The Rich Niche Group blog interviews and enables you to hear directly from successful entrepreneurs and product managers about the steps they took to grow their businesses/products and how they were able to create, penetrate, and/or dominate their niche.  This week we interview Ara Bagdasarian:

Interviewee:  Ara Bagdasarian, this is Ara’s second start-up. 

Why Selected:  Omnilert (www.omnilert.com) was one of the first companies in the unified mass notification systems business (urgent text messages) for colleges and universities.  Ara and his partner started Omnilert in 2003 and have since become a leader in the space.  I had the pleasure of working with Ara in the past and he is one of the most innovative and customer-focus individuals I know.  In addition, he is very active in his community of Leesburg, Virginia serving on many non-profit boards and as the Chairman of the Town of Leesburg’s Economic Development Commission.

In the following interview, Ara takes us through the concept for Omnilert, how it changed based on feedback, and then managed the hyper-growth caused by the shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007.  As you read the full interview, here are some points that stood out to me:

1.  If your initial concept does not resonate with your target audience look for others where it might

2.  Innovate in all areas of your company, not just with technology

3.  Publicize every new client you get and get existing clients to tell your company story  

What drove you to start Omnilert and what opportunity did you see that was not being served at that time? 

As with any innovation, there must be a pain that needs to be remedied.  The initial pain arose when my wife and I were looking for homes during the incline of the insane housing market in Northern Virginia.  By the time we received a listing; the house was either under contract or sold.   It was getting beyond frustrating!   The initial concept was to allow a Realtor to broadcast a new listing to their group via text message even before house was listed on the market.   We ran the idea by a few Realtors, and the response was lukewarm.   There clearly was a market opportunity in instant dissemination for time-sensitive information, however the real estate market would have to wait. 

Several months later, I was reading an article about a female college student who was brutally raped and murdered in her dormitory room in 1987.    Her family investigated the situation and formed a non-profit to support campus safety enforcement.   They determined that the information about the rapist on campus was not distributed quickly enough to the campus community.  This information could have saved her life.   At that moment, it became crystal clear that there could be no better application for mass text messaging than for campus emergency alerts.   Some quick market research revealed that over 90% of college students carried mobile phones, and there was no service that provided campus alerts.   I called my partner and the wheels went in motion to start Omnilert with the vision to create a new standard in campus communications.

You actually launched Omnilert prior to the Virginia Tech shootings how difficult was it evangelizing your concept and how did that change post that event?

Prior to the VT shootings, it was a challenge evangelizing our concept to schools.  It was such a new concept at the time.   Most people over the age of 25 had little familiarity with text messaging.    We started to gain traction in the 6 months prior to the VT shootings as some key customers signed on for the service.  We noticed a direct relationship between posting a press release highlighting a new customer and the amount of incoming leads and started closing a new customer almost every week.

After the VT shootings, the demand tsunami began as the market was exposed e2Campus (our service brand) as the solution to the campus emergency communications pain.   As Malcolm Gladwell notes, that experience was the “tipping point” – a market suddenly sees value in the service that we are offering.    We went from one customer per week to over 10 per day.  CNN, USA Today, ABC World News, MSNBC, and most importantly our existing customers became our evangelists at that point.

What were the biggest obstacles you ran into at the different stages of Omnilert’s growth and how did you overcome them? 

In the early stage, the biggest obstacle was finding the visionaries in the market.  We were fortunate to find one in our first prospect, however it took time to find others.    Once we went into hyper-growth mode our biggest challenge was dealing with the rapid spike in demand and customer acquisition.  We overcame the challenge by implementing highly-scalable processes and systems that allowed us to be responsive to all inquiries and be timely in delivering new service accounts.   By using CRM tools such as Salesforce.com, a hosted telephony system, desktop-sharing software for demos, and creating an easy account creation tool in our application, we were able to successfully operate in an intense environment.

Also, suddenly after the VT shootings, hundreds of new competitors instantly appeared in the marketplace.  Most were offering a lower-cost and technologically unsafe service and they started aggressively selling into our market.  What this did was create the perception that Emergency Notification Systems were unreliable and did not work “as advertised”.   Administrators from colleges would speak at conferences and share their unsuccessful stories about emergency messages taking hours to get delivered, and only half of the registered population even received the message.     With all of the heavy evangelizing by the media and parents demand, there began a “this text alert stuff is not all it is cracked up to be” movement.  Our system really DID work- we invested heavily into our infrastructure to ensure this, however many third-tier providers tainted the overall market perception.

We overcame this obstacle by launching a comprehensive education campaign.  The campaign was designed to allow our customers to share their success stories, best practices, and educate the market that not all Emergency Notification Systems were created equal.  We sponsored a webinar series “Best Practices in Emergency Notification” and we launched e2Campus.org which was a peer-forum for our customers to share best practices.   Over the last 2 years, most of the new competitors dropped out of the marketplace as their customers upgraded to the more reputable providers.  That also helped with this negative perception.

Omnilert was one of the first unified mass notification systems and services companies, my question for you is did you find more collaboration between you and the other pioneers in your industry or was it more of a competitive nature between your companies?

Immediately after the VT shootings, we had several companies contact us to partner since they were not providing mass text messages (just voice messages).   Since that brief exchange, it has been more of a competitive relationship.

Omnilert is known as one of the innovators in your niche. What are you doing so that Omnilert stays in that leadership position?  What were you doing different than others in the niche?

We are very cognizant and almost obsessive about keeping and widening our leadership position.   To do this we constantly innovate – not just from a technology perspective, but also from a customer experience, and operational perspective.    We choose not to enter the “feature war” game with our competitors- instead we find better ways to accomplish our customers’ objectives.   It is about offering the “right features” not just “more features”.   I know it is tempting to want to check every feature box on an RFP response, however too many features can sacrifice usability and the effectiveness of the product.    For example, the iPod had considerably fewer features than most mp3 players on the market.   Any standard mp3 player had tons of buttons and features included FM radio, voice recorder, preset locks, and other functions that should accommodate any consumer requirements.   The iPod came out and it had one button and a circular dial!   It made it incredibly easy to manage the user’s music library, purchase new music, and the user interface was far superior to any of its predecessors. The iPod offered the “right features” not just jam-pack the unit with “more features”.

If others are doing something in our niche, we will not do it.   If there truly is a pain for a feature, then we will find a better way to realize that feature’s outcome.   We will not simply just add the feature as already defined.  When a feature request arises, we always ask “What is your objective?” and then come up with the best solution to that objective.

We invested heavily in the most important features in our niche- speed and reliability.  While competitors may add more bells and whistles to their systems, we maintain a reputation for being the most reliable and trusted in the marketplace because we constantly innovate on making our network the best.   You can have all of the bells and whistles in an ENS service, however if it does not work when there is an emergency- that does the customer no good.  Don’t get me wrong- our platform is very feature-rich; we just have different features that enable our customers to be successful when there is an emergency.

In general, what piece of advice would you give to someone who is either starting a new company or getting ready to launch a new product which they are hoping to either create and/or penetrate a niche?

Today, we have an unprecedented opportunity for entrepreneurship.   With the advent of the Internet and all of the technologies that are associated, an idea can become a business quickly and efficiently.  Here are a few points of advice:

                     A. Visualize the Outcome.   What does the world look like after your product is well-adopted and in use?  Now, with that in mind, how are you going to get there?  That outcome needs to serve as your decision making beacon on attaining that goal.  When new “opportunities” arise (partnerships, markets, etc) you can decide whether or not that “opportunity” is a true opportunity, or if it is a distraction.  You can do this ONLY if you know what direction you are headed in.  If you have your outcome defined, every action your business takes must be a step in the direction of that outcome.   For Omnilert, our outcome was to become the new standard in campus safety communications.  Every college would be using e2Campus to notify students, faculty, and staff of a time-sensitive emergency situation.   Our decisions leading up to that point were made towards realizing that outcome.  Today, most states, and even the federal government are mandating Emergency Notification Systems for college campuses.  We now have a new Outcome as our beacon:  to evolve all campuses into utilizing multiple communication end-points (their single message reaches text messages, voice mail, public address systems, desktop alerts, email, digital signage, and other technologies) to keep campuses even safer.

                    B. Tell your story.  Use your website, press releases and the media to communicate your message.   People want to be a part of a movement, part of a solution.  To build momentum for a new product or company, it is important to build a story around the product.  As early customers adopt the product, let the marketplace know – make a big deal about it.  Make it newsworthy.   When Penn State was featured in USA Today for their text alerting usage, we quickly signed up several new customers who wanted to be a part of this new movement.   You can tell your story with little investment as well.   By utilizing press releases, web sites, email newsletters, webinars, and speaking engagements your story can be spread on the smallest budget.    Rather than hiring a Marketing Director, you are better off hiring a Chief Storyteller.

                    C.  Be “tech frugal”- utilize technology to give your business the same customer experience as a Fortune 50 company.  You can outsource anything that is not a part of your core business.  Also, it is best to start with a prototype of your product/service before investing in fully developing the product.  Many entrepreneurs I speak with believe that one of the first steps in launching the business is raising millions of dollars to build their product.   They write a lengthy business plan with wishful projections and market analysis.   I suggest the opposite: if you can design a prototype or even a “mock up”- you can begin selling the product immediately and then re-invest the sales revenue into the development of that product.   There are so many resources today that allow a new company to prototype a product with little or no funds (do-it-yourself).

                    D. Trail Blaze – never create a competing product, instead innovate in a niche where a remedy to a pain has yet been created.  I have often heard “how can you compete with the big players in the market?” from young entrepreneurs.  The answer is simply “do not compete with the big players in the market!”    In 2004 there were a few ENS providers in the market, and they were all focused on federal government, military, or corporate markets.   There were no providers in the higher education space, so it made even more sense to forge forward in that niche.

                    E. Make lemonade from lemons – Look at problems as opportunities.  Problems are opportunities to innovate.    This is not only true for your product, but it should also apply to the way that your business thinks and operates.   When presented with a problem in sales, operations, marketing, or any other process, be sure to turn that problem into an opportunity to improve and innovate.  If you lose a customer, hit a roadblock with sales, or lose power at a trade show, rather than write it off as a problem, you can find ways to improve and become even stronger.   If there is a problem in the marketplace that has yet to be met, turn that into an opportunity!  If you and your company think from this context, you will constantly improve, constantly innovate, and constantly lead.

Ara, thanks for the advice and for sharing the Omnilert story.  Starting and running a mission critical service presents great challenges and I am thrilled to see you and your company doing well.  Let me provide a quick summary to Ara’s interview:

1.   Solve a particular problem and be sure your solution resonates with your target audience.

2.  Create a vision for what your product/service will look like in the market place and NEVER lose focus of that and the solution it provides. 

3.  Implement highly scalable processes and systems as you never know when a catalyst for hyper-growth will come along and having processes and scalability will enable to you surge while your competition ramps up.

4.  Be overly responsive to inquiries and delivering new service accounts. 

5.  Don’t copy what your competitors are doing, create better solutions. 

6.  Use existing clients as company evangelists and use PR and press releases to get your story told.

The Rich Niche Group blog interviews and enables you to hear directly from successful entrepreneurs and product managers about the steps they took to grow their businesses/products and how they were able to create, penetrate, and/or dominate their niche.  This week we interview Bob Cowan:

Interviewee:  Bob Cowan, started ATS as a 1st-time entrepreneur. 

Why Selected:  With no previous business experience, Bob started ATS from scratch by borrowing $35,000 from friends, family and a second mortgage on his house.  Defying the odds, he grew the business and sold it, 13 years later, for approximately $60M.  I had the pleasure of working with Bob and ATS and I can tell you it was one of the most rewarding and formative times of my career. 

In the following interview, Bob provides you with some insights on how he and ATS were able to enter a market dominated by AT&T, carve out their niche and grow the company before selling it to Premiere Global Services (NYSE: PGI) in 1998.  During the interview, Bob brought up many relevant points about what it took to start, persevere and grow ATS and three key aspects kept jumping out to me:

1.  Focus on solving your prospect’s and client’s pain by constantly talking to them and getting to know their business

2.  Continually innovate

3.  Get to know your employees as they may have additional talents that can help your clients and your business. 

What drove you to start ATS and how did you plan penetrate a niche dominated by AT&T who had more than 90% market share at that time?

Frankly, the health care chain that hired me to develop a medical telecommunications network decided not to fund the effort after several years of effort.  Not having a job and a three-month old daughter was a great motivator!

When asked by a friend about my unique project experience and what difficulties I had implementing projects, I realized that the biggest difficulty I faced in implementing my teleconferencing programs was a lack of service that would reliably handle the interconnection process.  While AT&T and MCI were the largest providers of “conference calls,” even the smaller niche firms that specialized in conference calls did not seem to understand what was necessary from a user’s perspective.

My initial “gut” objective was: “to start a conference call company that provided the services I wished were available when I was a user.” 

First, I went back over all the business and educational conference calls I had been involved with as a moderator and participant and outlined all the problems I had encountered.  Second, I reviewed the equipment available to host teleconferences to determine which problems could be addressed by changes to the service delivery and which problems could be address through modifications to the technology.  Third, I started to estimate potential user communities in the health care industry (since it was a sector I knew quite well) and type/frequency of use.  Fourth, I called many of my health care friends to get more concrete information about who they used, what they were being charged and the service problems they were having.  Fifth, I started to estimate how much it would take to start/maintain such a service and the potential revenue stream that was offered between 10-20% less than the current going rate.  Sixth, I pulled together a conference call with some of the same people in health care to discuss my ideas for a service that would not only address their problems, but offer some additional services that were not being offered by any service provider.  Seventh, I created an Advisory Board of friends that had expertise in finance, planning and education.  Eighth, with the help of the Advisory Board I started to go after funding sources. 

What were the biggest obstacles you ran into at the different stages of ATS’ growth and how did you overcome them?

In some respects, growing a company is like raising children: there are always problems – the type of problem keeps changing.

Funding.  Obviously, the first issue you face is raising the initial funds to meet the estimates in your business plan.  In our case, the business plan called for about $250,000 in capital to purchase equipment and cover expenses for the first year.  Unable to obtain funds from traditional banking sources, I turned to family and friends.  In the end, we had seven people put up $5,000 each and started the company with just $35,000.  We were seriously undercapitalized and we were able to continue because of two factors.  First, I was able to get initial business from the healthcareclientsthathad helped me design our company’s offerings and, second, their word-of-mouth recommendations brought in significant additional business.

Sales.  While I had managed sales people in the broadcasting field, I did not have any direct sales experience with a product that was sold on a national basis.  We were able to achieve some significant increases in sales by getting stories about out company placed in a number of magazines read by those in our target industries.  Some of our most productive results came from feature articles that appeared in in-flight magazines.  Once we were able to cover our basic expenses, I concentrated on building a sales force.  I think we went through five or six sales managers before we were able to attract someone that had experience in the teleconferencing industry.

Maximizing human resources.  When we needed help, we would hire the best person to fill the position and move on to the next problem.  I didn’t realize until later I was overlooking one of the greatest assets in the company – the unique capabilities of the people already on the payroll.  For whatever reason, when we hire someone to fill, say, a clerical position we tend to forget about any additional skill sets they may have.  Case in point, in a casual conversation with a member of the clerical staff I found out that she was a physician in her last year of residency when she found out she had cancer.  She dropped out of medical school, was divorced by her husband and took the clerical position because she desperately needed a job.  Since she had a strong medical background that could be leveraged, I moved her into a pharmaceutical sales support position where she immediately tripled her salary.  From that point forward, I viewed the “human resources” department in a totally new light.  Instead of a department that managed the paper work associated with hiring/firing, benefits, etc., it became a department that developed an inventory of backgrounds and skills that could be used to gain competitive advantage.  For example, if we were thinking about opening a new sales office in a city we pulled in employees that had lived in that city to give us any useful insights.  Since a number of our employees were ex-military that were stationed abroad, we were able to take advantage of their language skills when dealing with multi-national clients.  For those that are starting a new venture and have limited financial resources, it is certainly recommended that you make maximum use of every dollar spent – and fully utilizing the people you have already hired is a no-brainer (although it took me a while to figure it out).

Synchronizing service capabilities and sales promises.  We were able to attract many new clients by providing customized services that other firms were not willing to provide.  As we grew in sales staff, we encountered an increasing number of problems where the services promised by a creative sales force (many of whom were now living in major metropolitan areas and unfamiliar with the specifics of service delivery) created problems for those that were tasked with providing the service.  The resources necessary to meet the level of service promised by the sales force were not reflected in the charges to the client.  The sales staff was doing their job – our revenue growth rate was in excess of 40% – but there were also an increasing number of quality related issues that were giving our competition an opportunity to take business from us.  We went back and reviewed every type of service we offered, reset the pricing elements, reduced some of the customization elements that were getting us into trouble and dramatically increased the staffing in our service area.

Helping Employees become Employers.  We were growing so quickly that in a three-month period of time a new hire could become a supervisor.  While we had training programs in place, I wasn’t sure they were helping our staff in their decision making process.  I started ATS University as my “sleeping pill” – since I would like awake at night wondering whether the new staff members “got it.”  Essentially, every new staff member would go through a 3-day training period on the industry, on the history of the company, and the financial contribution of the Top 20 clients.  Finally, I would put up the detailed income/expense sheets and we would go through every line item so that they knew not only where the money was coming from, but where it was going.  Finally, there had been some criticism from those on the service side that we were not hiring enough to cover the growth – so I started to put up some historical revenue numbers and challenged the group to estimate future growth.  They soon became aware of the complexity of the forecasting process AND the key elements necessary to provide a more accurate estimate.  Now, when they heard client comments that might have a potential impact on future revenue they were very quick to pass those observations along.  In addition, we started a process of dividing service providers into small entrepreneurial groups that had some control over their own expenses and were able to retain some of the excess profits they generated.  After a few false starts, this became an outstanding way of creating employees that could make ad hoc decisions more in line with company goals and significantly reduced some of the quality and expense issues that had surfaced.

In 1994, when Telespan Magazine named you “Teleconferencing Professional of the Year,” one of the things they said about you and the company was “ATS doesn’t steal market share, they create new markets.”  That is easier said than done.  What steps did ATS take that made this possible?

For me, the key was listening to clients or potential clients talk about the problems they faced – the kinds of issues that kept them from being more successful or reducing their stress.  If they were a potential client, I was interested in the problems they were having or the features they wished were available.  If it was an existing client, I was increasingly interested in the issues their division or company was facing – including objectives or targets for the coming year.  This gave me a chance to think about how our technology or service could help them meet their goals. 

Over time, I started to understand that I was searching for their “pain” – on a professional and personal level.  When someone would express their concern about a corporate goal to open a significant number of new offices, I would try to understand the basis for their concern and see if we had or could develop a program to help them.  When someone would complain that they couldn’t get home in time to see their child play baseball, I found myself trying to find ways to reduce their workload. 

While I started these discussions with users because I enjoyed the conversations, I found that when we came back with some potential solutions several things happened: first, since we were offering relief from the pain there was no bickering over price and we were able to maintain outstanding profit margins; second, the fact that we listened and brought back potential solutions made us more immune to competitive attack from our competitors; third, we would get amazing word-of-mouth recommendations within the company leading to additional business; fourth, the decision to use our services was kept out of the telecommunications department (who often went with a low quality, low priced service).

The other approach that helped us create new markets was our approach to vertical and horizontal solution sets.  In the beginning, the bulk of our business was three vertical markets: the health care industry, Wall Street financial firms and the airline industry.  Since we wanted to find ways that we could help our clients, we ended up learning quite a bit about each industry and developed a number of industry-specific offerings that helped us attract others from the same industry.  We developed marketing materials that targeted each industry that highlighted our unique understanding of their business needs – a strategy that was unusual at the time.  As we worked more closely with firms to refine the services, our clients started to view our work effort as part of their competitive advantage and it became increasingly difficult to use case studies as a method of selling a service to a potential competitor.

At approximately the same time, we started to promote our services at a series of national and international conventions of educators, public and investor relations professionals, human resource providers, etc.  It was at that point we realized that the lessons we had learned in creating, for example, service offerings geared toward the training of on-the-road pharmaceutical sales staff could be slightly modified to train on-road-sales staff regardless of industry.  This horizontal approach that targeted people holding similar organizational positions regardless of industry enabled us to leverage our experience and program development effort.

All of this led us to look for several potential client types: the underserved (those frustrated with their current provider), the pent-up demand (those know there is a solution to their problem but don’t know how to move forward), and “I could have had a V-8” group that had no idea there was a solution to their most vexing problems.  If you notice, there is no mention of “someone that wants it cheaper.” 

All of this led us to a “contrarian” marketing approach – going where our competitors were not showing up and filling their vacuum.  If all of our competitors were exhibiting at national conventions, we targeted smaller regional conventions where we could be invited to speak and could spend more time talking with potential users.  I must admit that I resisted this approach at first, but our return on investment was dramatic.

After a while ATS, became known as one of the conferencing niche leaders. Once in that position, what did you set-up so that ATS stayed in that leadership position?  What were you doing different than others in the conferencing niche?

If the standard mantra is: do it better, do it faster, do it cheaper, then you better think along those lines.

Very much like software companies that need to constantly introduce new versions to keep the revenue on an upward trajectory, a service shop has to constantly refine its offering and offer new options on a regular basis.  If you don’t constantly try to innovate, then it gives the competition an opportunity to develop their offerings to mirror your own.  Once that occurs, you have lost the competitive advantage and are forced to compete on price alone – leading to a death spiral of profits.

The problem we faced was that there were only a few companies that manufactured the equipment used to combine the telephone lines for conference calls which meant that those providing the services all had similar technical capabilities – a difficult strategic position.  None of the equipment providers were willing to allow our software programmers access to the source code to make modifications to handle our unique requirements.

Suddenly, there was a dramatic increase in use of computer server technology to replace the telephone switching systems being sold to businesses.  During our research, we found that this new technological application was incorporating some conferencing capability.  We negotiated the rights to the source code, hired our own programming staff and were able to create conferencing equipment that we could modify to meet our own strategic needs at 1/10^th the cost we were paying existing hardware firms.  To be fair, however, the expansion of our programming staff did decrease the hardware savings, but control of the “feature set” would have been worth even more in an increasingly competitive environment.  We had created a new “barrier-to-entry” for the competition.

In the end, continued innovation and creating new barriers-to-entry is the key to maintaining profits and market share.  By this I mean innovation in both service delivery AND technology.  In addition, I have never been interested in my market position in the overall industry – I just want ownership of the most profitable segment of the market.

In general, what piece of advice would you give to someone who is either starting a new company or getting ready to launch a new product which they are hoping to either create and/or penetrate a niche?

Someone said “Do what you love and the money will follow.”  A little over simplified, but effective advice.  If it is something you love, then you will have greater knowledge of the entire field than someone that simply thinks that it is a great investment opportunity.  In addition, you will find yourself spending far more than 40 hours a week with your new “baby” and it is much less painful if you are developing a product or offering that you are passionate about.  You will also find that your “passion” for the product is a great sales tool – I believe that potential buyers are strongly influenced to try a service/product from someone that truly believes that their product will make the world a better place or solve a significant problem.

I believe that there were elements in my background that gave me a unique perspective on the type of services we designed – a perspective that was missing from those offering services that were never end-users themselves.  The key is finding the “pain.”  If you are frustrated with the lack of a product or service there are probably hundreds like you out there that would be willing to spend a premium to have their problems solved.  That’s the place to start.  Then add your own take on the solution – something that only is obvious to you because of your unique experiences.  Now, you have high profit potential and a barrier-to-competition.

While there are other elements to make a new venture a success, you can hire those elements out.  No one else can be paid to come up with an idea that stems from your unique take on an industry or problem. 

What are the key characteristics of companies that have been able to penetrate a niche, even niches dominated by another company?

Success oriented service.  I believe that regardless of the product or service you provide it is critical to see yourself (and your company) in the position of helping your client get promoted – by making their decision to use you reflect positively on them with their superiors.

Service agility.  Have and maintain the ability to quickly modify the product offering to meet underserved or pent-up demand.  Look at what the dominant company does not provide and seek to provide it.  Look at what they do well and avoid it.

Company-wide vision of client success.  The tone of service starts at the top and the message must be uniform all the way to the bottom.  Special attention needs to be given to the sales commission plan.  My VP of Sales once said “If you want to see what a company is really all about, read their commission plan.”  It took me a while to understand the implications of that statement, but I’m a true believer.

What are the key characteristics of companies that have been able to dominate a niche?

Listen and listen for the pain.  Whenever someone says “I wish…” the next few words will probably define a moderate- to high-profit market opportunity.  Someone is giving you a clue.  I always tried to write down every “I wish…” I heard and go through the list every three months.  If you toss an idea because you can’t do anything about it RIGHT NOW, then you are missing an opportunity to enter a new niche when the conditions are right.

Never act like you are a market leader.  A market leader pleased with their success will often respond to new ideas with a “No.”  Someone trying to become a market leader is looking for ways to say “Yes!”

Every employee is a disciple.  Don’t just hire people that can “do the job,” but seek out those that have the same vision of helping clients.  A good example would be those that work in public contact positions for Disney.

Always let the client know when you went “above and beyond.”  When I heard several of our staff people talk about a situation where their quick decisions kept a miscommunication from one of our clients from creating a disaster, I asked if they had shared that with the client.  After hearing “no,” I started our Guardian Angel program to make sure our clients knew when we put in extra effort to make sure everything went well for them.  Each problem offered a unique opportunity to talk with the client and reinforce our dedication to their success.

When you think of companies that dominate a niche, who do you think of and what do you see them doing to keep that dominating spot?

The current economic environment may unseat many firms that view themselves as “dominant.”  Frankly, I think this is an ideal time for new start-ups to capture significant market share.

Dominant organizations are tending to reduce staff on the service provision side of the business in an attempt to preserve executives.  More often than not, these executives have only a partial understanding for the nuances of high quality service.  In addition, the number of unemployed, high-quality potential employees makes it an ideal time to bring in considerable expertise at a very affordable cost.  Add any additional incentive for long-term business development and you have the potential to add yet another “disciple” to the staff.

What are the biggest threats to losing that dominating position?

Thinking you are big enough to withstand any attack.

Saying “No” more than saying “Yes.”

Lack of innovation (look at the game developer/software market)

Laying off key people that will contribute to the long-term success just to save money to keep executives employed.

Which companies come to mind that once held a niche dominating position and then lost them and why do you think they lost that position?

Kodak.  The shift away from film and the introduction of high quality home printers has been faster than they predicted.  They are only now starting to understand their new niche potentials.  Wasn’t Polaroid a big name for a while?

General Motors.  You figure it out.

Record companies as a group.  Failed to find a new business model for their industry.  Tried to use law suits as a way to modify consumer rather than spend the time/money on finding new ways to make money.

Xerox.  Lost their market position by not understanding the shift from heavy metal to lower cost, distributed printing.

IBM.  Not only were they the name for big computers, they were the leading providers of home computing – for a while.  By not embracing Microsoft’s operating system, they created a huge opportunity for no-name companies to achieve leadership.

For me, the number one question becomes how can a dominant company retain a non-dominant “hunger” to innovate?  How can you avoid becoming content?  How can you let the expense side of the business (especially fixed expenses and those on wages not connected to company success) gradually creep up to destroy the company’s ability to withstand competitive price pressures?

What in your background gave you a unique ability to see potential opportunities and capitalize on those opportunities?

Since you are a product of “everything that doesn’t kill you” every person has the potential for a unique take on a situation or problem.  And you may have to go through a lot of potential ideas before one really takes hold, but I believe the seed for a potential business is in each one of us.  The key elements are doing a personal asset inventory, starting to look for potential opportunities and having a grasp of the business planning process.

Here are some elements in my background that helped me…

Technology:  While my college degrees were not in a technical field, I had experience building and using electronic equipment in the broadcasting field, I learned computer programming, and acquired my own personal computer when they first came on to the market.  It was easy for me to see how computer technology and programming could make our company more efficient.  We were the first teleconferencing company to move away from paper & pencil scheduling to a computer based model.

Experimental design:  The college courses in statistics and conducting experimental studies gave me valuable insight into problem solving:  how to formulate good questions, how to look for and control variables and how to analyze results to determine trends.

Broadcasting:   Attention to delivery details when providing a service.  Coaching staff on how to view telephone conversations as “live radio broadcasts” that needed planning and focus.  How to capitalize on live events by recording and editing them for distribution to secondary audiences that could not be at the live event.  How to make use of Internet “streaming” used by radio stations for the distribution of teleconferencing.  How to establish a “ratings” system to determine the perceived quality of our service offerings.

Communications skills:  After teaching courses on public speaking, listening and persuasion, I found myself talking to clients about problems they were facing in their jobs and developing solution sets to address those problems. 

Creative use of financial data:  I wrote computer programs that would give me information on how and why people would use our services.  In addition, I found ways format the information into graphs that I could understand more quickly than rows of numbers.  I found ways to use the financial data as feed-back to the client on how our service was being utilized – by department and by use.

Thanks Bob for the great insights and for sharing your thoughts on how to be a successful business person!  Let me take a moment to summarize some of the main points besides the three I mentioned above:

Summary:

1.  Utilize free PR as much as you can to get your company name and services out to potential clients.

2.  Make sure you are constantly aware of what is actually being sold and that it syncs with your service capabilities.

3.  In a fast-growing company on-going employee training is a must.

4.  Focus some or all of your trade show efforts on the smaller regional conferences where you might be able to be a speaker and spend more time talking with clients and prospects. 

5.  Do what you are passionate about and use your knowledge of that area to carve out your niche.

6.  Instill a sense of service/product quality from top to bottom.

7.  Never be satisfied with your success, always look for ways to improve.

8.  Teach all employees to understand the financials of the business and how each contact with a client can impact key metrics.

My thanks, again, to Bob.  Hope you enjoyed the post.

Ken