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The surge in value of apple company has validated my teachings of last KSS and of course that of today.
This topic started last week with consideration to China’s biggest business secret. I’ll advise you follow up by checking this link
America’s biggest business secrets
A critical study into businesses in America would reveal 2 things.
- Newness of Innovation/disruption
- World class Dominance
The two major quality needed as a first mover.
First mover principle as opposed to what we studied Last week on China’s biggest business secret, thinks of “virgin” ideas, world-wide growth, dominance and “ruthlessness” when it’s about competition (The very foundation that made the men who built America).
There’s this pitch I’ve heard startups use over and again when they try to portray the viability and growth of their company. An example is this;
“Our business is targeted at African women, there 601million women in Africa, if we can get just 1% of this number we will make 109 million in 2years.”
“Average of 3 million children are been born in Brazil yearly, if we can seize 1% of this number yearly, we would make 201.5million naira yearly.”
Isn’t this very mouth watery?
Yes, but not for an American!
Coke never focused on 1% of American citizens.
What was their goal? To be in every home! Not 1%.
From inception, they had something new and thought in terms of dominance. Would anything be wrong with a pitch like this one below?
“There are 6 million families in America and all of those families are our target market.”
Must it be 1% or 45%? Why not all?
You might say it’s harder to actualize. The truth is that the 1% will be harder because of the restrictions you already have given the mind so it doesn’t dream bigger. Is Coca-Cola achieving their dream? Yes of course!
So, I am not surprised Investopedia has ranked America to be have biggest economy in the world. Why won’t they when they think global from start?
This doesn’t mean you should pursue every market and not have a niche, but when you create that niche, dominate all of it!
First movers understand this sales secret; sales don’t start after product development, it starts during/before product development. You can understand this in two ways:
- Selling your products before making them. Ask Henry ford how he sold 1000 cars meant for common people and then used the money to produce the cars. Most American companies will give you incentive to preorder their products. Are they stupid? No!
They understand human nature more. I’ll explain better in the 2nd point.
- If your products need salespeople, then it’s not good enough at least for a first mover company expecting market dominance.
Before you argue this, you can print 3 million papers for survey asking people if they will buy a car that flies without fuel of course they will clamour yes. Even a beggar who can’t afford it will say yes and then you go ahead to produce it only to discover that 1% of the number didn’t even buy and then you’ve your money trapped in goods you can’t sell.
Then comes the need for marketing and strategies. For a first mover, if your product would need so much on marketing it’s sure not good enough. A better way: The true test of market is to ask people to pay in advance, if they do, then the product is really worth it!
Human nature would say yes when it costs them nothing but would only put in their money when they really see the need.
Please fast followers should spend heavily on ads, and marketing.
This is not a sales and marketing session. Attend any Strategy, Marketing and Sales class to know more. Call 08141515641 to reserve your seat.
A lot of people have paid ahead for eBooks yet to finish.
A few people have put in their money with only a demo app.
Gaining trust is likened to building a brand. Read post here
However, here is a solution.
- Give one half for free and let people pay for the full. Then give the remaining.
Akin Alabi released a new book, I personally followed his marketing which gained him additional 2millionn naira in sales.
He gave out the first 50+ pages free for as many email lists he could lay hand on. Since people in Nigeria can’t pay for even a simple book without “tasting”, so let them taste it actually.
For ecommerce business to break out from trust issue, they implemented pay on delivery. Order for what you don’t see, we bring it to your doorstep, you inspect and wire the money
People believe you more when you have the crowd and good review. Here is an example
I personally had this issue, I and my team, we developed a jamb CBT app and launched it on play store. We sold our pin for only NGN500. Yet people who called asked questions like how can we assure them we would not eat their NGN500
How did we scale through the trust issue? We had 2 options
- Partner with trust businesses. E.g. Buying the pin through USSD code from MTN and have the money taken from your airtime
- Running ads to increase download and review.
We followed the 2nd because of the hassle of integrating the USSD code.
Seeing 10,000+ downloads and 500 reviews automatically subsides the fear knowing we can’t dope 10,000+ downloads and not have a bad review.
Another way is to have trusted people talk about you in the public. Borrow their trust. So, you don’t only leverage on other people’s money (OPM), you can leverage on other people’s trust (OPT).
What it takes to be a first mover.
- New idea
- Dominance
- Ruthlessness
- Stay lean (big is dangerous, it affects decision making and implementation)
- Always evolve
Let’s apply it to Nigeria.
Case study is Hotels.ng the foreign company might be trivago. Hotels.ng has virtually made market entrance almost impossible.
- They brought a new idea to Nigeria. It has never been
- They travelled virtually to every hotel in Nigerian (not just 1%)
In fact, I came across an advert on my messenger commissions.ng or commission.ng, I picked interest and followed the chat fuel. They automatically build a platform for you to do exactly what hotels.ng. I registered for the test version, so they created mine. I observed the site only to see a partnership note somewhere reading parent company to be hotels.ng,
The sweet thing is this;
What would it take you to build such a site? How would you get the data of all the hotels in Nigeria? And here they do it for you with less than 10k and allow you take a life time commission from every booking. To gain dominance, they created their own competitors.
This is what it means to be ruthless. Instead of creating yours, you just come and join ours and earn with ease.
And finally, grow big but stay lean. Be fast in decision making, don’t think twice about adopting a helpful technology that surge your business forward.
Always evolve. Detect the next move.
We are Hexavia!
Go Further Ahead…
Knowledge Sharing Session – KSS by Emeli Favour
