This post is in response to Joe Drumgoole’s post: “Is the Irish Software Association worth the price?” and on the ISA 2006 Annual conference

If you’re serious about scaling your business, then today’s ISA Annual Conference, was most definitely worth the price.

So is E800 worth the investment in becoming a member of the ISA?

From today’s event and on ISA brochure, the ISA represents the growing software business. So its not about where you are now, its about where you are going.

I thoroughly enjoyed the half-day event in the Dublin today.

Following Minister Michael Martin’s kick-off the programme started with analysts/investors views of the marketplace. We heard from Andy Malik of Lehman Brothers, Eric Hjerpe of Athlas Venture and ex-Siebel senior VP, Melinda Ballou from IDC and Sean Foley from Microsoft.

These were very practical presentations of what works and whats in flavour. We got great information on business and revenue models. (More on this at some other time)

By 11am, I was already overloaded with valuable information and with 5 more speakers to go. But what followed were 5 real Irish technology business leaders who have delivered great international business success. Fergus Gloster, Senior VP Salesforce.com, Garry Moroney, ex-Similarity Systems CEO, Pat Brazil ex Eontec/Siebel, Sean Melly CEO eTel and Peter Conlon CEO Xsil.

The conference and the structure flowed with themes presented by the analysts/investors being supported and compounded by real examples from the technology business leaders.

This was a real “Get Off Your Ass” event.

I’m a soon-to-be member of ISA, again.

Congratulations to Bernadette Cullinane, ISA Chair, and the ISA team behind todays event.

It does need to be discussed whether ISA is a national organisation and if it is assisting new business owner/managers or just experienced business people.

Regional industry organisations, like IT@Cork, should work with ISA in the regions to jointly drive the international growth and leadership agendas.

Referrals are a great source of new business but may not build your business fast enough to suit your goals.

So your product suits everyone, but who does it suit best? Who will get the greatest value from your product? Who will buy fastest?

To market effectively:
=> You need to break down your market on a sector-by-sector and/or on a region-by-region and/or on a demographic basis, even if you are operating a web-based business.
=> You need to tune to your target market defining your key messages, your language, offerings and customer support accordingly.
=> Do not market everything you can do, as the message becomes too complex. Market your company, key Unique Selling Proposition and an initial “hook” offering. You can vary the hook on various campaigns.

The purpose of your marketing efforts is to develop leads and not to educate the market on everything you can do.

A basic high-level direct market attack plan is as follows:

1. Know your business direction
You must decide what products, capabilities and offerings that allow you to put your best foot forward taking advantage of the right opportunities in the marketplace.

2. Define your offerings
- Define and detail what you have on offer.
- Create a corporate image for your company that represents your standards.
- Create Marketing and Sales materials that show what you have on offer
- Use Case Studies with client endorsements.

3. Define your Ideal Client Profile
- Know who you want to do business with, based on who you work best with and provide greatest value to.
- Detail the Ideal Client profile

4. Gather a list of your target companies and contacts that broadly fit your Ideal Client profile
Using your Ideal Client Profile, with Market Research, create a list of prospective clients. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s worth buying a completed list or paying someone to build a relevant list of companies, addresses, contact names, job titles, phone numbers, email addresses, systems in place etc.

5. Plan and Execute your campaigns to build your pipeline
- Put the resources in place and start
- Use a CRM system to manage your Prospects, Leads, Contacts, Marketing Materials etc
- Execute, Follow-up and geneate leads
- Build a relationship with your marketplace
- Build your pipeline
- Gain new clients

Marketing should not be an occaisional activity for your company, no manner how small. Marketing is one of those good habits that when in place and done effectively will produce on-going results. This is an on-going action that will generate leads and continue to open doors to develop business.

As in everything, 10% planning, 90% effective action.

This is not just about new inventions or radical pioneering ideas. If your business depends on changing standard practice ever so slightly then this adds further challenges to achieving your business goals.

Six Questions:

1. Might you describe business offering as leading edge?
2. Do you say that you have no direct competitors?
3. Have you ever used the words ‘radical change’ in describing your offerings?
4. Will your business change the structure of the industry, even slightly?
5. Do you welcome a competitor’s marketing campaigns because they are making the concept more acceptable?
6. Does making money depend on changing consumer habits?

If you can say “YES” to any of the above, then you will be likely faced with greater challenges in developing your business.

The Challenges:

1. Identifying your revenue streams and pricing models
- Will people pay directly for your product or service?
- Putting imminent revenue aside, briefly, what core value are you building? That is, are you creating something that other businesses might make money from? Is it a loyal customer base? Is it technical intellectual property?
- If you cant achieve sufficient revenue from those using your service, can you gain revenue from those targeting a similar customer base? Can you sell them other products or services? Does advertising revenue make sense?
- For possible pricing models, seek comparables from similar business models and/or indirect competitors

2. Double the sales effort: The Concept and the Service
- Do you need to explain your business idea in every sale?
- Particularly if the benefits are less measurable, you need to get over the ‘quack’ factor
- When trying to make a sale, you need the prospective client to buy into the concept first of all and then to buy from you

3. Avoiding being stomped by a big player
- If what you’re selling threatens revenues of large indirect competitors, beware of being too prominent too soon until you’ve gotten a foothold in the market.
- You might decide to chip away at the early adopters in the market to build up sufficient credibility and track-record and then to attack the greater market.

4. Winning initial reference sites
- No one wants to eat in an empty restaurant. So do the happy hour, work hard to win your initial customers and prove your service.
- You need to remove risks from the buying decisions of future customers. Solid evidence of a track record is hard to beat.

5. Validating your business
- Customers paying for and endorsing your service validates it above all else
- Partner endorsement validates
- Investment from a known industry leader validates
- Accreditation, Certification of recognised bodies validates
- PR, Celebrity endorsement and other strong promotional activities also validates

6. Forecasting according to early adopters?
- Early Adopters buy new into ideas faster than others.
- Do you ramp up your business based on sales successes to Early Adopters?
- Be aware of the length of the period from market entry to market acceptance and the costs of doing so

7. Raising Investment
- Investment organisations analyse business plans according to Return on Investment including Risks in achieving business goals. New ideas add risk but also may offer a high return.
- Private Investors with knowledge of your industry make decisions based more on instinct and experience, but the appetite for high risk varies.

Example: Broadband in Ireland

Despite vast amounts of time and money being spent on marketing, promotional offers and government support schemes, Ireland is still slow on the take-up of Broadband.

Broadband providers are of all sizes as the market possesses few barriers to entry. There is much distrust in the market as people do not know what they are buying and services can be poor from many providers.

Dominant players are difficult to displace as it takes time to move people from what they know already AND many don’t see the benefits clearly enough.

It takes time, layer by layer from early adopters back to the luddites.