Focus on Sales
The best thing that happened to us at FundingUniverse was our renewed drive to focus on Sales & Marketing. About 3 months ago, we were facing a very difficult situation where cash was low and we were needing to get our subscription model launched. During the previous 4-6 months, our company was very focused on research & development. We spent quality time planning and developing a compelling membership subscription, but it was time to get the product to market.
At the time (3 months ago), our team came together and made some very difficult decisions and sacrifices with the ultimate decision being that we would work harder, stay up later, and give more. What happened next was clearly remarkable: office doors began to shut (less distractions), the daily ritual of the office basketball break was soon forgotten, and the team got on the phones. It was a spectacular phenomenon: the team was taking home less yet giving more.
The decision: Focus on Sales & Marketing.
It was the best thing that ever happened to our company. Jeff and the team started rocking on the phones. We brought in a Rockstar named Jerry Khemraj. Jerry knows his stuff and helped to get things off the ground.
Results: 1. December was a record month of revenue. 2. January doubled December’s revenue. 
I like it.
Hey Brock-
Glad to hear record breaking sales news. Very exciting! Our primary focus for the past year has also been lead generation and sales. It was a critical step to our investor, showing him we can generate the type of sales we projected. Next step…focusing on profits. A great book “The Art of Profitability” helped me understand the importance of always having that term “profit” in the back of your mind as you focus on marketing, sales, and operations.
Amazon.com CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said it best “We were hoping to build a small, profitable company. And of course, what we’ve done is build a large, unprofitable company.”
This is an error - you’re not ready yet - at least for me
Ok, so the marketing drive got me to step up and submit to the trial, and then the $19.95 review got me to think about an external review, so I bought in - but this is where it stops
Here’s my experience - you pigeonhole an existing business plan into your model and there’s nowhere obvious to upload an actual document . . . so you don’t get all the information . . and then you assess based upon partial information and respond telling me that that stuff that didn’t fit your model so was left out was missing, and I get a poor rating . . . and that you’ll call me for 10 minutes and provide a review
Need to ease up on the marketing and get the product right - otherwise you’re going to lose your early adopters
@Steve,
Thanks for the comment that you left on my blog. I just tried calling you to discuss the details of your experience but didn’t have any luck connecting.
I appreciate your willingness to take the time to provide feedback and I’m sorry that you had problems uploading the documents onto our website. Because of your recommendation and the recommendation of others, we have made a few minor adjustments to the business plan profile so that it is clear how to upload your current documents/business plan. We have always had that option available — in fact, we highly recommend that our users upload whatever files they might have (whether it be video, PPT, PDF, or a word doc.) – but we have noticed that it was not clear how or where to upload your documents. It should be now.
Our business plan analysts also provide the rating based on all of the information that is available – both the profile fields and the uploaded documents. Again, I’m sorry about the misunderstanding and would like to make sure that we re-rate your plan with all of your documents included. After you upload your business plan, please notify me personally so that I can have an analyst re-rate your opportunity (for FREE, of course).
Does this help? If there is anything else that we can do to help you have a positive experience, please contact me by email or phone.
Brock - you’re a gent and this attitude will make you succeed. I’ll try again and anything I can do to help let me know.
Brock, I wanted to get your opinion on Multi Level Marketing in general. Maybe this is not the best place to ask this question. Is this stuff really considered Marketing at all? I heard about a movie coming out about MLM. It’s a comedy/mockumentary called Believe The Movie.
www.believethemovie.com
It looks pretty funny to me. I’m getting sick of people constantly trying to convert me to their business. I think the movie is coming out in April.