Entering New Markets

The diagram below shows the important elements in the development of a company. The founders have a Vision of what they want to do. That gets transformed into a Strategy for approaching potential markets. Then, it is important to explore market segments and to reach a focus decision once a desirable market segment is identified. Having developed the Product/Solution/Service and acquired the Initial Customers (Development Partner Customers), then it is time to apply the execution resources to grow the business.

The most important contribution that first customers in a new market (for you) can make is to give you their time to help you develop your technology into a product/solution/service that the market needs. The first customer should be acquired by the founders (Discovery Phase) to make sure they understand the basic needs of the target market. The next few customers should be acquired by the Executive Team (Learning Phase). Growth Process Group has deep experience executing this approach in our AlphaDeal Program.

The most important skill in the Discovery and Learning phases is listening. Learn about the customer’s pain regarding the problem that you propose to solve. Understand how the prospect does it now and what they want to change. Early customers provide feedback on feature set and become your initial references. It is very important to choose these customers wisely, as they can consume your resources.

One of the common errors we see is the hiring of the Sales Execution team before the company has completed the Learning Phase. This often results in the failure of the Sales Execution team to meet the goals and can also result in the company running out of funds prematurely.

Growth Process Group offers a Sales Readiness Assessment service to identify and fix important gaps in go-to-market capability before they become crippling.

A model that we have proven for entering a market is shown below. GPG has deep experience executing this approach in our AlphaDeal Program, in which we are the client’s out-sourced sales team. It is also supported by Steve Blank, in his book “The 4 Steps to the Epiphany”. In this approach, we select several potential Target Markets and Target Companies within those markets to test the level of pain about the proposed problem to be solved. Once we have verified that there is sufficient pain in a market segment, the Development Partner Customer relationships are formed. Only after the intense participation of these first customers to help develop the right offering, do we move into the much more costly Execution Phase.

A typical time line chart for the acquisition of Development Partner Customers in the Growth Process Group AlphaDeal Program would be as shown below.

For more information on how GPG can help you enter new markets and acquire initial customers, contact Chuck DeVita.

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