Customers in Love
November 30, 2011 Leave a comment
It is much easier to sell a product to a customer (or an idea to an investor) if you can get them to fall in love with it. So how do you get people to fall in love with your product?
BiteSize: Saltire Fellowship 2012 – Recruiting Now
November 28, 2011 Leave a comment
Back in 2009 I was part of the first cohort of the Saltire Fellowship programme. It was an outstanding experience in my life, and recently I was asked to provide the top three things I thought made the experience worthwhile and different. These are the answers I came up with.
Friday Link: A cautionary tale – how to hire an idiot
November 25, 2011 Leave a comment
A while back I wrote a blog post entitled 8 top reasons for hiring a loser based on some of my less successful hiring experiences, and I have written about the difficulty of that first sales hire in Hiring Sales Person #1 – Money down the Plughole?.
Today’s Friday link is a to post that made me cringe as I read it – because it is all too familiar. How to Hire and Idiot describes exactly what can happen when you take on people whose skills are way outside your own comfort zone. A cautionary tale, but I hope a useful and interesting one!
Event Report: Entrepreneurship Goes Social
November 23, 2011 1 Comment
Salient Point: Sponsors of the Saltire Foundation event “Entrepreneurship Goes Social”
Speakers: Clive Palmer, Mike Finlayson and Joe Tree
I am proud to be a Saltire Fellow, as is Salient Point Associate Fahd Baig. Our Market Research Associate Ruth Stevenson has taught for the program, and helped a number of fellows with their projects. With all these connections, we thought it was only appropriate that Salient Point should sponsor one of the Alumni events the foundation runs, to give something back. I was delighted to be able to invite along two inspiring entrepreneurs that I have met courtesy of the Foundation, so they could share some of their thoughts with the alumni and friends.
I thought I’d try to capture some of the highlights of the evening in blog form for those who couldn’t make it themselves!
Friday Link: Startup Valuation 101
November 18, 2011 Leave a comment
An interesting blog post on valuing startups: Startup Valuation 101: The Venture Capital Method
Global Entrepreneurship Week – Three Wishes for Scottish Entrepreneurs
November 17, 2011 Leave a comment
This week is Global Entrepreneurship Week and I was asked by the Saltire Foundation to contribute some thoughts on entrepreneurship - which turned into this post on the Saltire Fellows blog entitled My Three Wishes for Scottish Entrepreneurs - do pop over and check it out.
In addition, the foundation is running a couple of events for GEW, and Salient Point is very pleased to be sponsoring tonight’s event, “Entrepreneurship Goes Social”. Do get in touch if you’re interested in coming along!
Evidence: Making Sales Figures Convincing to Investors
November 15, 2011 Leave a comment
Make sure your evidence for sales is in the spotlight.
Most investors have experience of putting money into a project that looks and sounds very promising, but which ultimately fails because customers don’t actually buy the product (or service), at least not at the anticipated price. Creating business models that sound plausible is relatively easy, but how do we convince investors that customers will actually buy?
Here are the top five forms of evidence I believe help to convince investors that a company can achieve its sales targets…
Ten Sense Checks for Business Plan Financials
November 8, 2011 Leave a comment
Do your numbers stand close examination?
There is no magic formula for calculating sales, or any other figure in a business plan, and there is almost certainly no right answer. However, there are lots of different rules of thumb that people will apply to try to see if your numbers make any sense. I’ve listed ten of my favourites below – if you have others that you think should be added to the list, please add a comment below! Read more of this post
