to find the right people that can say yes to get the process started, and even if you find them, it doesn’t mean they will ever take your calls, respond to your emails, or take your meetings.
This is where Jeff finally got through to me. We need to work with people that already have relationships with people we want to talk to. This is doubly good because if you work with someone that already has relationships, not only do they know the people, but the people know them. So you can get a warm introduction and a better chance to at least be heard 🙂 The key is that this needs to be a win-win situation for you and the partner. The key is being able to provide something of value in exchange for the introductions. Some of it will be monetary, some of it needs to be access to our contacts so our partner can do the same thing.
This is the road I’m just starting to travel down. If any of you have any ideas, advice, or are interested in partnering, please reach out. I’d love to hear from you.
mpiehl@gojavellin.com
Thanks for reading,
As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our SAP Service Management Products at my other company JaveLLin Solutions,
Mike