Category Archives: Business Development

5 Questions, Business Development, Internet

Website Questionnaire

Here’s our Website Questionnaire for creating a new website.

1. What are the main objectives of your business/company?
2. When and where was your business started?
3. Who are the people running/managing/leading the business? Please describe their profile in brief.
4. What are the different products/services offered? Please list them along with brief description. Include standard prices if available.
5. What are the biggest benefits of your products/services?
6. Who are your major competitors? Please name them and share their websites.
7. How are your products/services better than competition?
8. How many customers do you have and where all are they located?
9. What are some of the most commonly asked questions by your customers? Please also share your answers to those questions.
10. Please share any positive feedback/testimonials received from your customers and business partners.
11. Do your customers have a typical profile with respect to their industry, background, income, etc? If yes, please clarify.
12. Is there is any latest news related to your company that we can share on the website?
13. Please share your contact information: Phone, Email, Address
14. Do you have any certifications or memberships of industry associations? Please list them.

5 Questions, Business Development, People, Start-ups, Training

How To Build Sales Team Competence?

When a business finds the right sales staff, it will see how sales can help it expand to a new level.
“It’s integral if you want to grow your business to a more substantial agency that you understand how to successfully ramp up a salesperson,” — Jenny Dibble, owner of SearchMarketMe.

Business Development, Business Services, Business Strategy, Start-ups, Venture Capital

Who Becomes an Angel Investor & Why? Kiyosaki Recommends it, So Why Don’t More Millionaires Do It?

For a startup company, Angel Investors can be considered the entrepreneur’s best friend, their saving grace, their answer to a prayer. Some say they are called “angels” because they are an answer to the entrepreneur’s prayer for money to get their business launched, or to respond to accelerated growth, or to bridge the capital divide and reach profitability.

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Advertising, Business Development, Contracts & Legal, Internet, MyOrbit Blogs, Online Marketing, Sales & Marketing

Be Careful with “Double Your Sales” Guarantees

1 Comment

We came across a “double your sales, guarantee” today through an email newsletter and the presentation vs details of their offer demanded this quick post to show you why its really necessary to read the terms for any offer, especially when the offer comes with an attractive wording of guarantee.

Here’s the offer page  and here are the Terms and Conditions for their Money Back Guarantee.

We feel the offer page should have mentioned/clarified a couple of essential terms before asking a prospect to spend time in filling the form.  For example:

#4 of Terms: …Your refund request must be accompanied by a CPA-approved record of revenue for the prior 18 months, showing that you have not doubled your gross sales revenue for any comparable month from the prior year.

[Which means, the doubling of sales will not be assessed over the year or quarter (which is the accepted business growth comparison timeframe),  but any month of the year. This is not evident at all from the way the advertising is presented, and could face difficulty

#6 of Terms:  Only the set up and consulting fees previously paid by you to Infusionsoft are eligible for refund under this program. Your monthly subscription charges to the Infusionsoft service are not refundable.

[What the above term says is that that the various services you need to buy to qualify for money back guarantee are not part of the money back the guarantee! Not sure if this clause has been reviewed by their lawyers because it can’t stand in a court of law]

Therefore, always read the terms of a money back guarantee because its very rare in any services business, irrespective of how the offer is being shown. But if you do find a business partner who is willing to give a written money back guarantee on services, then that’s a thing, and worth going for. Hope you found this useful.

Advertising, Business Development, Innovation, MyOrbit Blogs, Sales & Marketing

Business Lesson from Recession-hit London Restaurants

Recession-hit restaurants in Britain have started offering free food and major discounts to entice customers, many of whom have stopped eating out frequently following job losses and salary cuts.

Offering free food was one of the ways of beating recession in the 1980s, and restaurant owners are hoping it will work this time too. Hundreds of restaurants have closed in the recent months.

Little Bay Restaurant, Farringdon Road, London

The offer of free food is premised on the belief that customers would be too embarrassed not to leave behind money after dinner. Restaurants owners believe that except students, most customers would not leave without leaving money behind.

For example, the menu card at The Little Bay in Farringdon, London (featured in the photo) does not mention prices for dishes. Customers pay only for the drinks. Restaurant owner Peter Ilic said, “You can leave 50 pounds or nothing; it doesn’t matter, I will treat you the same,” he said.

Btw, if you are in London, you can visit the Little Bay restaurant at:
171 Farringdon Road
Clerkenwell, London EC1R 3AL
Tel: 020 7278 1234

And now the Lesson for those of us in other businesses, including the online business.

Its called the 5% rule, ie. before you ask for anything, offer your customer at least 5% worth of sample or value or product or service or whatever that you sell. We have seen this working in both B2B and B2C businesses.

In fact, a money back guarantee or performance guarantee of some sort also achieves the same result as above.

They make it difficult for the customer to refuse the offer, by removing all possible barriers.

In our experience, too many companies don’t want to try any of the above because sometimes things will fail, and majority of managers are risk-averse. So if you say your company can’t do it, that’s fine too. We are sure someone else will do it and go on to win the sale. Nobody is forced to give us a sale, we have to win it. This recession will test the best. So give it a serious thought.