How Prejudiced are you?

This is a really important concept for anyone that intends to start a business, because we are all prejudiced.

This can get a little ‘new age’ for a lot of people, but it is absolutely true and something you  always bear in mind when you are thinking about your market, because you will be applying your prejudices.

So what do I mean by prejudice?

Well, I personally think that all mobile phone network operators are useless, at the same time a lot of my friends think they are wonderful organisations.

So why is this important?

Think of it this way. If I chose to start a business that focused on solving the problem of useless mobile phone network operators it would only appeal to people like me that think the same about mobile phone operators. This is great if there are lots of people like me, or would my prejudices be leading down a blind alley purely because my personal prejudices about mobile phone operators. As I have already mentioned more than half my friends think mobile phone operators are wonderful so they would see no need for my business. If my friends are any kind of representative sample of the market then my business would struggle to find traction and make sales except as an expensive niche product.

I hope this makes sense because prejudice as I have already said is something we all have, we can’t help it because we all experience all the highs and lows of life, from which we build up our outlook on everything in our lives. All of that would be fine, if everyone had entirely the same prejudices and outlook, but they don’t. Our prejudices and experiences are all unique and as a result they are both a very positive thing and also a powerful negative.

They are positive because it is likely that your experiences and prejudices may well give you the unique insight that helps you come up with a winning business idea. At the same time they can just as easily lead you down blind alleys that go nowhere.

The trick is being able quickly test all your ideas against a measurable model of the market in order to discard the duff ones and harness and focus on the good ones.

“Easier said than done,” you cry.

Actually the whole point of Backwards Business is to give you a framework, a way of easily understanding markets and how they work so you can test your ideas quickly in their target market and without the risks associated with having to build product.

The most important thing to remember is that it is not how you perceive a market, it is how the majority of the people in the market perceive the product or service you want to sell to it. 

To get that information you cannot afford to allow your prejudices to skew your views of the market. We cover this in a lot of detail with you when you go through the programme, but I thought it would be good to give introduce you to the idea in the blog.

By Tim Sandford

The Programme and how it works

A brief little slide presentation that shows you what we do and the kind of projects we have been involved in before now. Hope it helps

This is best viewed in full screen mode, which means clicking on the four arrows at the right hand side of the grey bar at the bottom of the slide show

Backwards Business overview from timsandford

By Tim Sandford

Part 3 - The answer is in the question

In the last entry we asked questions, which we hope got you thinking about prioritizing the 3 steps to revenue.

Today in the last of this brief series of blog articles, we’ll answer the main question, which we hope helps you see how prioritizing right can make a huge difference to the level of success you enjoy.

The main question we asked was, ‘If you had a product that was exactly what the market wanted and the market knew all about it, do you think it would be relatively easy to sell?’

We asked the question in a very particular way, because in many ways the answer is in the question.

If you want a product that is as close to an exact fit to the market’s requirement so that it sells well, then it stands to reason that the more you focus on your market, what it wants, why and what it will means to customers in terms of benefits.

Assuming that you can take that information and develop the right product. It should by definition be easier to build awareness and achieve sales because you are more likely to be addressing a market that is ready for the product, understands it, wants it and will pay for it.

The diagram above shows the kind level of prioritization we see in companies the really succeed in their markets.

This is almost the exact opposite of the normal level of prioritization that followers of the Entrepreneurial Way would follow, but the point of the Backwards Business way of doing it is simply down to these two points:

• Your job as entrepreneurs and business owners is to make enough sales to ensure that your businesses make profit. You can only do that if you have a product the market wants to buy.
• Most companies and especially start ups work within tight budgets and do not have the resources available to go through a series of expensive Launch-Learn-Develop cycles before they find success

To give you just a simple example, we worked through this with a company we’ve been involved with for a while now and it enabled the company to launch its product and win a major international client at launch.

By Tim Sandford

3 Steps part 2

Yesterday we started to cover the 3 steps to revenue and why they are important.

Today we are just going to ask a couple of questions. If you had a product that was exactly what the market wanted and the market knew all about it, do you think it would be relatively easy to sell?

If the answer is yes, which we think it is too, then think through what it does for your priorities in the 3 steps.

When we work with customers, especially those in the early stages of business they are naturally in a rush to get to market following the Entrepreneurial Way, but what if that was exactly the wrong thing to do.

What if the Entrepreneurial Way actually got in the way of success because you were trying to sell the wrong product all because you had not fully understood your market?

Or what if you were selling the right thing with the wrong message, which incidentally can be nearly as damaging to sales performance as selling the wrong product?

The thing about all those Launch, Learn, Develop cycles as the Entrepreneurial Way diagram above shows is the cost. They cost time. They cost money. They can also cost reputation, which means that by the time you do have the right product, you might struggle to re-engage the market.

 So the real main point of today’s blog is this. What if everything you have ever learned or were taught about how to get your products to market successfully was back to front?

Tomorrow’s last blog in this little series will answer the questions we’ve asked today and share some examples of how to do it Backwards and get better results.

By Tim Sandford

The 3 critical steps to revenue

When we are working with customers one of the things we always finish up talking about is the importance of the three main steps that need to be taken to ensure revenue is generated sustainably.

The diagram above shows what they are and what in our experience is included in each of the steps. We also know that without them, sales and revenue are not possible.

This week’s blog entries over the next couple of days are going to focus on the three steps, how to make them work for you and the level of importance each has in ensuring the flow of your revenues.

Today, I am going to cover the way most businesses that struggle to make their sales targets prioritise their focus on the three steps. This will introduce the whole concept of Backwards Business and why it can help any business to boost their revenues and profits.

The diagram above indicates how most companies prioritise the three steps on the road to generating revenue. (Please note that when we talk about market we mean ensuring that you understand the market and have a product the market wants to buy.)

Logically this seems very sensible because the more you prioritise selling the more revenue and sales you generate. That's right isn't it?

However bearing in mind the basic rules of all markets you cannot make a market buy something it doesn’t want, no matter how hard you try.

So on that basis does it make sense to spend all your time focused on selling what you want, without making really sure that the market wants to buy it?

Or is it better to take a step back and invest more time in making sure you really understand what the market wants so you can offer that earlier and avoid those costly Launch-Learn-Develop cycles that can force you out of business?

Tomorrow we’ll cover what happens to your prioritization when you start applying the way markets really behave and how that helps you generate those revenues you want. 

By  Tim Sandford