Is business getting easier, or harder?

Peter wrote:

how would you organise that? The days of the travelling salesman are long gone. Everybody hates them

Oh yes, that is long gone indeed. But one can offer a free seminar or a hands-on demonstration of a complex product, take bookings in advance, and possibly get friends and existing satisfied customers involved.

I have about five times as many people involved in my business as in 2005, no exaggeration, 80% of whom add no value and employ themselves constructing and operating procedural gates that the other 20% are required to jump through, without value added. Most of the 80% are now ‘working from home’, occupying themselves by populating other peoples calendars with ‘mandatory’ Webex meetings, or at lower levels pretending to do something else. The senior people who perpetuate it are motivated by either fear (i.e. they are senior level bureaucrats whose stock in trade is being compliant) or at the very top by the motivation to dominate as large a number of people as possible – the usual sociopathic tendency of those who rise to the very top of such an organization, and who promote it despite the obvious drawbacks.

In terms of purchasing, all of what others have eloquently described is true – lists of approved suppliers who can’t do what we currently need, huge training programs and budgets that few benefit from, and are in any case mostly nonsense, processes that have to be defeated to achieve anything, purchasing contractors whose sole purpose is to bypass our own procurement rules and so on.

The good news is that when only a small fraction of the staff can actually do anything fundamentally useful, and budgets are huge, those people are well paid. It’s basically a bribe to put up with the nonsense. Welcome to increased efficiency in 2020

I dont think business has got tougher, but it has changed, and it will always change and evolve. I recall businesses 25 years ago which were a licence to print money, today they are best avoided like COVID. If anything, what has changed is the need to be reactive to market trends, to businesses that are struggling and to those that are on the growth curve. However, if anything, I think the trends are relatively well broadcast, and the progression through boom and bust much slower than we all imagine.

Inevitably most of us are far less reactive, or, for various reasons, we arent able to react as quickly as we imagine or would wish. In consequence many in business persevere at a business model that should already be binned.

Inevitably, and I refer to smaller family businesses, where the model is very different from the national or multi national that are unable to react as quickly so far as fundamental changes to their business model is concerned, which is why we are seeing a number of these fail, or forced to make unprecedented cuts at the moment.

There are so many successful business models around, even at this time, that I find it difficult to imagine why anyone would not start their own business, but I fully understand that the risks are enormous, the work hard, and, for many, the security of a regular job is far more appealing. Never the less, the perceived lack of successful business model is just that, perceived. I also find it odd that people would complain about their customers. You have either got to love them, or change your business so your exposure to them becomes less consequential. It is vital to be in a position where no single or even small group of customers determines the path of your business or the pleasure you derive from being in business. If they do it is time to either ditch them as customers or change your business model.

In this respect the one thing I hold in no doubt is that there are parts of the business community, and sadly often the young, that are difficult our impossible to deal with. I think this is true across business sectors and industries. These types are a waste of space and no good will ever come of working with them. It is vitally important to realise that early on, and have nothing further to do with them, because they will make your life a misery!

Peter wrote:

do to promote their widgets, and to launch new widgets?

It depends on the market and what you make. If you look externally from the UK home market then seeking a distributor or importer in the country you wish to export to is still IMO the only way. There are marketplace boards. I have come across this one in the past few days….go4worldbusiness.com. There is also the UK Govt Department of International Trade portal……

https://www.great.gov.uk/export-opportunities/opportunities

Linked to this have someone you trust be on the ground. I have someone in Bahrain with link focus to North Africa and Middle East for our Whisky products. She can seek importers locally and gain access to individuals that I simply could not get to. ie the buyers.

For the UK market the social media platforms. LinkedIn appears to be a favourite but I think of it as one giant network board and not particularly a marketplace. I may be wrong in this assertion. Happy hunting!!

All good stuff, and all true.
The only thing I didn’t see mentioned that I found incredibly effective was attending tradeshows/exhibitions but not exhibiting.
After working as a salesman for a high-tech company traveling to these same events year after year, I decided that most of the time, the booth wasn’t needed at fringe shows. (Mainstays, yes, very much so).

So, I started attending shows as an attendee, going for one day and one night and simply hitting up all the other exhibitors.
Nine times out of 10, the people I wanted to do business with were at these same shows, and often, I had to abandon my own booth (when I had one) to go hit them up.

I carried a small tablet that I could fit in my front suit pocket, and would just go ham people up.
If I found they were up my alley, I’d pique their curiosity, slide out the tablet and run a few videos for them, or pull up some canned PDFs.
This worked far more brilliantly than all my other show experiences.

Also, LinkedIn is priceless.
You publish useful information there, and believe it or not, it makes the rounds. No-one says anything 99% of the time, but if you look at the statistics, they’re all looking at your ‘content’.

Also, Be a little outrageous on there, but not offensive. I’ve found good publicity by calling out those who balderdash with clear & direct questions.
This has netted me a far larger ‘network’ than a lot of other things.

One more thing I found to be really helpful, is being proactive on ‘connecting’ to other individuals there. Most of the professional world (higher-level positions) are on LinkedIn. The bigger your network, the bigger your network will become, because as you post stuff that seems trivial to you, others see your expertise and gravitate toward you, and look at your profile.

If someone looks at your profile, invite them to connect. That’s the way.

I don’t do any other social media. I don’t find any reason to. I have a friend who makes hand-crafted items, and instagram is her jam. She’s an influencer, which requires being a photographer, web designer and journalist in a bundle.

I’m in the Geospatial space, so instagram and that flashy thing isn’t really up many of my peers’ alley. We prefer the content @Ultranomad suggested, which is just solid, useful information.

Good points AF. I will check out the Linkedin profile stuff later today. I have a couple of sectors, one more prominent on Linkedin than the other. I will equal then up.

Also agree on the trade show stuff. We were at the Food shows for a time and gave away a lot of free product! Tended not to go after that. I should hustle more!!!

Peter wrote:

I come back to my original Q:
What do people here – those who actually make something – do to promote their widgets, and to launch new widgets?

In my experience work with promoters. It is a nice idea to promote your own widgets, inevitably because you they think you will make more money by cutting out the middle man. In my experience they would be wrong. There is a vast plethora of reasons for using distributors and the case is very sound, of course there are some that do a poor job, but that is not a reason to diy.