-In terms of building a client base >
In terms of building a client base, we made a list of everybody we had an opportunity to do business with, then whittled that list down to which ones were going to be the cheapest to serve. It’s a lot cheaper for us to serve Newcastle than it is to serve Plymouth.
I rang them up and tried to arrange as many meetings as possible. I wasn’t trying to sell them anything, I just asked if I could come in for fifteen minutes and have a chat.
We asked what they were looking for in a supplier, do they want this or do they want that, and then just listened to them talk.
That gave us a really good idea of not only what the industry as a whole is looking for, but that specific people in specific areas are looking for certain things.
Once we had that information, we again went back to the list. We took out all the ones that weren’t local, and out of the ones that were local, we established which were the ones that we would be able to generate sales with.
That gave us a shorter list, so we tried to build the direction of the company and the way in which we work, around the people we thought were most likely to buy into our business.
Once we had that, we went to the one who we thought would be the number one: the person who was most likely to work with us. We created a pitch which we planned for ages, and that’s how we got our first contract.
We were absolutely over the moon when we won it. I remember, I had to sell my car by then to pay for all the stuff we bought, and we hadn’t got a van by that point because we needed to get the first contract in before we could do that.
I was feeling really excited as that contract was potentially huge, but by the time I got to the bus stop, I was in panic mode about everything that we had to do.
We had to get the second phase of finance organised, we had to set up distributions channels, and no one was insured for anything. There’s always another mountain to climb after you’ve reached the top, but that’s what keeps things exciting.
Chris QuickfallInvate
