Resources - are they important?

Lots of people have dreams and business owners are no different. Business owners dream of the large or very profitable customer, or lots of very large and profitable customers.

Some business owners chase dreams without sufficient resources. There are examples where a business can improve its credibility superficially to get meetings with a large customer, and sometimes you hear stories of the business succeeding with a large order.

Unfortunately this is not the most common occurrence. To get orders there are benchmarks or rules of thumb on the resources needed not only to gain a customer, but to get repeat business.

For instance look at high street shops. Shops work on 3 key principles:

• They get lots of people walking past
• They get the right people walking past
• They have an attractive offer that entices people to walk in

If you are very specialist you may get away with a location that is a long way away from the centre of a city or a town, but in general, location is important to gain awareness and sales.

Whilst we do not all own shops - the shop and the location are resources. If you were a jeweller and wanted to attract the rich and famous then a location in central London, possibly Regent Street would be good.

Taking another example - if you want to tender for government work they will ask you to fill in a tender document for work of any size. The difficulty with this is that your business may be too small, or your track record to insignificant to even get an interview.

Can you improve your credibility artificially?

The short answer is no. However there are things that you can do right that make effective use of the resources at your disposal. In other words you match the resources to the best market opportunity available to you.

Plugging into your market is about focussing on key potential clients, working out what they need from you in terms of service, appearance, capability and your long term future. They must see you as a good bet and feel better about trading with you rather than someone else.

Don't Operate In The Dark - Plug In To Your Market NOW

Have you ever tried to plug in a lamp in the dark? You grab the plug and then thrust your hand towards the wall. Maybe you find the socket but by then you have scraped away a strip of wallpaper and you are getting increasingly anxious as you try to fit the three pins of the plug into the three holes that you know are there. Darkness ensures that the orientation of the plug is pure guesswork. You know it should all fit but somehow it does not.

This is not unlike the approach taken by many small businesses to the markets that they operate in. They have great products or services which they just KNOW will be bought by people. Somehow business just has not been booming - why?

The marketplace is huge so you need to focus quite a bit. What area of the market should you be aiming at, how do you identify it, what resources do you need to exploit it? If you can identify this niche clearly (think of being able to use a torch in the lamp example above), and you have the right product or service (think compatible plug and socket) then you are almost there. You still might need some help in actually delivering but the guesswork has gone and you can actually focus on making money.