Go where your competition doesn’t go
May 7, 2018
By Jerry Bellune
More than 30 years ago, our friend Alan Wise was approached by two friends. They invited him to join their start-up company, Control Management in Columbia, S.C.
The company founders wanted to take advantage of what silicon chips provided.
The embedded circuits in these chips can contain millions of electronic components that do highly sophisticated tasks to automate buildings, manage energy use, lower costs and generate profits.
Alan was 24 years old. He asked what they wanted him to do. They said they could handle the engineering.
They wanted him to find customers, identify their needs and sell them their systems.
To work with an international systems maker, Alan had to come up with a marketing plan. What was his plan going to be?
“Go where they ain’t,” Alan said. He meant go into markets their competitors ignored. Myrtle Beach was a good start. It had hotels, hospitals, colleges, schools, all needing ways to control costs. And no one was working that market.
More than 30 years later, that little start-up has customers all over the world. They went where the competition wasn’t.
There is a great business lesson in that.
Who needs and wants what you have that your competition ignores. Go get ‘em.
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Copyright 2018, The Bellune Co., Inc.
