I attended a great support meeting at the Innovation Centre – “Marketing Anarchy”. It was one of SInC’s peer-to-peer sessions where companies can share experience (both good and bad). A great way for new entrepreneurs to try out ideas and increase their confidence.

One discussion area was the difficulty that many technical people have in making the first approach to potential clients. The issue is often self-confidence and an inexperienced entrepreneur may feel intimidated by making a ‘sales call’ to a larger company, especially if theirs is a new product or service and sales is not their natural business experience. A common outcome from this is that the calls are put-off, until the product is on its 5th release version and the sales pitch perfected, and put-off and put-off.

The things a new product developer really needs to know from a potential customer are:

• what is their problem
• is my product any good
• does it solve their problem
• what would I need to do for a company like yours to use my product
• what type of purchasing model is usually used for products like mine
• who do you think would need my product And many more questions.

And they need to know this early in the product development cycle. But, they cry, that makes me look like I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Well our experience is that you’ll generally gain more respect from the potential client if you approach them in the right way. Ask for their guidance and experience and more people are likely to help than if you ask for the sale. But don’t forget to actually listen and take their advice on board – they are the customer, after all.

Sussex Innovation run a customer finder programme within their New Product Network.