Tips for Bagging a Big Customer for Your Small Biz | Susan Says -- Secrets of Small Business Success

Tips for Bagging a Big Customer for Your Small Biz | Susan Says -- Secrets of Small Business Success

Very good advice. I would add; the secret to hunting elephants is to go where elephants are. Don't sit in your office as mutter.

Customer Service Is Not a Marketing Strategy | BNET

Customer Service Is Not a Marketing Strategy | BNET

P&G, Colgate, Clorox to Raise Prices, Increase Marketing Spending → Private Label Foods

P&G, Colgate, Clorox to Raise Prices, Increase Marketing Spending → Private Label Foods

Management Team Gaps

Entrepreneurs and financiers are well aware of the term "funding gap". It usually refers to the financial pressure that is created when a small company is rapidly growing, so rapidly that it has outrun its funding sources.  Unfortunately, this often happens before they are successful enough to attract VC funding.  

If you know of a promising enterprise that could go to the next level "if only they had funding". Take a look at their management team, first.  Have they taken enough time to plan? Do they have cost controls in place? Do they have a market strategy that is properly monitored, tracked and funded? Do they know how to recruit, train and retain? On and on the list could go, but what it boils down to is gaps in management as well as gaps in funding.  There is a time value to money and if the existing management does not have time to do the things that create true value for the company, those gaps must be filled before financing will be offered.

In that situation the stakeholders of the company should first seek out management assistance that will work for a share of the value that is created.  Ted Turner did it at TNT in the day.  If you think your company has potential value, offer that as part of your budget to attract a good gap management team.