Category: Business

Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, a lot of my effort is being spent on my new business.  One of the big pieces that I’ve had to spend a lot of time learning is the marketing aspect.  While to some of you, this might seem easy…  well, I have that engineering mentality.  For those you that ever read Dilbert, you know that engineers & sales or marketing have very different mindsets.  Almost opposite 🙂  so it’s been a challenge for me to overcome that and try to play both roles.

One of the challenges I’ve always faced is that my area is very niche, and thus it’s been difficult to find any competitors or similar products to my own.  You might be scratching your head right now thinking “that’s not a problem!!!  No competition means 100% of the market”.  Well, that’s what I originally thought.  What I quickly discovered is that there are 2 far more likely possibilities.

1.  There is no market, and that’s why no one else is doing this.
2.  No one knows that anyone offers what I offer, so no one is looking.

It’s like anything, if you don’t know there’s a product out there, you might not even consider looking for it.  I’m gambling my resources on #2.  I truly believe there is a market for what I’m designing, so that means I need to try to get the word out there that the service management tools can be purchased and out of the box solutions exist.  It’s part of the reason I write to you guys most every day.  It’s my form of advertising.  I’m hoping that providing you valuable information, you in turn will remember that I sell stuff, and if you run into a client that might need it, you’ll think of me and point them my way =)

Well, I’d love to say that my blog is directly driven thousands of dollars in sales to me…  it hasn’t happened, yet.  However, what my blog did for me was provide me a bunch of useful information that needed.  You know how I keep telling you that I use my blog is my digital notebook?  Well, that’s exactly how I used it this past week.

Yet again, I needed to build another SAP system, so that I have a place for contractors to develop.  Well, once again, I needed to build a system from scratch because the one I have is “quirky” to say the least.  If I hadn’t done so much development and master data loads, I’d probably scrap it and use a copy of the new system I just built…  but oh well.

Building a new system meant that I needed to start from scratch.  That meant installing a printer (I had a blog post on that), seeing what files I needed to do the install (I had a post on that), generating a solution manager key (I did a post on that too), configuring STMS (you guessed it)…

So, all my blogging directly benefited me.  I didn’t have to dig through cryptic notebooks.  Since I write for you guys, it forces me to document my thoughts properly…  not in my half awake code language that I tend to use for taking notes.  Great for 30 mins for now, any longer, and I have to stare at it for an hour to figure what on earth I was even writing about.

So, no money yet, but it saved me a ton of time.  If you haven’t already, start your digital notebook today.

thanks for reading,

Mike

So if I just wish hard enough, will it happen?  How does the old saying go, wish in one hand, S*#t in the other, see which one fills up first.  🙂

the answer to that is obviously no, so what do you do to get that next sale.  Since I’m no expert, I just keep doing what other successful people are doing.  the first thing we are focusing on this year is trade shows.  There is a big SAP MFG conference in March this year that we are shelling out big bucks to be a part of.  We’re investing a lot in this because this is where our potential customers will be.  So if we can showcase what we have, we stand to collect a lot of business.

The second thing, invest in our product offering.  I’ve been spending a crazy amount of time building our super production application.  this is where I have to trust my partner.  I’m not a production guy, but he is.  He says, if we build this, they will come (and spend a lot of money on it).  In addition, I’m upgrading my original application to Web Dynpro.  Even if people don’t need it, they love the latest and greatest.  While Web Dynpro has been around for a while, it’s still relatively new for many customers.  So why not try to wow them with fancy buzz words 🙂

Finally, keep on keeping on…  I’ll continue to write my blog posts, I’ll continue sending out emails, I’ll continue building bigger and better auto-responders to find more 2nd customers.  And most of all, I’ll keep working…  So while I might take tonight off to enjoy time with friends, rest assured, I won’t be taking many nights off for a while.  If want to make it, you gotta work your ass off for a while…  then you can relax (just a little).

Thanks for reading,

Mike

For the past 5 months or so, I start blogging, and I have managed to put out 5 posts a week since I started.  Now when I started doing this, the first thing I thought was “how can I come up with enough to talk about?”.  I have to confess, I’ve surprised myself.  I discovered a few things, and I wanted to share those with you.

1.  You know more than you think – If you consider yourself an expert at anything, then there’s an audience out there that wants to hear what you have to say.  Now, you may not consider yourself an “expert”, but a famous quote I heard is that “In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king”.  What does that mean?  it means that in your subject you know a lot more than someone just learning.  So you might not have every answer, but you have a lot of answers the average person has no clue about.  This was a tough one for me.  I’ve been doing a lot of these things for so long that I assume it’s common knowledge.  Well, I’ve learned that what I think is common knowledge, is actually only common among other experts, but not to the average person.

2.  Writing is too much work – this one plagued me for a while until I learned a simple concept.  Write like you’re talking to someone over coffee or drinks.  Don’t try to write a masterpiece, rather just write like you would talk.  While this won’t win you a Pulitzer, it strikes the average person as a “real”.  If you write like you’re having a conversation with someone you don’t come across as an arrogant expert, rather it brings a feeling of familiarity, comfort.  Strangely enough, I’ve discovered that a lot of people are actually reading what I consider ramblings.  Sometime I feel like I’m just babbling on, but then I’ll get a comment from an old friend, or someone that I’ve never met before, and it gives me a renewed effort to keep blogging.

3. Be consistent – this one has been tough for me.  To do this right, you really need to post consistently every week.  I decided I’d do every weekday.  The problem with this is that I don’t feel like writing every night.  So for that, I discovered an awesome trick.  I write when I’m in the mood.  This means I might be writing 2 or 3 posts a night, then I schedule them to run in the future.  I’ve done my best to keep a 2 week buffer of posts.  Now this might not work for everyone, but my stuff isn’t tied to current events, so for me I can write down somehting I do today, and post it next week and no one cares.  This allows me to write when I’m in the zone, and not panic when suddenly I haven’t blogged in 3 days.

I hope this helps.  Just remember, stick with it.  You probably won’t see any results for weeks or even months, but if you stick with it, you’ll surprise yourself at the readers you’re accumulated.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

Well, in this new year I thought I’d just put a little piece of helpful sales information, coming from a sales person in training =)

The simple information is to never miss an opportunity.  For example, my main business is still consulting (not for long, I hope, but still for now), so that means interviews.  As it turns out, a job interview is actually a great place to pitch your stuff.  It’s simple, during an interview you need to prove that you know your stuff.  What better way to prove your knowledge than by showing off an application you have developed.  This ends up being a double win.  It shows your skill and knowledge, and could lead to a sale.

Now you still need to remember during an interview you need to focus on selling yourself, and not your products.  Like everything I’ve been learning lately, it’s  fine line between in the sales process between pushing your stuff and presenting an opportunity.  I took an approach in my last interview that I hope will work for me.  I did my interview and subtly mentioned that I designed applications for SM.  I left it at that.  Then, after the interview I sent a Thank-You email, and included a pitch for my products.  It remains to be seen if I was successful, but I’m hoping it at least sparks some interest.

Anyway, it’s just another step in my development to learn sales.
I hope your new year will be as great as mine…

Thanks for reading,

Mike