I’m expert for a methodology, which allows producers and concept developers to transform products, technology or innovative concepts into cheaper, better performing and hard to copy results. I’d like to take the next step and turn my knowledge into a desirable service. The idea is to cooperate with clients subject matter experts, once management is convinced of my services.

From talks to both technical and non-technical people it seem that the methodology in itself creates interest – at least, because it has a strange name (which is also hard to explain) – especially with the non-technical audience. Once they understand the basic concept, they even come up with ideas for applications in new, i.e. non-technical, fields, which is nice. It also seems that it’s better to talk about the achievements possible rather than about the detailed steps to take. Though, that will be necessary to do, too.

When people spend about 1 hour interactively with me they get the main points. To understand details it’s a much longer road for them and it’s easy to loose them on the way. For selling or advertisement purposes this is no good – who will spend 1 hour talking to me all the time? And how much talking can I do myself?

What I’d like to achieve is: look, like, hire (my services). Unfortunately I’m too deeply involved in the subject matter itself to truly find the right words for my potential clients.

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Jay’s Answer: You’ve correctly identified your problem (“Unfortunately I’m too deeply involved in the subject matter itself to truly find the right words for my potential clients”).

Besides hiring experts who can help you do this for your business a solution that might appeal to you is asking your prospects to tell you what you do. The wording doesn’t have to be correct – but the language will be that of an disinterested listener, who you’re trying to target.

By the way: look, like, hire is a nice idea, but the reality is you also need trust in that equation. Trust is what makes people believe that giving you their money is likely to produce the result you promise. Without that, you’re all hype. Trust can be built with white papers, testimonials, 3rd party studies, articles, seminars, meetings, etc

What could be done to promote our business solutions other than conferences, newspapers, magazines, newsletters, interview, press releases, …

These ideas are extremely used, what I am looking for is something really new or special.

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Jay’s Answer: Who is your target market? What problems of theirs do you solve? What makes you unique? Why should people trust you?

These questions are the core for your marketing strategy. Without one, you’ll be wasting time and money trying to attract attention.

To build trust, for example, provide lots of white papers or articles that demonstrate your expertise. Team up with other related businesses and co-market. Provide an after-market solution to another business (IT support) following a purchase.

About a year ago, I started publishing a monthly tabloid size newspaper that covers all the arts-entertainment-fun stuff in certain part of a rural Midwest state. It covers 10 counties and is a free distribution of about 10,000 copies per month.

Our publication is full color offers advertising about 1/3 of the price of our competition’s b/w rates. The paper is fantastic and we hear rave reviews from all the people that pick it up. It is distributed in about 100+ locations.

In a small population rural area of the Midwest, our ad prices are very affordable ($220’ish for 1/4 page), but for the ma and pa stores that are around here, they can’t spend that kind of money. Would I be further ahead to do something that is like a $30 business card ad with black ink on colored 11 x 17 copy paper with arts, entertainment, etc. and make $900 per town, per month (or bi-monthly) and do it in 10-15 area towns? This would eliminate the need for full color printing ($1,500+ monthly) and we could just utilize the copier in house to do it for much less.

Or, would I be better to continue to keep offering what we are doing now, but just keep working on the sales and be happy with the sales that we are currently getting or get in the future from the bigger companies?

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Jay’s Answer:

Another idea: educate the potential advertisers. Create a study of your existing advertisers. Ask them to do ad tracking for you (track the number of calls + in store visits that are a result of the ad). You may need to give your existing advertisers an incentive to do this work for you.

The result is that you will be able to say: For an ad of this size, this type of store generated N traffic.

When selling ad space to mom-and-pops, you’ll be able to ask them to multiply "N" by the average sale they make, and it should become an issue of ROI, not emotion.

It’s almost 1 year that I have started a freight forwarding company, and I have pumped in almost half a mil but I haven’t broken even yet. We are international freight company and we ship everything to everywhere, but our goal is getting contract from manufactures for import or export, the problem is I don’t know what exactly should I say while contacting them so it would attract them for a meeting?

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Jay’s Answer: Instead of calling new accounts to sell them, call them to find out how (or if) they use freight forwarding. If they don’t use it, then you have a great opportunity to teach them how teaming up with you can be a big money-maker for them. If they do use it, ask who they use, what they like about it, and what it would take them to switch. Don’t try to sell them just yet. Just collect the data initially, and keep in touch with them as you move toward their "tipping point to switch".

We are the successful distributors of a well known brand in Engineering Design Automation and our products are accepted more in the markets at national level. We are in the process of building a team to create new markets for obvious reasons. We invite your creative/innovative suggestions on making this project more successful.

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Jay’s Answer: There are 2 main directions to go in: extending your existing market (by offering add-on products/services) or building new markets (by leveraging/repackaging existing products/services in new ways).

To extend your existing market: survey your users to find out what software/process they use before & after using your product/service. If there’s a common theme, consider either developing your own solution to that product/service or co-marketing with those companies to build the client base. Included in this strategy is offering classes/consulting for using/applying your tools.

In building new markets, this includes not only different niches, but different countries, and different computer hardware. Consider different industries, different sized companies, etc. Look for competitor companies, and see who their clients are. Might they be yours someday? If you’re planning to woo existing competitors’ clients to you, make sure your software stands up to a SWOT analysis and can import from their format. Don’t forget that localization can open up new markets through a simple process of translation of software.

I have Word and Acrobat, so I can create it and PDF it, but how do I make it look sharp and professional (pictures, layout, etc)? I plan to offer it to business professionals from my web site, so it needs to be at top consultant level.

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Jay’s Answer: Layout is an art. One of the easiest way to get going is to find a layout you like and apply it to your needs. Look at fonts, spacing, line width, paper size, headers, footers, indices, table of contents, etc. There are a myriad of details.

Also, realize that if it looks like everyone else’s reports, then it won’t stand out. It’s important to know when to go with the flow, and when not to.