In a recent conversation with two early-stage founder partners, I was reminded how easy it is for them to rush to marketing tactics. Naturally after developing their product, they are anxious to create revenue as quickly as possible.
Here’s what usually happens…
Marketing is an effective weapon, but most early stage founders point it at themselves. In the early-stages attempting to get off the ground, they spend most of what little money they have on creating logos, taglines, web sites, digital marketing campaigns and field sales channel promotion.
Then they’re frustrated that nothing is working.
Why?
Because nobody cares.
Without a foundational strategy to guide your customer acquisition decisions, you’ll quickly find your way to bone yard trying to make people care through random acts of marketing.
In conversation with the aformentioned founders, I learned they had already spent $250,000 on marketing stuff over the past year and earned less than $100,000 in sales revenue.
Like many that come to me seeking help, these founders had everything backwards.
In our conversation I made a few suggestions on how they could put things in the right order and build a strong foundation for more competitive advantage and a bigger future.
They seemed enthusiastic.
They asked about the investment to work with me.
I told them $8,500.
There was an uncomfortable pause.
They replied they were in the process of rebuilding their online store and didn’t have the money to tackle both initiatives at the same time. “Let’s talk again after we have our new online store up and running.” they said enthusiastically.
I nodded politely thinking to myself some founders just can’t be helped.
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