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Selling to CXOs

I have been looking for information on how to market to CXO's and this was passed along to me from a business associate. It is not mine, but I thought worthwhile enough to share. - Dave

All future interactions with a client will be seen through the prism of the impression you leave with them at the first meeting. Here are a number of suggestions to be ready for a ‘C’ level (CEO, CFO, CIO, CTO, COO, etc.) meeting.

1. Be on time - If you commit to an appointment time, please do all you can to fulfill it. Everyone’s time is valuable and they have agreed to share it with you.
2. Understand the value of first impressions - If you are at ease, then the prospect will be as well.
3. Listen - We have two ears and one mouth. My discovery is we can listen twice as much as we talk and I have taken that into meetings with me.
4. Give short answers - Please do not feel the need to impress them with in-depth knowledge. If you are pressed for a specific answer, that is a buying signal. Give an answer designed to say yes to their inquiry.
5. Finally, be the first to get up to leave - Watch for the ‘Times Up’ signal (looking at their watch, taking a phone call, no more questions).

Basic Business Documents

It occurred to me as I finished our Employee Evaluation Packet today that lots of small companies do not do employee evaluations formally because writing up the document is such a pain in the neck. But, having a straightforward review process helps the employee and supervisor both figure out how to be a better at their jobs and in doing so helps the company. In the spirit of trying to help out the would-be-entrepreneur, I decided that I would put out a couple of our internal documents for others to use as a starting point. Here are three useful documents for others:

Employee Evaluation Packet

Employee Handbook

Time Off Request

Disclaimer: Telaeris is not liable for any legal issues others might run into using these documents. We hope they help as a starting point, but our policies may or may not match your requirements.

IRA Contributions and Tax Savings

As tax day rolls around, I was talking with one of our employees about taxes. While we do not (yet) offer a company sponsored 401K plan, it should not deter our employees from contributing to their own personally managed IRA. We did the math and one employee was able to save approximately $1500 in taxes, by putting $8000 towards his IRA. Another employee was able to save $400 by putting only $1700 towards his IRA. This results in an immediate ROI of 18% and 23% towards savings that the employees should be doing anyways.

Clearly, the benefits vary depending upon what you contribute, but this is one good way to keep money out of the hands of the taxman for owners and employees of small businesses.

For the year 2007, tax payers under the age of 50 can contribute $4000 and those over 50 can contribute $5000. Might be worthwhile playing with TurboTax to see how your mileage varies.

Start Up Costs and Operating Budgets

A friend of mine asked me the other day what our basic startup costs and operating budget was, not including employee salaries. Fortunately for him we had a pretty clear breakdown of these costs created while investigating a joint venture with another company. This seems like exactly the information a new tech startup would need and something that is never thought out completely at the offset of a new venture.

Now these numbers are not what we actually paid - we were extremely blessed to have had much of our furniture donated to us, as well as some lab benches, white boards, and electronics equipment. But if we were to start again, we would expect to have to pay close to $100K to cover all the basic office expenses for one year. Our cost breakdown is below and you can download the Excel worksheet here. Of course, I would recommend you work as hard as you can to keep these startup costs as low as possible as when you learn how to operate leanly, it will have positive effects on your bottom line for a long time.

Estimated Monthly Costs

2080 Office Space (1600 SQ ft- @1.30 Incl. water, trash)
 350 Telephone Service (AT&T)
 330 Mobile telephones / service (Qty 3)
 200 Electricity service
  80 Cleaning service
  70 DSL service (Includes WEB hosting)
  15 Drinking water service
------  ------------------------------
 3175 Estimated Monthly Expenses
38100 Estimated Monthly Expenses, per year

Estimated Yearly Costs

500 Office Supplies (paper, toner, clips, pens, pads)
600 Subscriptions/ memberships / specialty books
1400 Insurance (Building / equipment)
5000 Accountant Services
14000 Lawyer (350 / hour x 40 hours)
------  ------------------------------
 38590  One Time Expenses

Estimated One Time Costs

3750 Desks (5)
1250 Executive desk chairs (5)
800 Visitors chairs (10)
600 Conference table
1040 Conference room chairs (8)
800 File cabinets - small (4)
150 File cabinet - large
825 Book cases (5)
350 Conference room credenza
1100 Overhead projector
5000 File server (With keyboard, and monitor)
8000 Computer - desktop (5)
1500 Monitors (5)
980 Fax, copier, scanner (color laser)
750 Printer
660 Telephones (6)
750 Office accessories for offices/meeting room
475 White Boards / bulletin boards (5 offices)
250 White board for meeting room
250 Chair Mats (plastic, 5)
400 Letter head, envelopes
240 Coffee Machine, cups,
400 Small table and chairs (break room)
400 Refrigerator
400 Business cards (5 people)
150 Microwave
120 Trash cans
750 Decorations (plants,pictures)
950 LCD Television (with DVD)
800 Lab Bench and chair
140 Tool set (screwdrivers, wrenches, exacto)
240 Soldering Station
150 Multimeter
300 Microscope, power source
120 Wire, flux, solder, standard connectors
250 Power tools (drill/driver, dremmel)
3500 Oscilloscope with accessories
------  ------------------------------
 38590  One Time Expenses