In order to be successful, it’s critical to clearly define your offering, your market and your ideal buyer. It’s also equally important to state what you’re not. What industries do you not want to do business with? What types of clients don’t align well with your company culture or products?

One of the exercises we like to take companies through is one where we look at your current customers and identify commonalities in the most successful cases. We look for industries of specialization and try to identify any intellectual property or unique industry items we possess. This helps these young start-ups to work through targeting the right kind of profitable business. Invariably someone will say, “Well we have experience in XX industry but we’d take leads in YY industry. While there’s nothing wrong with targeting more than one industry, it’s important to remain tightly focussed on businesses where you can best compete and offer significant value.

Defining What You’re Not

A mistake that a lot of start-ups make is getting into a mode where they are chasing after any business, rather than focussing on industries where they can provide the most value and have the highest likelihood of success. This is understandable. You’re trying to become profitable as quickly as possible and cash flow is critically important. But this can be quite shortsighted and counter productive.

One of the most important tasks a start-up can undertake is deciding the industries that they want to focus on. Right behind it, in terms of importance, is deciding what business you don’t want.

One of the reasons it’s important to identify what you are and what you’re not is that its very hard to compete in industries where you lack experience and insight. Not to mention areas where you lack interest and/or passion. You’re much better going after one highly profitable industry than chasing after four where you have little chance of beating the competition. So here are 4 questions to ask yourself when determining what you don’t want your company to be when it grows up:

1. What are the industries where you don’t enjoy working?
2. What are the attributes of a company that makes it a deal killer for you? (e.g. lack of senior level management commitment, lack of resources or personal, etc.)
3. What industries do you tend to not be competitive or typically struggle to maintain profitability?
4. Is an industry worth investing in to win potential business, or are you throwing darts at the wall and hoping they stick?

How do I Know if I’m Chasing Bad Business?

There are a few surefire ways to tell you’re working in the wrong industry and need to opt out of working with companies in a given industry of vertical

• Difficulty consistently winning business – if every time you go head-to-head with a competitor in a given industry, it may be that you lack the knowledge/experience/insight to add sufficient value to be competitive.
• Lack of profitable engagements – if you are consistently loosing money on a given vertical it may because you lack sufficient differentiation or fit for that industry.
• No viability in an industry – You may really know the typewriter repair business well, but how viable is that business? Go after industries that are viable and will remain viable.
• You hate doing the work – There are certain industries that you just don’t enjoy working with. It may the type of environment you have to work in, or maybe industries in the vertical just lack sophistication. If you hate doing it, DON’T DO IT! Life is to short to do work that you hate!

Do you need help identifying your ideal clients and target industries? We can help! Let’s talk!

A rose, by any other name, would still smell as sweet! What’s in a name? Do names matter? In the world of branding, a name may matter more than you think!

Are you thinking about acquiring a competitor or a company with a complementary offering to your own? One of the most difficult decisions is whether to rebrand the company and/or its products.

While there are a no hard-and-fast guidelines, there are some good rules-of-thumb that may help you think through this process

• Changing their Name to Your Own – When should you fold the new company in under your current name or brand? In general, if your company is larger, with better name recognition, then you should change the name of your acquisition to your own. The exception being if the acquisition is a largely unrelated industry, with few over-lapping customers; in which case you may want to wait a period of time before rebrandingYou must also evaluate the degree of good will the brand has accrued in the market. A popular, well-loved brand may have more value in its name than the value of the customer base.
• Keeping the name – If the company is larger; has great brand recognition and/or greater brand loyalty or a significant portion of the marketshare you may want to consider keeping their name or possibly combining names (you frequently see this with accounting, attorney and financial services firms.) This can be a good compromise to make newly acquired employees feel welcome and valued.
• Creating a new name – This works well when two smaller companies merge to become a fairly significant player in a market. This is a good option when you are entering new geographic markets and one or both of the companies have a brand name with a negative connotations.
• Other considerations – The name may be negotiated as part of the acquisition process, which settles the situation quickly. If you are financing the acquisition, your investors may have a great deal to say about the name. As they say, “Everything is negotiable.” and the name can be contested regardless of what the investor(s) want.

Names can have strong emotional meaning to consumers and employees alike, but getting a company or product name right is critical. If you’re not sure what to do about your next acquisition, let’s talk!

If you’ve ever watched the TV show ‘Shark Tank’ you know that is a scripted show that is designed to play on the emotions of anyone with an of entrepreneurial blood in their veins. The show features several investors (“The Sharks”) who listen to sales pitches from people with business startups. A lot of the folks that appear on the show trying to sell their business investors are on the show because they are eccentric and make for good TV. Many make outlandish valuations on their businesses and are countered, in some cases, with ridiculously low counters. While not entirely true-to-life, the show offers inspiration to young and aspiring entrepreneurs.

One of the things that does ring true is: If you do not know the value of your company/brand/products you’re going to lose. When you’re meeting with potential investors, you have to have your act together, and you need to be prepared. Here are 6 things you’ll want to have before you start conversing with would-be investors:

1. A Business Plan – Not just any business  plan. A cogent, comprehensive and well thought-out business plan. One that takes into account a variety of scenarios that tell a story about what you can/will do with the money.
2. A Marketing Plan – The marketing plan can be part of the business plan, but it should be able to stand alone as its own, as a valuable asset. The marketing plan should include branding, messaging, positioning as well as the go-to-marketing strategy. It should include a SWOT analysis for all major products or services.
3. Legal Protections – Prior to “opening the kimono” it’s critically important to have secured any applicable patents, trademarks and copyrights. It’s incredibly important to protect your intellectual property. Without a patent your billion dollar idea may not be worth anything. You need to protect yourself from competitors, but you also need to protect yourself from unscrupulous investors who may “borrow” your idea.
4. A Good Handle on Costs – If you’re producing a product, know your cost of goods manufactured and cost of goods sold. If you’re selling a service, make sure you know your margins and have a good handle on revenues and expenses. There is no excuse for a business owner to not know this vital management data.
5. A Good Cashflow Model – In addition to current and historical revenue figures, investors will want to see good a good cash flow models. It’s usually a good idea to provide a best case, worst case and likely case. The best case should illustrate what you will do with an additional infusion of capital and how you will use it to drive revenues and cashflow.
6. A Realistic Valuation – You may not want to tip your hand on what you think your company is worth, but it’s important to know, realistically, what your company is worth. The VC or Private Equity will have their own idea of what your company is worth and what they’re willing to invest. Investors will allows try to structure any deal and its terms in their favor. Knowing what your company is worth can help you readily counter any lowball or unrealistic offers.

Do you have all the pieces you need to grow your business? Are you ready to go after investment dollars? We can help! Let’s talk! 

Great! You’re starting a business! You’re making your idea a dream, and your dream a reality! The sad reality is the majority of new businesses fail within the first year. So how do you keep from becoming another statistic?

Having helped hundreds of start-ups I’ve noted a few commonalities in the most successful businesses. I’ve distilled it down to a short list of 10 Things:

1. Time is not your friend – I never knew what being crunched for time was, until I started my own business! Time is something we can’t regain once we’ve lost it. The key is to maintain a sense of urgency and keep on task. There are a million distractions that can keep you from the most important priorities, that’s why you’ve got to create a plan and stick to it. Prioritize your to-do list with emphasis on mission critical items (what I like to refer to as “the big rocks”.)
2. Get and stay organized – This goes along with the first item. Use a calendar. Block off time to do the major items on your t0-do list. Use your calendar and keep track of every appointment. You think you’ll remember them, but once you’re under a time crunch appointments can be easily forgotten. Use task lists to keep track of your priorities.
3. Delegate – Believe it or not, even as a early start-up or solo-preneur you can still delegate your work. If you don’t have family or friends to help you, consider using a low-cost service like www.fiverr.com or www.upwork.com to handle tasks that you aren’t equipped or have time for. Just remember, it’s critically important to accurately and thoroughly explain your requirements.
4. Invest Where it Matters – Cash flow is always an issue when you’re starting out. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t spend money on things  things that matter to your long-term success. For example, hiring a virtual assistant may feel like an extravagance, but if they can help free you up to work on important items it may be worth. When deciding if an expense is worth it, consider where you’ll be with/without it. If it’s a high priority, you’ll find a way.
5. You’re Never Really Off – The thing about owning your own business, it can provide you with flexibility to work when you want. But just know this, the work HAS to get done for you to succeed, so avoid indolence and procrastination.  When you start your own business, you’ll have to put in a lot of hours and effort until you get established. Vacations will be rare at first and you’re going to want to take your laptop and smart phone so you can keep on top of things. Don’t feel guilty about trying to keep on top of things, if you can’t relax you’ll be defeating the purpose of the vacation in the first place.
6. Don’t Think Profitability, Think Cashflow – As the saying goes, “Cash is king!” When you’re starting out, cashflow is critical. Margins may not be what you’d like them to be in the short-term, but if cashflow is sufficient you can stay afloat.
7. Get a Mentor – The great thing about really successful people, most want to see others succeed too. That’s one of the reasons I recommend that every entrepreneur have a mentor. Preferably someone who has done something similar to what you’re intending. Mentors are great for getting ideas, insights and motivation. Time invested learning from someone who understands how to build a successful enterprise is never wasted.
8. Stand Out or Get Out – Build a brand worth remembering. Make sure that what you’re building is remarkable. If you’re not sure how you are different from your competition, you need to do more work on your branding, messaging and positioning. If you’re not sure how to do that, contact me. And if you’re not willing to invest the time and effort to stand out, you might as well get out now and save yourself stress.
9. Work ON Your Business, Not Just IN Your Business – It’s very easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day responsibilities of running your business, but it’s critically important that you carve out time to think about the bigger picture. Schedule time to work in seclusion away from the business so you can focus on the big picture. Spend time thinking about the major challenges that you need to overcome in order to progress your business.
10. “Done is Better than Perfect” – There are facets of your business that you absolutely have to get right – articles of incorporation, regulatory compliance, accounting, your brand idea. But there are a lot of tasks that you have to get done quickly. Again, time is not your friend! There are some things that you just need to get off of your to-do list, so you can focus on your big rocks. As General George S. Patton famously stated, “”A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”