Entrepreneurs looking for an investment in their new business venture must have the ability to deliver an effective pitch, and in a sense they must be good salespeople. Having a good idea with a solid plan in place may not be enough. Pitching your idea to a potential investor is no easy task and many entrepreneurs struggle with this. Nerves can often get the better of you and at times the value of the business idea can decrease following a weak pitch. RTE’s Dragons Den provides us with evidence of business people, often with excellent ideas, that simply cannot communicate them effectively for whatever reason. Hopefully the following tips will make the daunting prospect of making a business pitch a little easier.
Like any business or professional presentation pitching your idea should involve the four P’s planning, preparing, practicing, and of course presenting. These rules almost go without saying. We all know the importance of speaking clearly, making eye contact, and using attractive slides; however what is really going to make you stand out from the crowd to the investors are the following.

1) Know your audience: Before entering the room in which you will make your pitch you should know exactly who will be facing you. Surprises on the day can throw the entrepreneur off. Potential investors should be selected carefully. It is not a case of just getting anyone to invest in your company. They must fit well with the start-ups business culture as well as the product or service being provided. You should know as much as possible about their interests or other business activities or involvements. The presentation style may have to be altered depending on the audience so this is something else that should be kept in mind.

2) Be passionate – sell the idea to them: Perhaps start the presentation with a one minute elevator pitch and include only the important details. Do not immediately ask for money or come across desperate. Make it feel like they would be lucky to invest in a product or service. Most of all be passionate, enthusiastic, and genuinely excited about you new business. If you are not excited about it you can’t expect others to be.

3) If appropriate use props, prototypes or demonstrations: This may be particularly important for new start-ups that are highly technical or complex to explain. Perhaps showing the investor how the product works may be more effective than trying to explain. If your business is a website it may be a good idea to have some screenshots of the site within your slides. If an investor is going to part with his/her cash they will want as much details and knowledge of what they are buying into as possible. At the same time don’t over complicate things. For a simple product or service that can be easily communicated, including props may actually over complicate the pitch.

4) Back everything up with numbers: I can’t emphasise this point enough. At the end of the day investors are looking to make a return on their investment for the most part. They are results driven and knowing your figures for sales, profits, costs etc is absolutely essential. There is nothing wrong with having a small page or record card with your figures on them. Pitching an idea is an extremely difficult task and if you feel that remembering all figures is too big a task don’t do it. The worst thing you can do is forget a certain figure, panic and then be thrown off for the entire presentation. Your projections in terms of profits, sales etc should be realistic. By all means aim high and be optimistic but he numbers must be backed up.

5) Learn from mistakes and rejection: Securing an investment is no easy task! Don’t be disheartened if you do not succeed. Take the advice on board and make the relevant changes. Think about which questions you could not answer or answered poorly. The more experience you have at pitching your business idea, the easier it becomes.

In this blog entry we will take a reflective look on how the digital revolution has impacted on what we know in marketing our products. The purpose of this entry is for you to get a better idea and education of how each of the 4 P’s have changed since digital became an integral part of business. Having been at recent conferences I’ve noticed that there is a few people out there that are unaware of how digital has affected marketing. Some seem to think Facebook’s/Twitter’s etc when the word ‘digital’ is thrown around and hopefully this post will make Start-ups think about the other areas digital can affect their business.

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Price:

The influence of the internet on global marketing strategies is principally seen in respect to price with the free movement of information from country to country. A large contributor to this is the advances in search technology and SEO/ SEM making prices easier to find online as well as the online irrelevance of previous competition issues such as location. This is also supported by the emergence of third party search engines which scan the international landscape for the best price: For example Skyscanner.com which searches for the most affordable flights between destinations. Previously national boundaries played an important role in the global marketing strategies whereby companies could exploit national differences in consumers’ price sensitivities by charging different prices across different national borders for the same product. Differential pricing strategies become more apparent and companies risk being exposed as exploiting customers in different countries.

These factors have all lead to greater transparency which results in a customer’s changing perception of value. The results of this, as is common in the legacy of Web 2.0’s is that the customer has increased control. Some companies have responded to this power shift by relinquishing further price control and allowing customers to haggle as seen on Enterpriseonline.com or EBay. Furthermore, pricing has become more dynamic and fluid as a result of the digital revolution. As successfully exploited by Ryanair pricing now has a significant response to Supply and demand which forces prices up and down with increasing speed. The only way companies will be able to stay ahead of the competition and keep up with the customer is to develop a flexible pricing structure that allows them to move with the dynamic digital pricing terrain.

Product:

However, the digital impact is not restricted to price. Products themselves have been altered as a result of digital’s imposing presence on the global marketing scene. Product strategies have been impacted by deconstruction whereby internet operations have become companies in their own right whereby the messenger has become more important than the message. It is difficult to imagine Ryanair without its internet offering. Similarly American Airlines internet wing “Sabre” is now worth twice that of the original business. American Airlines originally created its SABRE electronic ticketing system as a means of selling seats. Under legal and regulatory pressure, American Airlines was forced to partially spin off SABRE and operate it as an independent business. But this “navigator” business is now valued by the stock market at nearly twice the value of the airline it was originally created to support.

Mass customisation is also reshaping a company’s product strategy. Again, following Web 2.0’s placement of the customer at the centre of everything this now includes a customised product. Levi’s and Nike, two of the biggest mass producers ever, now have services for customers to have products customised specifically for them. Long gone are the days of Henry Ford’s “any colour as long as it’s black” to a specifically built personalised product. Customers are further invited into the production process as crowd sourcing becomes increasingly popular. A veritable global think tank is created by customers being invited to submit their ideas for t-shirts and (Threadless.com) to creating chocolate bars with new recipes to Cadbury’s.

Location Awareness technology has also reshaped product strategies. Facilitating layering of additional information based on location offering a heightened real time real place customer offering. Many products themselves have been altered through digitization with music mp3’s now being the common platform and books following suit. A company’s product strategy must be reviewed to see can production and cost saving opportunities be realised through digitization.

Place:

With the movement from physical offices to offices in the cloud, a company must review their distribution strategies almost annually at this stage. The digital revolution provides companies with the opportunity to augment traditional channels of distribution reshaping customers shopping habits. The Financial Times revealed a while back that Donatello’s Pizza orders are now 36% via mobile, online and social networking. The rapid development of app’s is facilitating this with Paddy Power similarly reporting 10% of their revenue comes via mobile, 50% of this number being attributed to the Paddy Power iPhone App.

Of course with the shifting boundaries of distribution channels becoming more streamlined this implies that some supply channel partners will fall victims to disintermediation. Ryanair and Dell are advocates of this removing travel agents and computer wholesalers alike via disintermediation and selling directly to the consumer.

Promotion:

Communication is central to the theme of Digital Media. The adoption rate of Social Media has seen a growth like no media before it. Facebook now has a global audience of 750m with 50% of users logging on every day and people spending over 700billion minutes per month on the site. This has dramatically changed the promotional strategies with 92% of businesses (2011 Social Media report) now employing a Facebook strategy, 84% on Twitter and 71% using ‘Linked In’ for digitally influenced promotional strategies. The rise of Geo-location promotional strategies is set to continue with companies now employing Facebook places and Foursquare to give Social Media promotion a real time, real place solution. Seth Godin, business guru, argues companies can no longer rely on “interruption media” to get a customer’s attention. Social Media has reframed the promotional landscape which implies permission needs to be sought to advertise to the customer. The customer can choose whether they receive a message which is the basis of Irish success Empathy Marketing company “Pigsback.com”.

However, companies’ promotional strategies must involve a contingency plan for to deal with the new voice that the consumer has and their new found power to amplify and broadcast their views. Social media has granted consumers power to dictate companies actions: P&G were recently embarrassed into recalling their Pampers Dry Max diapers due to mounting complaints over Twitter and Facebook. Social Media enables customers to communicate their anger, organise themselves more efficiently and recruit others to their cause however; similarly the digital media revolution has seen the implementation of derogatory websites. Sites such as Dell hell, Murderking and Mcspotlight have cast Dell, Burger King and McDonalds in a hugely unfavourable light demanding change to their operations.

Digital impact on Research:

As most start ups are aware the internet provides an efficient means of conducting market research. Now you can see what your competition is doing in just a click. But it doesn’t end there. Previously focus groups interviews and questionnaires need to be conducted to obtain such valuable research information but the internet has created communication links through emails and corporate websites facilitating collaboration with a range of customers from different national, regional or cross cultural backgrounds. The advantages of digital to the research sphere include increased cost effectiveness through online surveys, interviews and observational research. Digital media also allows greater access to secondary data online, CD ROMs and is more easily distributed if purchased or ordered. Consumers are giving out all kinds of information via Twitter, Facebook and Blogs if companies choose to listen to it.

The internet’s impact on the global marketing landscape has changed everything from companies’ relationships with their customers and even companies relationships with their competitors.

To conclude on a topical note former Global Media Giant Rupert Murdoch said

“The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.”

Digital has helped make so many Irish start-ups successful, understand it and embrace it!

This is the second instalment of our advice on country selection. As we said last time when it comes to exporting it is always crucial to have done some homework before committing. The first part of the blog focused on the first two stages of the process of selecting relevant countries for export. If you missed that blog, don’t worry you can read it again here.

This week we will focus on the final three stages of the process. To refresh your mind here is the process again.

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At this point you should have carried out the first two stages and narrowed your target countries somewhat. You are most likely now in talks with EI or CEB’s about your potential to export and they are assisting or giving guidance. What can you do yourself though?

STAGE 3:      Examine the Industry Market Potential

The next stage for you is to examine the Industry Market Potential. In other words the total amount of ‘cake’ on offer by the given countries you have left remaining. When we say you are examining the market potential the reason for this is in order to estimate aggregate demand. So we look at market size as a factor. As mentioned in the previous blog in most developed countries, fairly accurate estimates for many products are available from public or private sources. In emerging markets data may not be available, and even when it is quality may be suspect so beware of this. Your agency should be supportive in this area with resources. You can calculate this using a number of techniques but we will focus on just four simple ones. They are as follows:

• Related Market Size Model
• Analogy Method
• Trade Audit
• Chain Ratio Method

1. Related Market Size

Related markets’ size and related environmental factors can help determine the size of the market you are looking at. You can try finding different statistics on each of your remaining countries and apply them accordingly.

Example:

In 2009, there were more than 1.9 million passenger cars in use in Ireland, up from less than 1.6 million in 2004. In Ireland we have 437 cars per 1,000 – the equivalent EU figure is 463 per 1,000 (2007 figures). If the population rises from 4.2m to 5m between now and 2021 and we reach EU car-ownership norms then we will have at least another 750,000 cars to add to our crammed roads.

2. Analogy Method

The best way of describing this method is where you start by picking a country at the same stage of economic development as the country of interest and for which the market size is known. The method is based on the premise that the relationship between the demand for a product and a particular indicator (e.g. the demand for a related product) is similar in both countries.

Example:

Let’s say Phillips/Sony wants to estimate the market size for DVD Players’ in Russia (r)

For the base country (relative country) we take another Central European country, say Bulgaria (b), for which we know the sales of DVD players. We also choose a proxy variable that correlates highly with the demand for DVD’s e.g. color flat screen TV sales.

In this example, we assume that the ratio of DVD Player ownership to color flat    screen TV ownership is roughly equivalent:

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Since we are interested in the demand for DVD’s in Russia, we can derive an estimate based on the following relationship:

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For this specific example the following information is available (from Euro Monitor 1999):

Fill in those numbers we get:

Estimate VCR Demand Russia

(Sales per ‘000 inhabitants) = ???

17.1(2.9/19.5) = 2.5

However, it is important to note that when using this technique you cannot, as with all techniques, assume it is gospel and that’s it job done. This technique in particular may produce misleading results under certain circumstances as consumption may not be comparable across countries due to cultural disparities, competition or trade barriers may interfere with sales figures and technological advances may allow use of product innovations in a country at an earlier stage of economic development (“leapfrogging” to Blue ray or latest technology).

3. Trade Audit

The trade audit is possibly the easiest to explain as it is simple math. The total market volume per year for a certain country / market can be calculated as:

However for many emerging markets (and even developed countries), such data is missing, outdated, or collected at a very aggregate level so make sure your data is up to date. As recommended Global edge, EI, GMID, Data monitor and CSO.ie are all great sources of this data.

4. Chain Ratio Method

The Chain Ration method is in simple terms an analysis of industrial growth patterns for various countries, to gain insight into relationship between consumption and industrial growth. This method starts with a very rough base-number as an estimate for the market size (e.g. the entire population of a country).

This base estimate is systematically fine-tuned by applying a string (“chain”) of percentages to come up with the most meaningful estimate for total market potential.

Example:

• Consider a firm that makes baby monitors and is considering expanding into China and/or India.
• Firm wishes to focus on urban areas (easier to access)
• As you can see below although China has a higher population and urbanization, India has a greater birth rate per 000’s making it a more valuable market.

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STAGE 4:      Examine Company Potential (I.E-Your Slice of that cake)

After you have examined each country you will now have a better idea of the markets available to you. You should then take the markets and examine the players operating in those markets already and their positions/power. This will give you an idea as to the level of investment and entry mode choice you will require. Say for example our India example above, as I can see the market is valued highly at 7.8m I should enter. Not necessarily. Perhaps Sony, Phillips and Samsung are in there already and already control 90% of the market. How many other small firms are there competing for that 10%?  Will it be worth my investment? It’s all about looking and estimating how much of that market you believe you can gain. Agencies should be able to help you with this and Enterprise-Ireland in particular has Market Advisors all around the globe who can inform you of the market shares and big players in certain markets to help your decision. You can then remove remaining countries that are not attractive.

STAGE 5:      Best Countries Remain

This is the final stage of the IMS process. Here you will have carried out all steps and your pool of countries will be limited. You select the best 2 or 3 depending on business plan to export and proceed with your plans.

Although this article covers a range of techniques we recommend you do not use it solely as your guide to export. For more advice you should speak with Enterprise-Ireland about your potential to export and ensure you have the plan in place and contacts in place abroad. This article should provide some help and education to those considering exporting. It may prove helpful to those wanting to apply for grants as it can show you have done market valuations.

Best of Luck with the exporting!

When it comes to exporting it is always crucial to have done some homework before committing. Although exporting may not be specific to every start up it is good to have some knowledge on the area. The case happens to be that most start-ups with high potential will have sought financial assistance from CEB’s and Enterprise-Ireland already but for those of you awaiting approval or ineligible for support we hope that these tips can help you.

One of the best exercises your start up can partake in is ‘IMS-International Market Selection’.

The main focus of IMS is concerned with isolating the markets with the biggest opportunities. You should never just assume you know that your product is suited to a market without doing the background research. As mentioned it’s a very important decision to take time over as when you choose a market it is also counts as a choice of:

• Customer
• Competitive Environment you are entering to compete in e.g. technical, political, social, competitive etc

For these reasons you’ve got to get it right as the decision is not easily reversed after you’ve committed to one market. Many successful entrepreneurs say that a firm’s ability to choose the right countries for entry and investment should lead to significant competitive advantages once entry has begun. It is a tedious process but valuable in the long run. The saying “fail to prepare, prepare to fail” springs to mind!

How To:

The exercise itself must be taken as a systematic approach. If you decide to skip steps or be lazy it will affect the end decision and the overall business decision. It is also important to note that the availability and comparability of international market data should be taken into account when carrying out the exercise. Why? Here’s an example of how the comparability of data can deceive one’s anticipation of a market.

Example:  Firearms Statistics

In Ireland a proxy for the legal number of firearms held may be gauged by the number of licenses issued.  I.e. – A license is issued for each firearm. Whereas in the UK using a similar method would yield an inaccurate picture.  In the UK the individual is licensed to hold firearms.  Thus a person could hold several firearms on the one license. Confusion for gun producers looking to export quantities.

This blog entry will cover the first two stages of the process and next week we will continue with the final three stages. Ideally if approaching the like of Enterprise-Ireland being able to show you have least carried out the first two stages will ensure your application is more credible and well grounded. Generally the latter three stages would be covered with the agency as more resources will be widely available.

The Systematic Approach Guidelines:

See the diagram below.

Stage 1: As you can see you begin by pooling all the prospective countries together. For this example let us say there are 100 potential countries.

Stage 2: In the second stage you carry out what is known as ‘coarse grained screening’ or preliminary screening. You should imagine the system as a filtration process and each step is removing undesirable countries. This will allow you to narrow your potential country pool to about 50 countries or less.

This coarse grained screening can be carried out in two ways:

1. Country Clustering

Clustering seeks to group countries with similar commercial, economic, political and cultural dimensions. For example Portugal and Spain have similar commercial and cultural dimensions so markets may be alike. After spending time clustering you can even go as far to map them out to illustrate your plan of action for identifying the most valuable clusters.

2. Country Ranking

Country ranking as the name suggest involves ranking your targeted countries. An excellent resource for start-ups looking for low cost research on all this is Global Edge online. At this site you can rank and compare countries by their statistics. However there are some serious drawbacks with ranking such as the lack of product specificity in the indicators e.g. how much can you tell from Population figures if you’re selling cars etc and there is also a lack of current data in all countries, especially African and underdeveloped economies. Nonetheless it is still a very valuable resource to be aware of.

When ranking you should carry out four steps:

1. Identify relevant evaluative criteria for your product/service

2. Assign importance weights to the various criteria identified

3. Collect specific information about the foreign market reality or performance related to the relevant criteria

4. Apply a decision rule to the information collected to identify the best target market

Country ranking (Detailed)

1: Criteria Selection and Data Collection

• First need to pick a set of socioeconomic and political indicators you believe are critical.
• The indicators that a firm selects are to a large degree driven by the strategic objectives spelled out in its global mission

Examples

• Colgate – Palmolive views per capita purchasing power as a major driver behind market opportunities
• Nestle views population and buying power growth as key to market opportunity
• McDonald’s starts with countries that are similar to the US in lifestyle, with a large proportion of women working, and shorter hours for lunch

2: Determine importance weighting of country indicators

• Importance weighting need to be allocated to each indicator identified in Step 1.
• One common method is the “constant sum” allocation technique – where 100 points are allocated across the set of indicators according to their importance in achieving company goals (the more critical the indicator the higher the points allocated). Follow Worked example below.

3: Rate the countries in the pool on each indicator

• Each country is given a score on each indicator, you could use a 100 point scale (0 meaning very unfavourable, 100 meaning very favourable)
• The better the country does on a particular indicator the higher the score awarded

4: Commute overall score for each country

• This simply involves multiplying the country score on each indicator by the weighting for that weighting and summing up
• Countries with the highest overall score are the ones that are most attractive

Example of Workings:

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This is brings us to the end of the second stage and your potential countries should have decreased significantly. Some great sources of finding the market data and research information for screening can be found online as mentioned on Global Edge or GMID Databases.

GMID is a seriously undervalued resource by many companies these days. Many are unaware of its existence! The database has more than 3 million country statistics ranging over 205 different countries as well as dating back as far as 1977. Some of the reports include country profiles, region profiles, future demographics, lifestyle insight reports, customer behaviour studies and many more.

Hopefully there is enough in the above tips to help you with identifying suitable countries for your product or service. Tune in next week to read about the more detailed screening that takes place after preliminary screening.

You’ve set up your Facebook Page, your ‘Likes’ are growing and you’re posting regular updates to let your fans know about your products/services, encouraging comments, feedback etc. Now, what do you need to do? One thing you should really consider is to create a customised Landing Page. By default, when you create a Business Page, your Facebook visitors will land on your Wall, where they will see your latest updates, comments etc. Your visitors can be uncertain as to what to do: should they look at the conversations, get a feel as to what your business is about?; should they ‘Like’ your Page and start engaging with your updates? Wall content is not usually interesting or appealing enough to get people to ‘Like’ your Page.

Remove some of the confusion, create a customised Landing Page that encourages your visitors to ‘Like’ your Page. An effective Landing Page will showcase what your business is about, display special content, offers, discounts etc. that are available to fans who click the ‘Like’ button. Stand out from the crowd, tell people you’re delighted they came to your Page and share your passion and enthusiasm for your product/services. Use graphics, videos to create a multimedia Landing Page that promotes engagement with your Page. Offer visitors something for becoming a fan.

Until recently custom tabs were created using an application named Static FBML; this has now been replaced by iFrame which allows a web page hosted on one server to be embedded (‘framed’) into a web page of another. Page administrators now have to use iframes to create a Facebook app in order to create a custom Landing Page. When you create your iFrame customised tab (called ‘Welcome’ for example), you now need to make it the default Landing Tab for viewers of your Page. To do this, go to “Edit Page” and select “Manage Permissions”. Under “Default Landing Tab”, scroll down, select ‘Welcome’ and “Save Changes”.

Click on the link below to see some great customised Landing Pages.

http://speckyboy.com/2010/08/15/40-highly-effective-facebook-business-pages/

Blog Kindly provided by SME Connect:

www.smeconnect.ie

Many individuals and small businesses have a particular perception about Twitter.

They keep hearing and reading about it – whether in relation to the media or celebrities – and think that it’s just a forum for people broadcasting the boring minutiae of their everyday lives. In many ways Twitter is a reflection of a contemporary culture that’s fixated by fame, celebrity, and a sharing of information that – in essence – is uninteresting, banal, dull etc.

Don’t be too quick to judge ! Ultimately Twitter is just another form of communication and as with all communication formats, while it can be used by a self-promoting band of exhibitionists, it can be also used in a manner that is creative, engaging, informative and interesting. Most importantly for business people, there is a growing number of participants who are realising that Twitter can be a great tool for:

-Promoting business
-Responding to real-time events. During the recent bad weather in Dublin, with commuters struggling to get home, a number of hotels were using Twitter to offer “stranded” rates for the night.
-Boosting credibility and authority levels (post and answer questions)
-Driving traffic to your website or blog
-Keeping up with the latest buzz in your industry
-Connecting and engaging with like-minded people.
-Try to be creative and interesting. Remember, the only limits are the ones you set yourself.

Sugru is a great example of how a company can use Twitter to showcase the benefits of their products and engage with their customers. Sugru is a silicone type substance that hardens and can be used for a multiple of fixing (“hacking”) purposes. Visit Sugru on Twitter and see how they connect with their customers; people who are happy to use Twitter to show photographs of how Sugru can be used in an infinite amount of ways.

Luna Park is a restaurant in San Francisco that uses Twitter in an innovative way to entice customers to come and visit. They use Twitter to communicate a discount password in the morning, encouraging their followers to come to the restaurant that evening and share the password with their waiter to avail of the discount.

Another great example is from Interflora UK . They randomly search for people who are having a really bad day and tweet them with offers of flowers to cheer them up. (source: Small Business Search Marketing )

Blog Provided by SME Connect – www.smeconnect.ie

Dear readers of the Startups blog,
My name is Stefano Messori and I am the founder of Messori Marketing a new and independent strategy consultancy business based in Dublin.

First of all, I would like to thank Stephen for asking me to make a contribution to this blog. One of my hopes in writing this piece is that it will lead to the creation of a new facet to the STARTUPS’ blog, namely a strategy and innovation category. I hope also to generate an interest in the whole concept of strategic thinking.

If you have always dreamed of owning your own company, of being your own boss, now is the time to start. In fact, it has never been easier than now. The new frontiers of marketing allow you to spread your idea easily, quickly and at virtually no cost. Many of the old barriers that characterised an industrial economy have vanished.

A word of caution, though: do not ride the waves of marketing if you do not know the water you are surfing in. It is tempting, but it can be dangerous, too.

You may argue that you have your business plan; that you did your homework and filled in the blanks in the pre-prepared plan they provided you at the enterprise board. My question to you in that case is: Is business planning (in the way most companies implement it today) sufficient to enable you to compete in the post-Celtic Tiger era?

I’m sure that like me you’ve been noticing many businesses closing down from one day to the next over the last number of months (in some cases with staff showing up for work in the morning only to find the business was gone). Surely not all of these businesses failed because the management neglected to prepare a business plan!

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Actually, these difficult times could be a new beginning for Irish entrepreneurs. To succeed, however, companies must go beyond the traditional concepts of business planning and embrace a more advanced platform of strategic principles and tools that will allow them to build a more sustainable competitive advantage, founded on societal and collective values, aimed at generating positive competition amongst the various Irish businesses and creating a win-win environment.

For this reason, I have made available a few documents that should help you through the early steps in the development of a sustainable business strategy.

These documents can be found on the Messori Marketing website: http://www.messorimarketing.com/en/free-strategy-templates.

You can download these tools for free and I invite all of you to actively try them out in your own organisations. I firmly believe that Irish start-up businesses (and established businesses) can gain many useful insights from the use of these templates.

My hope is that, together with Startups.ie and others, we can create an interest in the new role that small and upcoming businesses play in the Irish economy.
Thanks for reading.

Stefano Messori

stefano@messorimarketing.com
Strategy consultants – Messori Marketing www.messorimarketing.com

We talk to Irish Startup graphic design company KOH creative about their journey so far…..

Company: KOH Creative
Website: http://www.kohcreative.com
Founders: Aisling Hanby & Gemma Coady
Age: 29 & 26
Based: Dublin
Staff Number: 5
Date started: June ‘09

Tell us what your business does?

KOH Creative is a graphic design company based in Dublin city centre. KOH Creative Graphic Design strive to produce designs of the highest possible innovative and professional standards. From quirky to corporate concepts and complete promotional campaigns, we create powerful advertising solutions. KOH Creative Graphic Design pride ourselves on a personal service where listening to the client is key, and nothing gets lost in translation. We offer customised creations in Branding, Print & Brochure Design and Packaging. We can deliver the levels of creativity and client service which people expect, but without the crippling overheads that can make larger agencies unaffordable right at present.

Where did the idea for your business come from?

The two girls were travelling Thailand and one day on a beach in Koh Tao while talking about this apparent recession back home, decided that when they get back, they will take it all on. We decided that it was easy to offer a better service than the big successful companies that we had previously worked for. So we decided that we’d take our talent that bit further and put a large focus on creating outside the box advertising solutions that would suit each individual company. We believe that we have a gift of seeing what others fail to see. All of this is done with our overheads kept low so our charged invoices can also be kept at a minimum.

Have you always wanted to run your own business?

Absolutely. To be our own boss, has endless and limitless positive attributes. We are learning so much more about building a business than we ever thought possible. It’s not easy being our own boss but the thought of it being ours is enough to motivate and inspire.

What planning did you do before you started up?

Well from working with some of Ireland’s biggest advertising agencies and therefore clients we had already learnt a huge amount about working under pressure with excessive demands. However, when it comes to owning and running your own company we believe it really is something of a trial and error basis. You learn as you swim. In saying that, of course we did put a large amount of time into our business plan, finding out where we will focus our first 6 months and so on. We also formed a sort of mentor system, with enterprise Ireland and also with other successful business people that surround us in whom we admire and believe we can obtain advice and strength from. It is these successful people that are under your nose that entrepreneurs really must suck onto, be leeches and nab their know-how and knowledge! Never be afraid to ask. People love giving advice…they feel honoured and special and everyone loves feeling special!!!!

Which entrepreneurs do you admire?

We have met so many through work that we admire. We work closely with Emmet O’Neill from Smiles and runner up to the Ersnt & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He is extremely driven, knows what it takes to succeed and is extremely normal. It is this normality that we believe makes him such a success. He is a fantastic communicator, can get on and appreciate everyone’s attributes/flaws and learns/adapts to find ways to work with them efficiently in order to get what he wants from them. Others include The Innocent brand guys (love their story!), Richard Branson, Simon Cowell and Denis O’Brien. They have all seized and continue to seize fantastic out-there opportunities.

What challenges have you faced how have you overcome them?

It is impossible to choose the one…The challenges put before us have been in abundance! But we thrive in them. This is what makes every day worth it and exciting. When something disappointing has occurred in which we have no power to change, we have learned to just move on, don’t dwell on what could of been, instead look at it as a lucky escape because if we went with it God knows what would be around the corner if it wasn’t feasible at the first hurdle…

In general stay positive, there is always another avenue that will aid you obtain your goals…you just have to look for it and have the ability to recognise the opportunity when it does arise.

How have you promoted your business?

Aisling attends both Venture and BNI networking meetings once a week. These meetings have advertised KOH Creative and have generated a profusion of clients for us. Another way is through all the free mechanisms! Search for them…there are plenty! We have also been lucky in that we have gathered up an abundance of clients whom we have made extremely happy and in most cases their profits have increased tenfold after our designs. This is in itself promotion. Do the work, make it work for them and you can be guaranteed that their word of mouth will keep the clients rolling in. We have also used their testimonials in every way possible.

Are you optimistic about 2011?

Hugely. We obtained a few big clients towards the end of December who are on retainer for the year starting 2011. There are so many crevices to be found in which there is room for success. It is again about spotting them and seizing the opportunity.

What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?

Firstly it is not good enough to merely want to be an entrepreneur. To be successful you must firmly believe in the product/service that you endorse because that is what you will be looking at and studying for the foreseeable future. Believe in yourself and understand that there are going to be obstacles, it is a given. These obstacles make the experience enjoyable. Learn from them and embrace them. Go into the business with a non-clouded vision, understand it will be more than tough and understand you may want to throw in the towel but above all have the ability to ALWAYS beat this feeling and instead find ways to over-come the problem. Overcoming problems is up there with the best feeling ever!

10 Tips For Better Web Sites

What are the secrets of the super sites? Why do some sites suceed while the majority of others fail? More and more Internet business owners are asking themselves these questions. The answers are frequently more obvious than you may think. Below are 10 tips for better, more successful web sites.

1. Build It For Speed

It’s a fact of modern life – people are in a hurry. Nowhere is that more true than on the Internet. It seems that no matter how much the technology improves, nothing is ever fast enough. In fact, several studies indicate that the fast technology advances, the faster people expect things to be.

So what does this mean for your website design? It means that you have between 10 and 30 seconds to capture your potential customer’s attention. If they can not at least begin to read about your product in that much time, they will be headed elsewhere. To minimize your load time, keep graphics small. Compress them where possible. Use flashy technology (Javascript, Flash, Streaming Audio/Video, animation) sparingly and only if it is important to your presentation.

2. Target Your Market

Know who your market is and make certain that your site caters to their needs. It is critical that your site reflect the values of your potential customers. Is your market mostly business professionals? If so, the site must be clean and professional. Is your product aimed mostly a teenagers and young adults? Then your site could be more informal and relaxed. The key here is to know your market and build the site to their preferences.

3. Focus The Site

Make certain your web site is focused on the goal, selling your product or service. A site offering many unrelated products is not necessarily unfocused, but this is often the case. If your business does offer many products, dedicate a unique page for each instead of trying to sell them all from one page. Upselling or cross selling is vital but don’t dedicate so much to it that the customer feels caught in a bait and switch. Make mention of other products but do so subtly.

4. Credibility Is Crucial

The most professionally designed site won’t sell if your customers don’t believe in you. The impersonal nature of the Internet breeds a certain level of mistrust. For your web site to be successful you must overcome this tendency.

A clear privacy statement is one way to build your credibility. Every commercial web site should have a privacy statement posted on line. Provide a prominent link to your privacy statement from every page on the site as well as from any location that you are asking your visitors for personal information. Provide legitimate contact information on line. Your contact information should include an email address, mailing address, phone number and a fax number, if applicable. If you are unwilling to provide this information to your customers, how can they trust (or buy from) you?

5. Offer A Guarantee

Offer an ironclad, no exceptions money back guarantee. This item is really a credibility issue but it is important enough to warrant its own mention. What better way to establish your customer’s trust than to eliminate any risk for them? If the customer sees that your are willing to assume all of the risk, they will immediately be more inclined to trust you.

6. Make Payment Easy

Offer a variety of payment methods for your customer. If you don’t currently take credit cards, start immediately. You can either set up a merchant account or use one of the many credit card clearing houses. Provide an address for those who prefer to pay by cash, check or money order. Make sure the payment process is clear, easy to access and intuitive to use. Eliminate as many steps as possible. Do not ask for any more information than is necessary to complete the transaction. Nothing frightens a customer off faster than feeling that their privacy is being invaded.

7. Simple Navigation

Make site navigation easy and intuitive. While it may be artistic to make your index page all black and hide the link to continue, will that generate business? If your customer can not navigate your site to find what they want, they will go elsewhere. Limit the choices and direct your customers through a sales process.

8. Consistency

Make sure the site is consistent in look, feel and design. Nothing is more jarring and disturbing to a customer than feeling as if they have just gone to another site. Keep colors and themes constant throughout the site.

9. Design for indexing

85% of all web users find what they are looking for via the top search engines. Make sure that your page is designed to maximize your placement. Focus on your keywords and keyword density but don’t sacrifice your message. Utilize the meta tags keywords, description and title. Use your keywords when naming your pages.

10. Content is (still) king

Good content sells product. Ask yourself the following questions. Does your copy convey the message you wish to get across to your visitors? Is it compelling? Does it lead your visitor through the sales process? Have others review, critique and edit your copy to insure it is delivering the intended message. Always double check your spelling and grammar.

Implementing the ten steps above probably will not make your site as successful as Yahoo or Amazon overnight. If they are implemented correctly and integrated into an overall web site design and marketing campaign, you should see a marked improvement in the site’s traffic and sales.