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Our First Trade Show – Carolina ASUG – Lessons Learned

My latest learning experience was the trade show. Now I’ve attended trade shows in the past, but this is the first time I’ve gone to one in the vendor mindset. Now, this was a relatively small group. It was a regional ASUG, so it was a great place to learn. My partner Mike and I got up at the crack of down on Thursday morning and drove 4 hours. We hit the vendor fair, that had about 10 or so booths. We talked to about half of the booths, in order to try to learn what other people are currently doing. We talked to some companies that were even doing SAP Add-ins, just like us. So we got some great information about pricing and we saw some good marketing materials that we can strive to check out. (speaking, please check out our one page document on any of our products. I’d love to hear your feedaback).
Here’s some of the lessons I learned

Lesson 1: Consistent Image:  Mike and I were in the process of getting the new company launched, so that meant we both came in under our own company name, Paper Street Enterprises & DMS. This wasn’t terrible, but since we were often at a booth together, we got a lot of strange looks, especially when we presented a JaveLLin Solutions business card.   So we decided that we need to get some shirts to wear (polo for sure), get a logo, get business cards, change our membership to to the new company.  Little things like that.  ha ha ha

Lesson 2: Avoid panel discussions if possible: On the first day, the last presentation was a panel discussion about ABAP Add-ins.  It was awesome because it gave us a chance to give a quick pitch.  However, we ended up following a guy that took twice his allotted time and just wouldn’t get off the stage.  This quickly annoyed the entire audience because this discussion was holding people up from going to happy hour.  Nobody wants to hear a sales pitch when they could be drinking free beer.  ha ha ha.  We learned that it’s worth the money to be a vendor and do an actual hour long presentation.  Plus, that will give us a booth.

Lesson 3: Talk to Vendors:  This was a big bright spot in the conference.  in the course of the conference we met 2 great vendors that are actually interested in partnering up with us.  So talk to everyone, you never know.  These vendors can help us get in the mobile arena with little work on our part…  (more about this in a future post).

Those are the big things I walked away with…  I”m sure when I go to CWG in Oct, I’ll be doing another one these…

Thanks for reading…

My Ideal Customer – More Marketing Stuff

Last week I started to talk about the unique selling proposition.  That was step one of the marketing class that my friend Justin and I both undertook.  The class is pretty good, but has some gaps, but that what you get when you sign up early and pay the bargain price =)

Well, step 2 (I’m a couple weeks behind on this, but luckily there are no tests) it to define who my idea customer is.  In my head this sounds easy, my ideal customer is anyone that will pay me a lots of money for my applications (or even services, but I’m trying to move out that model if possible).  However, after listening to the class, I learned there is a lot more to it.  Every person you interact can connect with you on different levels.  For example, I met my best friend James one night at a pick up game of flag football.  We had an instant chemistry, and someone knew after that night we would be lifelong friends.  Now I’ve met other people that when I initially met them, they drove me crazy, and hated to be in the same room with them.  Then we eventually built some rapport, and started to find common ground, and some of those people are now friends of mine that I keep in close contact with.  What I personally learned is that I often saw traits in other people that I hated about myself.  Until I realized that I didn’t them, I actually hated that part of my own personality, I couldn’t bring myself to like them.  Anyway, enough with the psychology lesson.  What is important is to know what sort of people you want to deal with, probably on a long term basis.  According to the class, you want to be able to visualize a single person that will be your customer.  It helps to avoid trying to sell to everyone, the whole be all things to all people.  We all know it doesn’t work, but it doesn’t stop us from trying.  Since I need to keep blogging, I figured the best way would be for me to figure it out with you… my audience (that I really hope will eventually show up.  ha ha)

My Ideal Customer is:
1.  someone that knows what they need, and can articulate it to me.
2. someone that can express their needs without being blunt/as ass.  (we all know the type)
3. someone that can afford what I’m selling
4. someone with vision for their organization.  Someone that is constantly seeking improvement.
5.  someone that understand their business.  For example, for me, they should fully understand their Service business and it’s problems.
6.  someone looking to build a long term relationship.  I don’t want a 1 and done customer.
7.  someone in their mid 30’s to early 40’s.
8.  and entrepreneur.
9.  someone with a small family and wants to be able to spend more time with time.
10. someone that reads self improvement books and listens to audio books.
11. someone that LOVES what they do.
12. someone that has seen multiple ways of doing business, not just a single company for their whole career.
13. someone very unassuming.  Doesn’t live and die by name brands or status symbols.
14.  someone that believes in the constitution of the US.
15.  a gun owner, or at least pro 2nd amendment.
16. someone that takes pride in being prepared for possible disasters (corporate or personal)
17. someone unwilling to accept government handouts in exchange for government control.
18. a Green Bay Packer fan (couldn’t resist)
19. someone that understands that success comes from hard work, not just a good idea.
20. someone that roots for the underdog.
21. low maintenance.  Won’t be pestering me daily with every little thing.
22. someone that can make a decision.
23. someone that takes care of their employees and wants to see them happy. (family too).
24. eats primal/paleo lifestyle.

The deal killers, or traits that I don’t want to deal with:
1.  short sighted, doesn’t look at the long term picture.
2.  Micro-managers.  Needs to be a hands off type person that will give a destination, but will allow people to get there any way they choose.
3. someone that thinks the status quo is good enough.
4. someone that procrastinates and just won’t pull the trigger, even when they know exactly what they should do.
5. vegan

Finally, you have to name your avatar (and I don’t mean the blue guys in that movie)…  So for me, my Avatar will be Alex.  I know it’s bias, but for those of you that don’t know, I have the coolest little boy, just about to turn 2.  So I can’t think of a name better than his =)  He will be 6′ tall, athletic build, brown hair, blue eyes.

Think I have him in my mind…
now…  who’s your ideal customer???  according to the class, we need this guy/girl for later lessons…  so start picturing =)

Making Friends – How to connect with new business contacts

Today, I wanted to talk a little about making friends. Now this sounds simple, we learned this before we even started kindergarten, but in the business arena, it’s a little different. Not everyone wants to be your friend. It’s often a “what’s in it for me?” attitude.
I recently was lucky enough to talk to someone that has made it to where I’m trying to get to. His name is Sumit Sangha and he runs Security Weaver. They are a company that provides applications to SAP customers in the area of security. Needless to say, I was able to learn a lot from Sumit in a short amount of time. But I never would’ve met Sumit if it wasn’t for one of my consulting friends. He made the introduction because he knew I was trying to get my business off the ground and Sumit was a friend of his. I doubt I would’ve ever talked to Sumit if I wasn’t introduced to him by someone he knew and trusted.
The point of this is to remind you that everyone you know in your business life potentially knows someone with the next piece of information you need to go to the next level. So remember, promote yourself to your friends too. You never know when they might connect you to someone that can help.

Learning to Market – baby steps

Well, my continuing adventure of trying to sell my first product is certainly no cake-walk. I really thought the hard part was designing a good product. Turns out, it’s a lot tougher to find customers than to build something. Right now, I’m working on my “Consumer Awareness Guide”. I got this tip from an audio program called Piranha Marketing. I’ll talk more about audio programs a different day. Anyway, the Consumer Awareness guide is basically a couple page educational document to give to prospective customers. In essence, it’s a document to convince someone they need my services without actually selling. Not as easy as it sounds. You have to start by figuring out a lot of mistakes that people make and explain those mistakes. Short story, by educating your potential customers, you build rapport and credibility. I’m trying to finish mine now. If you want a copy, please let me know. I’d be happy to send you one… =)