The last few weeks I’ve been busy getting ready for and presenting the company at the Los Alamos Next Big Idea Fair. About three weeks ago I had a rather frustrating epiphany. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier, but with much regret I missed something obvious and very important.
In 2011, I debuted the company at the Next Big Idea Fair, but came away with a shock that people didn’t get what my product was about. I had failed to communicate the basic idea of the product. From September through mid-summer this year, I went around trying to explain to people what my business was about and how my products would make a difference using long technical explanations.
By mid-summer I was scrambling to get uCDAQ working and wondering if I had enough time to get the board for SmartDAQ done. I was thinking about the demo and how to get all the technical bells and whistles going when suddenly the epiphany came: What is the purpose of doing the show ?
Suddenly, I realized that showing the hardware only made sense if it was put into the correct context. Shiny boxes with flashing lights are interesting, but the real question is what are they good for. It was at this point I began to realize I need I higher purpose for my company then just showing off technology. Why would people want the company to exists ?
I realized that I was setting myself up to do the same thing I did throughout the last year and no matter how good the technical demo was, without the right context people would not care about it. The other thing I realized was that no matter how cool your technology is, people need to know it’s there and how it’s useful to them.
I was dumbfounded for a few days while my senses began to process how big a piece of the business puzzle I had neglected and that’s when I finally began to put a high value on marketing. For those of you who are technical, let me break marketing down into a few basic statements:
- Know who your customer is and how many of them are out there.
- Know what their pain or problem is.
- Know how to find them.
- Know how to talk to them.
If you haven’t figured those out, your business is probably in as serious trouble as mine currently is. I know it’s hard for technical people to think in a customer centric reference frame, but, you have to. Knowing your customer is key to connecting them to your business. Having a great technology is unlikely to succeed on its own. You need to link your product to your market.
So I realized for this years show and for the future months ahead I needed to put some serious effort into the marketing side. This summer I took my first steps into the world of marketing. Here’s the first thing to figure out:
The business value proposition
The value proposition is what your customer gets in return for his money. It’s not good enough to say they get a widget with feature X for their money. The question is what does your product do for them ? You need to explain the value of the product, not the features. Does it save them time ? Does it save them money ? Does it enable them to do their business ? And those are the easy questions.
The harder questions come next: Why do they buy it from you instead of one of your competitors ? How long can you be the best place to buy the product/service from ? Can you continue to produce products with the best value in your market ?
Scary questions, I know, but you need to find good answers to as many as you can. These questions create the basis to build your brand. The better you can answer these the stronger your branding will be and the larger percentage of the market you can capture.
So I went ahead an started working on a brochure. I downloaded a free, but very decent quality desktop publishing program called Scribus . I then watched a bunch of Youtube tutorials on how to make brochures. I then spent a few days banging out the first version. After many edits and long nights, I was quite proud of my little brochure.
I took my first version to everyone I could think of that would look at it. I learned some very interesting things. The most interesting quote came from my father who said, “John, you need to get someone who does this professionally to rewrite it for you.” Other people gave similar feedback. A retired person who had done some marketing and sales early career offered to help me re-write it. After two more weeks and lot of tweaking and edits, I had a new brochure, better, stronger, and faster then the first one.
I am still getting feedback from people that it’s still not their yet, but it’s a starting point. I did have a lot of people of general knowledge read it, but it’s really intended for technical people or technical mangers in a certain industry. So I know I could probably do some more work to make it more understandable and I will probably need a much better rewrite to target it toward investors, but for now I think it will get me started.
An additional benefit came from producing the brochure. It really helped me to figure out a focus for the company. Feedback on the brochure in the form of which parts of it stick in people’s minds is also helping refine the company. Knowing where I am going helps when I am trying to make a product development decision.
So I would say even after you first come up with your business idea, the next thing to do is try and do a brochure for the product or service from the start. Just put down what you think you can build, and go and give it some test marketing. See how the message comes across and what you learn. Just let people know the product doesn’t exist yet. Just be careful about not exposing any key ideas to people. Keep the brochure focused on the product benefits, not the product details.
I should have done a brochure before product development was my first hard lesson learned on the value of marketing. It can really help you focus your companies product/service into a nice short compact message.
J