Posts tagged: small business

Startup and small business events you don’t want to miss in January 2012

Posted on January 6, 2012

by Stephanie Goodman

For our newsletter, our team compiles a list of all the events we will be attending for the upcoming month, as well as some additional events we believe useful to the start-up and small business industry. If you missed our newsletter, we will be posting a blog with featured events the first week of every month.

The events we focus on are primarily in Toronto, the GTA, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo Niagara/St. Catharines and Hamilton. Take a look through the events we are suggesting for this month.  If you’re hosting an event or have come across one you think we should mention, please feel free to contact us with your suggestions.

Silicon Halton: Reaching the 800 Million

When: January 10 @ 7pm

Where: Emmas Back Porch, 2084 Old Lakeshore Rd, Burlington, ON

This Silicon Halton event will feature Founder of PinPoint Social, Daniel Patricio, who will discuss howa company can reach 800 Million Facebook users via a Facebook application. The following key points will be addressed at the event:

  • What are the challenges and opportunities that come with building on Facebook
  • How to build and integrate applications on Facebook platforms
  • What tools and technologies are at your disposal

Startup Drinks

When: January 12th, 6pm – late

Where: The Winking Judge, 25 Augusta St., Hamilton, ON

Startup Drinks provides an open space for entrepreneurs and small business owners to connect and share ideas. There are no presentations or pitches, just conversation and networking. To meet some of the up-and-coming people in the startup community, this is a great event to attend.

Mobile Accelerator Program (MAP)

When: Starting January 19th, running once every two weeks

Where:  Toronto, ON

Cost: $250/per company

The Mobile Accelerator Program provides opportunities and challenges for startup companies to find their place in the marketplace. MAP is a workshop that contains a six-part series of half-day workshops and networking events offered to help entrepreneurs in the ever changing market place.

The program starts on January 19th and runs once every two weeks.

Program Schedule:

  • Market Trends – January 19, 2012
  • Business Models – February 2, 2012
  • Accessing Markets – February 16, 2012
  • Financing – March 1, 2012
  • Attracting and Retaining Talent – March 15, 2012
  • Sales Strategies – March 29, 2012

DemoCamp Guelph

When: January 25th, @ 6:30pm

Where: eBar

The format of DemoCamp is as follows: Keynote speaker along with 5 software demos (each one 5 minutes), along with 5 minutes of Q & A. After the presentations conclude, there will be a chance for general socializing. Information about keynotes and presenters is TBA.

If you wish to connect to someone on our team, Mark Elliott will be attending

MaRS Discovery District: Financial Planning

When: January 25th, 6-7pm

Where: MaRS Auditorium, 101 College St. Toronto, ON

Are you familiar with the basic tools of financial planning, such as income statements, cash-flow forecasts, expenses statements and balance sheets? This session offered by MaRS will help you build a realistic financial plan for your start-up.

You only need to register once for the Entrepreneurship 101 lecture series. The session are held every Wednesday from 6-7pm.

Lean Startup Machine Toronto

When: January 26th @ 6pm – January 29th @ 7pm

Where: TBA

Cost: General Admission $299, LSM Alumni $99

Lean Startup Machine is a weekend long competition where teams will identify the key risks in their business model through hands-on mentorship and a framework of tools. Over the course of the weekend, start-ups will:

  • Ideate a startup or work on the one you have now
  • Practice Customer Discovery
  • Research your Target Market
  • Practice Customer Development
  • Test your Assumptions in Iterations
  • Understand your Business Model
  • Iterate and Pivot (when necessary)
  • Build something you can Launch
  • Present your Validated Learnings

The event is for anyone startup team that does not have a Product/Marketing Fit or for any aspiring founder that wants to learn Lean Startup methodologies from the ground up.

Communitech, Titan Learning Event: Outside In – Where Sales and Strategy Meet with Adrian Davis

When: February 1st, 2012, 8:00-10:15am

Where: Waterloo Inn – 475 King Street North, Waterloo

Communitech events are focused on being engaging and interactive sessions that provide useful information for companies of many sizes. This session will focus on sales, and more specifically teach you how to:

  • Categorize and organize customer accounts
  • Put a strategy in place to ensure you are making the most of your best accounts
  • Improve your sales’ team performance with advanced strategic selling skills

If you’re looking to connect with someone on our team, Mark Elliot will be attending.

Golden Horseshoe Venture Forum

When: February 8th, 7:15am-10am

Where: Burlington Golf and Country Club, Burlington ON

The GHVF provides a space where ideas and resources connect. Whether you are a business owner, angel investor, or simply interested in business, the GHVF suits all different professional backgrounds. The event starts out with a breakfast buffet, following by 3 featured firm presentations and a presentation by the guest speaker. Featured Firms and Guest Speaker TBA.

If you wish to connect with someone at VA Partners, Stephanie Goodman and Steve Gruber  will be at this event.

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Things to look for when hiring an entry level sales person

Posted on December 22, 2011

by Steve Gruber

We recently wrote a blog on what some of the key traits to look for when hiring a top sales person.   The task is compounded even further when hiring an entry level sales person as these traits are much more difficult to find. 

The benefits are that they are cost effective, and you can train them on your systems and methodology.  The challenges are they don’t have much if any practical experience and need support, training and mentoring.  If you can provide the latter and are ready to work on developing this individual as a professional then your next point of business is finding the right person.

Some great interview questions can be found in an earlier blog.  Here are some tips on how to hire for an entry level sales person when the person doesn’t have a significant amount of sales experience or is a recent grad.     

  • Record of success – the chances of this individual having landed multi-million dollar deals is negligible so look for success in smaller items.  It could be successfully running a summer business franchise, exceeding goals and targets at a summer or part-time job.
  • Out of comfort zone – look for someone who has shown through their past experience they are not afraid to put themselves out there and try new things they don’t have experience in.  We are fans of looking for people who have run Student Painting or Window Cleaning franchises. 
  • Interpersonal skills – a good sales person generally needs to be personable, easy to speak to and a good listener.
  • Like to win – often times it is difficult to know how someone will perform in a business team dynamic so it is helpful to look for those that have participated in sports or school activities on campus.
  • Being prepared – look for a candidate that has been to your website, comes prepared with questions and has material to take notes on whether this be paper or digital device.   

The list above is by all means not one that is exhaustive but hopefully it gets the thought process started.  If you found this interesting and would like to learn more about our philosophy about sales leadership check our Part-Time VP of Sales offering.

 

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Startup and small business events you don’t want to miss in December 2011

Posted on December 8, 2011

by Stephanie Goodman

For our newsletter, our team compiles a list of all the events we will be attending for the upcoming month, as well as some additional events we believe useful to the start-up and small business industry. If you missed our newsletter, we will be posting a blog with featured events the first week of every month.

The events we focus on are primarily in Toronto, the GTA, Guelph, Kitchener-Waterloo. St. Catharines and Hamilton. Take a look through the events we are suggesting for this month.  If you’re hosting an event or have come across one you think we should mention, please feel free to contact us with your suggestions.

 

Startup Drinks Hamilton

When: December 8th, 6pm – late

Where: The Winking Judge, 25 Augusta St., Hamilton, ON

 

Startup Drinks provides an open space for entrepreneurs and small business owners to connect and share ideas. There are no presentations or pitches, just conversation and networking. To meet some of the up-and-coming people in the startup community, this is a great event to attend.

 

Silicon Halton: Why your Startup isn’t getting funded and how to change it 

When: December 13th, 7pm

Where: Wendel Clark’s, Oakville, ON

This Silicon Halton event will address the various issues around funding that start-ups face today. A panel of the “best and brightest” minds in the startup scene will expand on this issue and provide feedback on how to deal with it.

 

Could your pitch use a facelift? Meet our pitch doctors

When: December 14th, 7:30am, 5pm

Where: MaRS Discovery District, 101 College St., Toronto, ON

This is a great event for entrepreneurs looking for advice and tips on how to perfect their pitch.

As an entrepreneur, the pitch doctors will be available to help you identiy your strengths and address your weaknesses. Entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to ask the pitch doctors questions pertaining to investments and investors and in addition, the pitch doctors will provide a range of feedback on your pitch and what type of investment is right for you.

 

Join our newsletter and get an update of the events we plan to attend for the month.


 

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The Value Proposition is the most important tool in B2B Sales

Posted on November 17, 2011

by Mark Elliott

I had a conversation with a startup sales rep recently about his company’s go-to market strategy.  He was discussing how they were focusing on a technology sales versus one based on benefits.  This sentiment with startups is still very prevalent; organizations still often focus on features and functions instead of benefits far too often.

We do talk about Value Propositions a lot within our blog, because it is such an important part of the sales cycle.  A couple of gems from the past were our blogs on email value proposition and Selling to VITO. The key to a good value proposition for B2B sales is focusing on benefits for the customer.  If you are talking benefits for B2B sales you should focus on the following:

Increasing revenue: Growing sales is one of the goals for almost every business.  This is often one of the most difficult benefits to quantify for customers

Decrease Costs and Expenses: This is top of mind for many key contacts within organizations.  This is often much easier to identify and quantify than many of the other benefits.

Improve productivity:  This can apply to both people and equipment.  Making the organization more productive means growth without extra costs.

Avoiding something bad: This category is a catch-all for many things that could affect the company or key members within the leadership team. It could include things like bad PR, regulatory problems, or legal issues.

Depending on the organization and contact within that organization the value proposition will need to be changed.  A sales and marketing leader would typically be most interested in growing revenue while a CFO would likely be most interested in decreasing cost and expenses.  The best value proposition has some examples of quantifiable benefits.  These are not always easy to find, but they can be determined.  I will be writing a future blog with some tips.

Interested to see what events we are attending, what other blogs and books we are reading, and our recommended connections, sign-up for the VA Partners newsletter.

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Start-ups! Sell Early, Sell More Often

Posted on November 15, 2011

by Steve Gruber

There have been many papers and articles written about the importance of R&D, continued product development and the role of constant innovation within a company; however, without top-line revenues, all those R&D efforts are in vain.

We have seen and been involved in a number of start-ups that built a product, and rather than pushing hard to sell and market the product they have chosen instead to put sales and marketing efforts on the back burner while they continue to put the majority of focus and limited cash flow into further developing or in some cases “perfecting” the product.  The latter rarely ever happens because even the best products continue to get better over time.   One analogy to live by is that if you are not slightly embarrassed by your first product, you have not sold it soon enough.

The number of companies that have spent time burning their start-up investment, whether self-funded, angel or VC, on R&D and then with 6 months of cash left decide they need to start generating revenue is very, very long.  Don’t be one of these firms.   Revenue generation should be more than just a thought, it should be integrated into the entire lifecycle of your R&D efforts – you should always be selling.  In some cases, this may mean searching for pilot project opportunities or networking to seed the market or simply doing some work on social media to create a buzz.   Then assume over the initial 12 to 18 months sales revenues will be limited, so give yourself enough time to get ramped up.  No matter which way you cut and slice it, and even if you are really lucky, it will take 12 to 18 months to see the results of a sustained sales and marketing efforts, particularly around B2B products.  Buying cycles are long; decision makers leave, corporate priorities change and in the midst of this, you still need to keep pounding away with the game plan of building a big enough sales funnel that you don’t care who closes, someone will due to sheer numbers.  We are huge believers that sales is a process and a science much more than it is an art.

Ultimately, your success will hinge on you generating revenue, so don’t get stuck in the R&D rut, get your product to a point that it works and can be sold and then start doing just that – selling it!   Once you get some traction and clients, work to continue to better it.

If you read this and the situation sounds familiar and you need some sales and marketing horsepower to help, call us.  We would love the opportunity to discuss how we may be able to help.

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