If the Shoe Fits: How Mature Is Your Company
by KG Charles-HarrisA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here
Have you ever been taken aback by the dichotomy between a company’s excellent product and its amateurish website or product sheets?
If you have, you are face-to-fact with an immature company.
And while important for consumer sales, M&S maturity is absolutely critical when selling to business — no matter the size of the enterprise.
This immaturity has nothing to do with years in business and everything to do with an immature business process with regards to sales and marketing.
If a potential customer meets something that’s immature, i.e., incompetent, in M&S, they will jump to the conclusion that the company is also incompetent in other areas.
That’s why look & feel are so important — we Americans, unlike most other countries, have grown up in a society where marketing is central, so in many ways looks are more important than substance.
Young companies are often immature; they hire sales people, but turn a blind eye to the need for doing the product marketing work first.
The shrug off lead generation/creation, lead nurturing, sales process, sales collateral that fit the process, key selling points against competitors, target user profile, target influencer profile, etc., and, worst of all, customer service.
These are the real underpinnings for success.
A lot to cover; a lot to do, but the payoff is significant.
After all, you don’t want your target customers to dismiss you because you look immature, do you?
