Spot Blog

1. You don’t know how to manage money. Fancy offices and high salaries are great ways to blow money. You need to learn when to spend your money and when you should not. For example, if your employees want fancy desks or cubicles, when it will not help them do their job better, tell them no. But if a developer wants two monitors so he or she can be more productive, then buy the second monitor.
2. You don’t have multiple game plans. You can’t rely on one person, one business model, or even one solution. Things you can’t predict happen, so the best thing you can do is have multiple game plans. Single game plans such as relying on marketing to make your website popular is a bad idea. If you hire a bad marketing firm, what are you going to do now?
3. You don’t learn from your mistakes. It is natural to make mistakes, but good entrepreneurs make few mistakes. The easiest way you can reduce the amount of mistakes you will make is by learning from others. Find entrepreneurs in similar fields and place them on your board of advisors. By giving them a small amount of equity in your company, you will make fewer mistakes. And if you happen to make some big mistakes, don’t make them again.
4. You aren’t agile enough. You have to be able to adapt quickly. If you aren’t able to adapt to market changes, someone else will.
5. You think you know everything. The reality is, you know very little. So instead of thinking you know everything, find others who are smarter than you.
6. You think you can do everything. There is only 24 hours in a day, and sleeping takes up a lot of it. I know you may be a jack of all trades, but find people who can help you out. By specializing on tasks you will become more efficient and get more done.
7. You don’t network with others. If you meet new people on a regular basis, sooner or later you will run into people that can help you out. Surprisingly, there are tons of people out there who are willing to lend a helping hand for FREE. Make sure you go to industry events, local mixers, and join any entrepreneur groups.
8. You don’t love what you do. Money is great, but everything shouldn’t revolve around it. You are more likely to succeed if you are doing what you love. Usually when you are doing things you love, you will spend more time and put more effort into it.
9. You don’t have a good work ethic. Laziness is something many of us pick up from working 9 to 5 jobs. But when you are running your own business you have to be willing to put in time. And more importantly when you working, you have to learn to be productive.
10. You aren’t aggressive enough. Don’t expect things to be handed to you or for doors to open up when you want them to. You have to be a go-getter and if you aren’t one, you better learn how to become one.

1. Walk into a sales meeting with your dick hanging out – if you really know what you are talking about, then you should act like you are “the shit” and be confident. If you act nervous, it makes the buyer nervous about you and the product or service you are selling. If you act like you are the shit, then the buyer may feel that your product or service is the shit.
2. Understand your buyer – before you pitch a potential customer, make sure you know the basics about them. Relating your sales pitch to them or even their business will help them better understand why they need to buy whatever you are selling. A great way to do this is to give examples of how your product or service can affect them. Or better yet, find stats how the product or service helped their competition.
3. Don’t over sell – hopefully whatever you are selling is isn’t crap because you want it to sell itself. Overselling shows you are desperate and can cause the buyer to start negotiating. The last thing you want is for the potential customer to seem that he or she holds the power.
4. Be honest – no one likes a sales person that lies or cherry coats things. Try to tell the truth even if the potential buyer doesn’t want to hear it. This will help build trust between both parties.
5. Make your product or service seem limited – even if you are selling toilet paper, you can still make it seem limited. By reducing the price for a short period of time or saying that there is only a limited quantity available (even if there isn’t) you will create the perception that you are selling something that needs to be bought now.
6. Hook a buyer up – buyers like to feel that they are getting a good deal. A good way to create this perception is through pricing. For example, when I was selling $1800 dollar vacuums, no one bought one because they felt they were too expensive. So I started selling them at $1799, which lead potential customers to feel that they were getting a better deal.

Anyone else have any sales experiences or advice they want to share?

When we started buzzing about SPOT, a lot of our friends would come up and ask: “What is it, and what do you do?” and some other basic questions.The biggest question was always “Why?”.. So I figured my first blog entry would be an attempt to answer those questions. This way I can point them to the website, save us from having to repeat our answers AND market SPOT at the same time.

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