Insight-driven growth for business and lifestyle
Chesney Bradshaw
Gooroo teevee and radio business advisers tell you about known, familiar places to do business. But is this always the right advice?
Shopping centres, many industrial parks and online retail platforms can be lucrative but how come so many small businesses fail in these “comfortable” places? The competition is fierce. Customers have so many local shopping centres to choose from that they are sparsely spread out. Continue reading “Are you brave enough to do business in unfamiliar places?”
On a recent Sunday we went out to lunch in the country at a restaurant called Gilroy. The restaurant has a microbrewery attached to it or one could say that the microbrewery is attached to a restaurant. This restaurant/microbrewery has a great lesson for small businesses not only microbreweries on getting their products into the hands (and mouths) of the buying public. Continue reading “Why some small businesses battle to get their products in the hands (or mouths) of customers”
When you have developed and tested your new product or service, you will need to choose what sales channels to use to maximise your sales.
These days in competitive and uncertain markets both business-to-business and consumer businesses need to select sales channels carefully because of the increased costs of distribution and face-to-face selling.
Start-ups and small businesses are increasingly using a mix of different sales channels. These may include a retail store, a direct sales person who calls on larger companies, agents to serve the business outside its home market and an online store. Continue reading “What sales channels will you choose to sell your new product or service?”
What does an entrepreneur need to know about marketing to win with their new product or service?
Let’s first see what marketing is and what it isn’t for the start-up business.
Marketing is about offering a potential customer a product or service that meets or fulfills a need, want or desire that they already possess. Don’t let statements like marketing “develops a demand for your product or service” mislead you. Demand must already exist in your potential customer, even an unmet need. For a small business to try create demand is simply foolishness. Yes, you can offer potential customers a product and service that satisfies the need that they already have but you really can’t create the need, want or desire in them. You need to channel their demand towards your product or service. Continue reading “What a start-up really needs to know about marketing”
