We thought we would provide our own take on Paul’s 13 Sentences on Start-ups.

Pick good co-founders

There are so many challenges that come along with starting a business. Many entrepreneurs find that they don’t have everything that is required to build their start-up by themselves. Having someone to help you along the way can be quite helpful. Some of the greatest companies we know today started with two. Jobs and Woznick, Hewlett and Packard, Ben and Jerry, and Batman and Robin. It’s important to find a co-founder who can complement your skills and fill the gaps. This will ultimately help you focus on what you’re really good at and offload some of the work onto someone else. Additionally, having someone else around will make it easier when it comes time to make decisions for the company and will allow you to take a break every now and then.

Launch Fast

One of the biggest mistakes inexperienced entrepreneurs make is moving too slowly. By launching early and launching fast you are getting your business into motion. This will help you gain momentum and get things moving. You must be quick, efficient, decisive, and ready to learn and adapt.

Let Your Idea Evolve and embrace mistakes

As you grow and gain more traction, more ideas will flow in. Let your idea evolve and change. In fact, Flickr actually began as a feature in an online role-playing game from gaming startup Ludicorp. Photo sharing was the last component of the game. The game itself was never successful however photo sharing was on the rise and what we now know as Flickr became a huge hit. You will make many mistakes, and regret a few decisions, along the way. Many people believe that a mistake means failure. Making mistakes will provide great opportunities to learn from so embrace them and use them to your advantage.

Understand your Users and Make at least a few of them really love you

By taking the time to get to know and understand your users, you have a better idea of what it is they are looking for. Find out what their pain points are and try to address them. Create buyer or user personas so you have a better idea of who it is you want to target. You may find that your product doesn’t suit the particular group of people you initially had in mind. If this happens, you will be able to modify your product to better suit the needs of your customers or change up your strategy to target those who will be interested.

You will have to choose between partially satisfying everyone or making a few people really happy. Choose the latter. These people will act as brand ambassadors. Get them to really like you and they will spread the word. These people can act as guinea pigs; have them try your product and ask them to provide feedback. It’s easier to gain more customers over time than it is to try and increase satisfaction among everybody.

Give surprisingly good customer service

Customer service is a major part of being successful in business. Customers aren’t always easy to please and now, more than ever, they look for instant gratification. When customers are happy with the service you provide, there is a higher likelihood that they will stick to your business instead of shifting to competitors. Customers like to share stories about their experiences with their friends, family, and colleagues and social media make this easier than ever. When you provide customers with a memorable experience, they will be more likely to tell others about the great service they received. Receiving good feedback and knowing you did a good job can result in increased morale and a boost in confidence within the company and among employees. Having happy customers makes for happy employees, making it a better place to work overall. This also results in less turnover, increased profit and on and on. The benefits are endless.

You make what you measure

When you measure something, you get a good idea on how to improve it. Spend some time learning what people like, and what people dislike, about your product. Do some investigating and even put some free or inexpensive analytic tools to use to get a grasp on what is going great and what’s doing poorly. This way you will have tangible evidence of how things are doing. When it comes time to approach investors, you’ll have plenty of data to make your case.

If you don’t measure your success, how will you ever know if you’re doing well?

Spend little

Contrary to belief, you don’t need a fancy office or a beer keg in the lunchroom to become successful. After all, Apple started off in a garage as did HP. You’ll get there. The most common reason businesses fail is because they run out of money.

Check out this list of freebies to use while you’re getting started.

Get ramen profitable

While keeping expenses low, make just enough money to survive off of as opposed to trying to make millions from the get-go. This will make you more attractive to possible investors.

If you’re already making a profit, this proves to investors that you have peaked interest in the market and can get someone to pay for your product, that you are interested in taking the time to building a quality product, and that you maintain discipline by keeping expenses low. If you don’t need to raise more money for the next best thing (which you probably don’t really need), you won’t have to take time away from building your product to do it. When investors see that you aren’t going to blow their money on random stuff they will be more inclined to cut you a deal as they will see that their investment is going to be put to good use.

Avoid distractions

As if starting a business isn’t difficult enough, there will always be distractions on the sidelines ready to pull you away from whatever you’re focusing on. Often times start-ups get distracted and bogged down by things that are almost completely irrelevant to the success of their business; things like your day job, side projects and even little things like having your phone beside you in your workspace.

Dr. Gloria Mark has studied the effects of being interrupted and found that we typically become distracted and switch tasks every three minutes. Two other tasks usually intervene before we eventually get back to our initial task and it takes about 23 minutes to get back into your groove.

That means there’s a good chance you even stopped reading this post for a while in order to work on something else before coming back to it. Rude… (Full disclosure, I actually became distracted many times while writing this).

These distractions are coupled with physical changes to our environment such as new windows and applications open on your desktop, new files downloaded, and some new items in your workspace. These physical changes actually add to the time it takes to get back to what you were originally doing, thus, wasting even more time.

You can read more on Dr. Gloria Mark’s study HERE

Try to eliminate these distractions by planning distraction-free time in a distraction-free space. If even for just a few hours, go to a quiet place, play some music if you need to, turn off any notifications and keep your phone away from you and plan to work on one single task for a set amount of time.

Don’t get demoralized and Don’t give up

These were originally two separate points, they really go hand in hand.

Times are going to get hard. It happens with every company eventually. Starting a business is a huge burden since you probably have a lot riding on the successful outcome of the product and the business. It is incredibly stressful so it’s important to prioritize mental wellness and to not give up when times get tough.

While there is a lot of work to be done, it’s critical that you don’t work yourself into burnout. There will be times that you will have work very long hours. It is important to remember to maintain a social life and spend time with friends and family. These positive interactions will help your mind take a break from the stress at work.

Don’t die

Pretty self-explanatory.

Conclusion

Building a start-up Is like raising a child. Parents: need I say more? Start-ups can be very fun and become quite successful and eventually go on to change the world. There are many, many more topics we could add into this post however It would simply go on forever.

If you have a great idea, don’t be afraid to peruse it. It might just become the next big thing.

The post How to Succeed in a Startup in 11 Steps appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Based on our experience, here is a list of practices that are important to become a better salesperson.

Know your goals

You can’t achieve goals if you don’t set any. They provide long term vision and short term motivation.

By setting out Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) goals you can motivate and challenge yourself to reach and even surpass those goals. Not only will this help you be a better salesperson but you can take pride in the achievement of your goals. Even if they are small, they’ll help you see the forward progress you’ve made.

Keep organized

Staying organized will help you be more productive and save time. Use a CRM tool to keep track of leads as well as customer data and interactions so it’s on hand for when you need it (Check out this post on why you need one). Make use of a scheduling assistant such as Plann3r when scheduling meetings and calls to find the perfect time-slot for everyone.

Believe in what you are selling

It’s important to be well informed about the company you work for, but most importantly, really believing in the product or service you are offering can make a world of difference. If you are passionate about what you are selling, it becomes that much easier to convince others that it’s something they need, especially if it’s something that’s going to make their job easier. If you want your customers to engage with you, it’s important that they feel your passion for the product. You’ll find that your excitement is contagious and that’s a great way to have them champion the investment.

Listen more than you speak / Start a conversation, not a pitch

Reading off a script or running a sales pitch certainly saves a lot of time and is much easier than carrying on a conversation. By starting a conversation, you are taking the pressure off the customer and lowering the likelihood of them feeling annoyed, intimidated, or overloaded with information. By listening more than you speak you will get a better idea of what it is the customer is looking for, as a result, you will be able to find a solution that better fits their needs rather than offering them something they might not want. This will help to provide a more positive experience for the customer and increase the likelihood of making a sale. Remember, you were given two ears and one mouth, so be sure to listen twice as much as you talk.

Constantly build and maintain relationships

Customers are a company’s greatest asset. Without them, there is nobody to buy your product. The relationships you build with current and potential customers is priceless. Remain honest, authentic and show genuine concern for their needs. Once the customer is engaged with you and you’re moving through the sales process, you should work on maintaining that relationship. If they are satisfied with the service you provided they will look forward to continuing to do business with you or returning to do business in the future.

View the customer’s success as your own

Happy customer = happy manager = happy salesperson. When you sell a product or service, you should see this success not only as the customer’s, but also as your own too. This is a chance to see what you did right, or did wrong, in your sales journey. This is also a great opportunity to seek feedback from the customer for your benefit, and for the benefit of the company.

Conclusion

These tips might not be for everyone, and following them won’t necessarily make you a better sales person but adding some of these to your routine and changing things up a little may prove to be beneficial to your overall strategy.

What are some of your tips to up your game and become a more effective salesperson?

The post 6 Tips to Become a More Effective Salesperson appeared first on Virtual Causeway.