I got a phone call from a mate yesterday which gave me the shivers from both an entrepreneurial and marketing perspective.
She phoned me to tell me that she had decided to toss in her sales job (Her third in six months) at an insurance brokerage and strike out on her own...
The idea of striking out in an insurance broking business when you have little or no start-up capital is scary - doing it the day after an announcement is made that R560m worth of cars are repossessed each month in SA and insurance defaulters have surged 260% year on year is just madness... (In my humble opinion).
Bearing in mind the chances of selling many new policies over November, December, as a startup are probably pretty slim.
However I'm not an insurance industry expert so I'm going to avoid running her idea down too much. Best of luck to her!
I asked her if she was ready to start the business and her words that chilled me were - "Yip I've used the last of my capital to buy business cards and get brochures printed and I'm now ready to roll...."
Apart from the lack of capital before she started - Business cards and brochures are your 'marketing'?! Eish....
I've been in business for myself for 7 years, I still don't have business cards and the brochures I've printed have been for specific products or services and only for informational purposes around technical aspects of the industries we work in - I don't really use them to advertise for new business.
- Where's the PR?
- Where's the web presence?
- Where's the electronic mail campaigns?
- Where's the joint ventures or partnerships with other businesses?
- Pay per lead and pay per sale type affiliate marketing campaigns are good for the big names in the SA sector - why not for you?
What is going to make her stand out from the rest of the 5000 brokers out there?
She has some media contacts but it didn't occur to her to use these to push for business.
I know its a tough thing to say, but pieces of paper are not marketing. If it can be thrown in the bin its probably not the right place to be spending your money on as a startup...
That's my thought - use it don't use it.
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