Friday Meeting

Friday night I had a real good meeting with a lady who advises midsized companies and CEOs/managers about the direction to take their company. We met on a plane a few years back when she was working for the Palin campaign. Turns out she lives about 15 minutes south of Debbies parents. We've kept in touch since we have a common interest in missions work, and a few weeks back I e-mailed her asking her for some advice for the direction to head with my business.

She generously offered to meet with me for two hours free of charge (I found out later she normally charges $350 / hour, so it was a real blessing!). She had some excellent advice and suggestions for me. Basically I've got these bits and pieces that are good, but I need to work out the rest of the details for my business. For instance, I have a marketing CD that's good and a marketing plan to get someone on the phone, but I don't yet have a good follow up strategy for what to do after they watch the demo, or how to close a sale.

Also, I don't yet have a website up, and she strongly suggested I focus on getting that up and running, especially since my product is web based.

In general, I think I'm starting to transform the business and my mentality from some guy who has a unique technology to sell, into a marketing company that offers unique and custom, interactive solutions. The difference was apparent when we discussed a potential client of mine. I told her that after I complete my first project for them, I was planning on approaching them for hire on a part time basis for an even bigger project I thought they might go for. She suggested that instead, I offer that they take me on retainer for say 6 months, where I'd get a fixed fee each month and block out a fixed number of hours each month.

On one hand it seems a bit crazy for me to be talking about retainers and such, but on the other hand, I can see that if I'm offering a technology and marketing plan available nowhere else, and they are concerned that the competition might use my technology that this arrangement would make sense.

So I guess the bottom line is I'm starting to put all the pieces together to form a fully integrated business, and that's exciting. Even if I change the products, technologies, or area I market to tomorrow, once I get the business methods and procedures in place, I'll be able to quickly adapt and refocus or branch out what I do.

I'll have to end it there, but there's a bit more to the story I'll have to pick up with later...