Strategies To Speed Startup Income Generation
Seattle Post Intelligencer:
* Specialize. Articulating at least one special area of expertise helps target and secure first customers. It works because customers prefer to select vendors that they think offer exceptional service value. For example, a startup accounting firm can promote its exceptional expertise in asset evaluations for divorce cases; a restaurant can say it is best known for its unusual soups. Of course, companies can command higher prices for their special areas of expertise, too.
* Call rather than advertise. Advertising costs money that cash-strapped entrepreneurs just don’t have. Whenever service business owners complain that “business is slow,” I ask how many targeted new customers were called during the last week.
Usually the answer is none. If making 50 calls turns into two new customers, then the effort pays off. Calling potential customers is one of the fastest and most reliable ways to gain new customers plus learn more about the services they would be most interested in buying.
* Not all hobbies are great businesses. Startup entrepreneurs earn nothing unless there are plenty of ready-to-buy customers. It’s not necessarily doing what you love in business that matters; it’s doing what customers love or need to have done.
I know a disheartened, long-unemployed executive who started up a window-cleaning business targeted at homes with big cathedral ceilings. The idea came to him when he looked at the dirty windows in his own home. He bought a few ladders and cleaning supplies, then cold-called within upscale neighborhoods.
He says his secret to success was wearing business casual clothing for his sales pitch. Then he would change to smart-looking overalls for the cleaning work. During his first month in business, he cleared more than $1,000 a day. These days, his business employs a full team of window washers.
* Compare opportunities. Can you take home more money in a startup business than working part time at The Home Depot, Starbucks or Costco — companies that offer health insurance benefits to part-time employees? Because few entrepreneurs can accurately predict the speed of first-income generation, consider working at a part-time job while revving up a new business
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