Objective
To provide contract business planning, marketing and sales services for companies using my 25 years of experience building startup, enterprise software companies for
clients with startup, new products and/or opening new markets. Experience includes; writing/editing business plans, creating marketing collateral and white papers, sales
representative opening new markets with exceptional success and as a sales manager, creating and implementing sales incentive plans, successful hiring skills,
forecasting methodology and accuracy, strategic sales and negotiations training, merging sales organizations for acquisition/merger and developing indirect sales
channels.
Experience
Coaching and Consulting: I provide contract business planning, marketing and sales services for companies using my 25 years of experience building startup, enterprise
software companies for clients with startup, new products and/or opening new markets. Experience includes; writing/editing business plans, creating marketing collateral
and white papers, sales representative opening new markets with exceptional success and as a sales manager, creating and implementing sales incentive plans,
successful hiring skills, forecasting methodology and accuracy, strategic sales and negotiations training, merging sales organizations for acquisition/merger and
developing indirect sales channels
Developing a new business or launching a new product:
My career at Documentum started in 1993 with a small team of people that had dedicated their skills to start and build companies in the enterprise software industry. As
one of the first 15 employees and some financing, we started building a business plan and with our combined experience (both successful and not so successful). We
made a decision to build our company using a business plan based on Geoffrey Moore’s book, Crossing the Chasm and met with great financial and pioneering the
document management industry. We hired Geoffrey Moore to review our business plans on a regular basis. We were so successful with implementing the strategy that
Geoffrey included our case study in Inside the Tornado. We then had a successful IPO and were acquired by EMC, Corporation in 2003.
While Moore's book focuses on the high-tech industry, the principles can and do apply to most new and growing businesses. These principles are critical in introducing
change-sensitive products. In academic terms, such change-sensitive products are called discontinuous innovations. The contrasting term, continuous innovations,
refers to the normal upgrading, of products that does not require us to change behavior.
I have been implemented these business strategies since 1993. With the success of Documentum, I then took my knowledge and experience to several employers and
became a consultant with my own practice in 2005. One of the insights that Geoffrey emphasizes in his writing is that success of a new company and/or launching a new
product requires a business plan with clear objectives that impact every area of the company. Too many companies rely upon only sales and marketing to launch a
company, when the whole company has to be actively participating in the plan. Some of the areas that I have helped companies with plans and implementation are:
• Business Plan.
The high-tech marketing guru (and principle of The Chasm Group marketing consultants), Geoffrey Moore offers time tested insights into the problems and dangers facing
growing software companies, and a blueprint for survival. This classic text (first published in 1991) is widely accepted as “the bible for bringing cutting-edge products to
progressively larger markets.”
While I do not presume to do justice to Moore's book, I attempt to summarize key points here:
Many business plans are based on a traditional Technology Adoption Life Cycle, a smooth bell cure of high tech customers, progressing from Innovators, Early Adopters,
Early Majority, Late Majority and finally Laggards. In turn, this model becomes the foundation for a high-tech marketing model which says the way to develop a market is to
work the curve from left to right, progressively winning each group of users, using each "captured group as a reference for the next.
Moore demonstrates that in fact, there are cracks in the curve, between each phase of the cycle, representing a disassociation between any two groups; that is, "the
difficulty any group will have in accepting a new product if it is presented the same way as it was to the group to its immediate left." The largest crack,, so large it can be
considered a chasm, if between the Early Adopters and the early Majority. Many (most) high tech ventures fail trying to make it across this chasm.
To provide contract business planning, marketing and sales services for companies using my 25 years of experience building startup, enterprise software companies for
clients with startup, new products and/or opening new markets. Experience includes; writing/editing business plans, creating marketing collateral and white papers, sales
representative opening new markets with exceptional success and as a sales manager, creating and implementing sales incentive plans, successful hiring skills,
forecasting methodology and accuracy, strategic sales and negotiations training, merging sales organizations for acquisition/merger and developing indirect sales
channels.
Experience
Coaching and Consulting: I provide contract business planning, marketing and sales services for companies using my 25 years of experience building startup, enterprise
software companies for clients with startup, new products and/or opening new markets. Experience includes; writing/editing business plans, creating marketing collateral
and white papers, sales representative opening new markets with exceptional success and as a sales manager, creating and implementing sales incentive plans,
successful hiring skills, forecasting methodology and accuracy, strategic sales and negotiations training, merging sales organizations for acquisition/merger and
developing indirect sales channels
Developing a new business or launching a new product:
My career at Documentum started in 1993 with a small team of people that had dedicated their skills to start and build companies in the enterprise software industry. As
one of the first 15 employees and some financing, we started building a business plan and with our combined experience (both successful and not so successful). We
made a decision to build our company using a business plan based on Geoffrey Moore’s book, Crossing the Chasm and met with great financial and pioneering the
document management industry. We hired Geoffrey Moore to review our business plans on a regular basis. We were so successful with implementing the strategy that
Geoffrey included our case study in Inside the Tornado. We then had a successful IPO and were acquired by EMC, Corporation in 2003.
While Moore's book focuses on the high-tech industry, the principles can and do apply to most new and growing businesses. These principles are critical in introducing
change-sensitive products. In academic terms, such change-sensitive products are called discontinuous innovations. The contrasting term, continuous innovations,
refers to the normal upgrading, of products that does not require us to change behavior.
I have been implemented these business strategies since 1993. With the success of Documentum, I then took my knowledge and experience to several employers and
became a consultant with my own practice in 2005. One of the insights that Geoffrey emphasizes in his writing is that success of a new company and/or launching a new
product requires a business plan with clear objectives that impact every area of the company. Too many companies rely upon only sales and marketing to launch a
company, when the whole company has to be actively participating in the plan. Some of the areas that I have helped companies with plans and implementation are:
• Business Plan.
- o The very first step in the process is top line goals, strategies and objectives. These must be clearly stated, time bound and objectively measured. Every part of
the organization will build their plans with objectives that are tied 1:1 to the top line strategy and insure a common focus throughout the company.
o Write the business plan, a living document to be reviewed and updated frequently and regularly.
- o Market Research to determine the market size, needs and competition
o Developing a road map for the “whole product” including product, services and partners to deliver a total solution to your client’s needs. Initially this may
heavily depend on partners and, at times, initial business development clients.
o Develop and deliver collateral: Client leave behinds, white papers and solutions with sales input.
o Pricing and packaging
o Deliver marketing plan to support the business plan and supports the top line objectives.
- o Supporting the top line and marketing objectives, build a business plan with a realistic objectives, revenue and expenses.
o Teaming with the rest of the company, define the target market, the target decision maker and the ideal customer.
o Build a profile of the ideal sales rep.
o Defining the sales target and focus with an ideal customer profile.
o Incentive Plan
o Successful innovators and early adapters will help cross the chasm.
o Set realistic expectations for early customers.
o Develop a training strategy for end users and technical users.
o Create, develop and deliver ongoing training for the sales organization.
- Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm
The high-tech marketing guru (and principle of The Chasm Group marketing consultants), Geoffrey Moore offers time tested insights into the problems and dangers facing
growing software companies, and a blueprint for survival. This classic text (first published in 1991) is widely accepted as “the bible for bringing cutting-edge products to
progressively larger markets.”
While I do not presume to do justice to Moore's book, I attempt to summarize key points here:
- A market is defined as
- a set of actual or potential customers
- for a given set of products or services
- who have a common set of needs or wants, and
- who reference each other when making a buying decision
Many business plans are based on a traditional Technology Adoption Life Cycle, a smooth bell cure of high tech customers, progressing from Innovators, Early Adopters,
Early Majority, Late Majority and finally Laggards. In turn, this model becomes the foundation for a high-tech marketing model which says the way to develop a market is to
work the curve from left to right, progressively winning each group of users, using each "captured group as a reference for the next.
Moore demonstrates that in fact, there are cracks in the curve, between each phase of the cycle, representing a disassociation between any two groups; that is, "the
difficulty any group will have in accepting a new product if it is presented the same way as it was to the group to its immediate left." The largest crack,, so large it can be
considered a chasm, if between the Early Adopters and the early Majority. Many (most) high tech ventures fail trying to make it across this chasm.
 | |  |