Scotland's Economy
Scottish EDGE helps aspiring businesses
February 18, 2013 by Sir Tom Hunter 1 Comment | Category Economy, Event
Anyone troubled by Scotland’s business start-up rates would have had a huge boost last week had they been at the EDGE judging panel.
The EDGE – Encouraging Dynamic Growth Entrepreneurs – Fund has been led by John Swinney who deserves a watch for not only listening to the challenges start-ups face, but then doing his bit to plug the gaps.
The Scottish Government initially committed £1 million to the fund but then, having been inundated with applications from aspiring high growth businesses doubled it to £2 million.
Investing up to £50,000 in entrepreneurial businesses, I alongside Sir Willie Haughey and many others this week sat on the panel to select the first lucky recipients from a shortlist of 20.
Except luck had nothing to do with it. These were driven, hardworking aspirational people dedicated to building their business ideas here in Scotland. Some were undoubtedly domestic plays, but others were globally focused, up and at it to conquer the world. It was inspirational – Willie shed a tear (ok I’m exaggerating).
Undoubtedly no matter what happens some will fail of that there is no doubt, but as in America we should not fear failure it’s the one thing that debilitates success beyond all others. As Thomas Edison put it ‘I’ve not failed, I’ve just found 10 000 ways that don’t work’.
But we can do a lot, as this fund has in one respect, to prevent failure by providing these businesses, the next generation of entrepreneurial Scotland, the right kind of support.
If there was one consistent area of these businesses where support was obviously needed it was sales and marketing. You can have the finest product in the land but if you can’t sell it and get it in front of your consumer you are frankly wasting your blood, sweat and tears.
The panel quizzed the forty pitchers hard and with one or two exceptions sales and marketing was an issue, an issue we have to address as we plug this finance gap, we then need to plug the next one: sales and marketing expertise.
This is an area that truly troubles me and has done for some time. Of the hundreds of entrepreneurs through my door over the years it’s been a consistent theme.
Of course there are answers here and quick wins – Entrepreneurial Spark is of course one answer, but we need to expand that to reach out to all key centres of entrepreneurial dynamism in Scotland. Of course we also need to ensure our education system prepares our young people for the world of work appropriately.
Enterprise education is crucial to this – I remember so well the pupil from an Ayrshire school telling me he hated maths and English as he polished his pizza marketing plan and pricing strategy for the local supermarket; no horse on it you understand!
So sales and marketing is our next gap to plug John, but for the moment let’s celebrate the high impact businesses that had the cojones to get up there and show how they planned to conquer the world. Well done to you all.
Recipients of Scottish EDGE funding will be announced in Edinburgh this evening (Monday 18 Feb). We will be tweeting live from the event, follow @ScotGovEconomy for updates from 6.30pm.
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Sir Tom Hunter has hit the nail on the head regarding the lack of sales and marketing expertise within Scotland.
67% of owner managed businesses (including start-ups) don’t like selling or don’t believe they are good at it which in turn means that they don’t have an effective sales plan in place. The gap in sales expertise is directly responsible for the high failure rate of start ups today and it has Sir Tom states we need to ‘plug this gap’
Business owners today are proud to say that they are ‘not a salesperson’ yet sales are the lifeblood of their business.
They don’t want to be seen as a ‘pushy’ salesperson which in turn means that they don’t interact efficiently with their customers.
I have founded my company Total Sales Solution with one goal in mind to improve the way that Scottish businesses sell so that we can reduce our failure rate and ultimately grow our economy.
So ‘how’ do I intend to do this? By ensuring entrepreneurs understand that consistent sales, results from understanding your customers and what they want.
We don’t need to ‘hard sell’, but if you have a product or service that solves a problem or enhances your customers life then you should be proud to sell it. After all the evidence that you have a good product or service is measured by how many people buy it!
With up to 50% funding available via Skills Development Scotland there is help available to improve the one skill which will determine if your business survives and grows or not.
I’m with Sir Tom, we need to focus on improving our sales & marketing expertise.
Lets start to be proud of our sales ability.
Founder of Total Sales Solution