BHUJBALVIEW

Have you ever been part of a conversation where suddenly a person involved in the conversation has a Eureka moment & he/she spills out their business idea?

Well, I have experienced that. But what my observation has told me is that, how come we only blurt out what we can do or what we can sell or offer, rather than how we can sell or how we can offer or how make the offering attractive? In fact, the problem holds true for start up’s & other micro & small companies as well.

Small companies obviously don’t have the manpower or the financial muscle to have separate departments for sales, marketing, finance, hr & so on, & the same applies for start up’s. In fact, in many cases its only one person doing all these duties. But in the process, these companies end up concentrating on increasing their sales figures, rather than indulging in marketing. Herein, lays the problem.

It’s the classic case of MOUSETRAP Vs CHEESE. Now don’t get me wrong, focusing on your product or service is a good thing. But today, it’s more of a competitive necessity. The problem is , sooner or later, there will enter a player in the market with a similar offering, only he will put better cheese on it .i.e. he will market it differently. Hence, it is imperative for all start up’s, micro & small businesses to come out of the mousetrap of sales & indulge in creating 'the rich & unique cheese of marketing'.

Now for this to happen, the first step, is to understand what your customer’s are buying from you. The suggestion seems very simple but hard to practice. Let’s take me for example: I’ve opened my bank account in HDFC. Now, HDFC could consider, i chose them because of their superior service, products or whatever, but the fact is, I chose HDFC simply because it has a branch around 150m away from my house in the colony where I live & secondly, it has good parking space!

Once that is done, you can identify who all your are competitors. For example, Coke understood long time ago that their competition is not just all soft drink manufacturers, rather, the competitors also include mineral water manufacturers. All camera manufacturers also understand now that, their competitors are not only rival camera brands rather competition also includes all mobile phones having cameras too.

So the next time you have you Eureka moment, don’t only blurt out the “what” of your idea but also, think of the “how” you’re going to cheese up your offering.