Brendan McAdams talks about three key obstacles that consistently prevent early-stage entrepreneurs from getting customer adoption and traction, the fundamental skills and abilities that tech founders typically don’t know they have to be effective at customer engagement and acquisition, and how to leverage those abilities to move the customer forward in the customer journey.
In the short video snippet below, Brendan shares that effective outreach with a new prospective buyer involves thorough research, tailored messaging, and addressing their specific concerns and needs to create a compelling proposition that resonates with them.
In the full video, Brendan focuses on three prevalent challenges among early-stage startups. Firstly, there’s a common tendency to overcommit to product development prematurely, particularly among technically skilled founders. They invest excessive time in creating their products before it’s necessary. Secondly, some startups heavily rely on marketing, including cold emails, social media campaigns, and other advertising methods, potentially diverting resources from critical areas. Lastly, some startups rely on indirect marketing strategies rather than directly communicating with potential customers. This neglects the crucial step of actively conversing with people to understand their needs better. These challenges consistently hinder the success of early-stage startups.
About Brendan McAdams
Brendan McAdams founded Kinetics, a sales coaching/consulting agency working with early-stage startups and founders looking to excel at sales execution and customer success.
He also co-founded Expertscape.com, a medical resource that identifies and objectively ranks medical experts across more than 30,000 specific topics. Expertscape.com enables patients and referring physicians to quickly find the top physicians and healthcare facilities for treatment or consultation.
Brendan is also the author of Sales Craft : Proven Tips, Practices and Ideas to Advance Your Sales Success, which emphasizes the importance of simple sales fundamentals as the key to sales effectiveness. He is the past Program Director for the 2021 AccelerateBaltimore program, 2022-23 ETC Baltimore Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and serial mentor for TechStars and TEDCO. Finally, he’s the host of both the Let’s Chat Sales podcast, focused specifically on B2B sales from the unique perspective of the early-stage startup founder, and the upcoming Expert Medicine podcast, focused on interviews with expert physicians about complex cases and the future of medicine.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendanmcadams/
https://twitter.com/brendanmcadams
https://kiinetics.com
https://expertscape.com
Common Sense 101. However, it takes 15 – 20 years to get to ‘Common Sense 101’.
SKMurphy Take: My brother is fond of the phrase “the cutting edge of common sense.” What’s strange about common sense is how uncommon it is. Thanks for your comment.