Lessons Learned in Failing

As a serial entrepreneur, Zephyr isn’t the first company I’ve started.  Recently, I was interviewed by Tom Heath, a columnist with the Washington Post.  He wanted to talk about another company I launched 2 years ago and recently had to shut down.  Tom writes about successful entrepreneurs every week in his “Value Added” column.  I wanted to take a different approach.  I’ve learned a lot from projects that failed, and this was no exception.   Any entrepreneur worth her salt has a couple of great mistakes under her belt, and this is one of mine.   So I thought that his readers could learn from this story and take away some valuable lessons (just like I did).

I think he did a great job on the article, and I still think the business was a great idea.  The problem is I fell in love with the idea instead of the viability of the company.  And I didn’t think through the aspects of fulfillment.   In retrospect, I did all the things I tell my clients to avoid every day!  It is common for tech companies to fall in love with the idea of the new technology and its capabilities without spending enough time evaluating whether there is a customer need and enough budget for the delivery, sales and marketing of the technology.

I have a lot more ideas perculating and I suspect there are several more startups in my future.  At least I hope so!  Every experience builds on the next.  The lessons learned can be applied not just to how I run Zephyr, but also to my clients (present and future) who sometimes become enamoured of the idea instead of the business viability.  At least now I can say “Been there, done that.”

Small Business Marketing

I was invited recently to speak on The Profit Partner program.  This is a local television show focused on helping small business owners succeed.

Don’t Confuse Marketing with Selling

This month’s Fortune magazine has an article about how to manage your business in a recession.  Like many other articles, the writer mentions the importance of investing in marketing.  “Kohl’s, the big retailer, actually spent more on marketing this past holiday season than it did last year,” writes Geoff Colvin. We’ve received several inquiries from CEOs of small and midsized companies that want to talk about implementing a marketing program to increase revenues.  My first question back to them is usually a surprise.  I want to know about their sales team.

• Do you have a strong sales leader?
• Do you have an established sales process?
• Do you track your pipeline?
• How many people sell in your company?
• Do you have a mix of hunters and farmers?

It’s not that we’re trying to be difficult.  We just don’t want to waste your money and our time.  If you don’t have a good sales team, a clear sales process, and a system to process leads through your pipeline, then spending money on marketing is going to be a waste.  No deal was ever lost because a sales person didn’t have the right brochure.  And (to my knowledge), no deal was ever won because the buyer saw a data sheet and yelled, “Holy smokes, lets go buy this product based on how great this data sheet looks!”  (Although this would be really cool if it did happen.)

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