THE REST OF THE STORY
Business and life is about failing forward fast and learning excellence along the way.
Years ago I worked for one of the largest SBA lenders in the nation. As a credit analyst, I was analyzing the portfolio and discovered that companies that were mentored performed a lot better than companies that went it alone.
More specifically, companies that were franchised – mentored outperformed all the others. (Top-tier franchisors have done massive amounts of investment and research to hone their business models to help their franchisees successfully replicate.) Immediately we formed the franchise financing division and made it our main focus and it became the most successful part of our lending activities.
Over the years I have personally helped fund thousands of companies; Fortune 500 to Mom-and-Pop establishments. If there is one constant in all companies it is each has to successfully execute and optimize their sales and marketing processes. I have known very few companies to go out of business because they had too much business. (For that matter, I cannot think of any specific one)
While managing Provo City's Business Loan Fund – The Business Development Corporation of Provo (http://provo.org/econdev.bdc.html), I started experimenting with helping companies gain access to mentors not just money. Monthly, I would bring in the CEOs of our portfolio companies to receive information on a variety of topics, such as:
- Legal
- Accounting
- Cash flow analysis
- Fund raising
- Marketing
- Sales
- Relationship building
- Success stories from other entrepreneurs
These are all highly valuable. Also, during the last several years I have been experimenting and researching business incubation; i.e. Paul Allen's Provo Labs and Novell's Technology Center. Most business incubators and incubation type programs provide services such as space, accounting, legal, etc. Very few programs provide comprehensive curriculum to help companies develop and optimize their business model. Particularly their sales and marketing processes. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how many patents you have, how many PhDs you have on your board, how great your coding is, or how much money you've raised…it's all about how successful you are at creating and keeping customers.
Last spring I conducted a little experiment. I took some of my portfolio companies and had them mentored by Griffin Hill Technologies (Griffin Hill is a sales performance company that has helped some of its clients increase sales productivity by 300 percent and profit revenues by 400 percent. Some of their clients have included Nu Skin, Novell, and Xerox Connect.) for 12 weeks.
The results are quite remarkable. Overall, these participating companies are on track to do 28% better than last year's sales. Also, they have created 18 new jobs and continue to grow. Every single one of these companies would recommend the expert mentoring that they received.
This fall I conducted another experiment, I had another group of companies go through the Griffin Hill program but also included other mentors such as Michael Eagar – COO OrangeSoda, Launch Sales and Marketing and Corporate Alliance. The results continue to be positive.
With positive data, I've approached these companies (GriffinHillTechnologies.com, InsideSales.com, SeboMarketing.com, LeadGenix.com, SnappConner.com, LaunchSalesandMarketing.com, Press-Media.com, EagarUniversity.com, CorporateAlliance.net, …many others.) and asked them if they would be willing give back to the community and donate their expertise to 10-12 select companies. To their credit they all said yes.
In recent months, they have been working fervently, putting together a "World Class" curriculum that will help companies solve their biggest problems "Generate More Leads > Maximize Conversions > Close More Business."
At no cost to you, these expert mentors are willing to help you and your company "one-on-one" be successful. As one prominate local Angel investor puts it "successful businesses require massive doses of mentoring."
Are you in?
Thanks,
Roger Andrus
Business Development Corporation of Provo
34 E 1700 S, Bldg A, Suite 123
Provo, UT 84606-6194
801-852-6163
801-852-6178 (fax)
randrus@provo.utah.gov
