Low hanging fruit

Funny to see how many companies often are doing business the difficult way. Some weeks ago I advised a fellow business consultancy in a developing country about their market strategy and we discussed the type of client they wanted to have: they were looking for large international companies and governmental organizations they said, both from their own country and also from neighboring countries.

I was stunned !

‘Why big companies? Why do you think big companies want to do business with a local business consultant with an organization of half a dozen consultants? Why do you think you’ll have a realistic chance of doing business with these organizations: why would they choose you to be advised and not from their accountant which will most likely be an organization operating on a global scale, having business consultants as well?’ These were just some cries from the hart.

Now after such a provocative series of questions the discussion had a good start and they wanted to know my opinion about the type of clients they had to look for. The story of the big apple tree came into my mind. 'Look', I said ‘here in your town is a huge apple tree, covered with delicious apples. You want a reasonable portion of that. And what do you do? You buy a ladder and try to pick the uppermost apples, because for some reason you think it’s important to pick specifically these apples. And I , I also like to have apples, I just walk into that tree and pick me a nice portion at eye level.’

We talked about prestige for a while, which seems to be much more important in developing countries than in my country and we discussed about the real important items of doing business: having clients who pay your bill, helping you to make a good profit, creating continuity and maybe also create some image. I also pointed out that developing countries with an economical growth of some eight to ten percent will have  lots of managers of middle sized enterprises looking for support on items like management skills, marketing & sales, human resource management, leadership, accounting, banking, et cetera: they all want to be advised, educated and coached. So ‘your apple tree is definitely full of delicious apples!’ my conclusion was.

 

This discussion brought us to another item: recent developments in the Netherlands show that many highly specialized companies - often in creative industries – search for new clients on the adage of Fun , Fame & Fortune, which is not bad at all.

Well, maybe you'll say: ‘If it’s easy to find enough clients I could consider to do so as well, but what if I can’t find enough of them?’  In that case Fun, Fame & Fortune actually is still a good idea: it will help you to make the right choices in creating a plan to acquire those new clients. Imagine you’ll find lots of clients that do not bring fun, or they are not profitable at all. Fame in my country maybe is something we will put aside easier, but still, if there’s no fame at all, why should we do business?  

My overseas friends where a bit surprised by my approach. And maybe it was a little bit too much at once: they had to think about the idea. Now we had time enough, so after a few days we picked up the discussion and they developed a solid, realistic business plan that followed the principles of Fun, Fame & Fortune and of 'low hanging fruit’.  

We will meet again next year!

 

 

go back to Documents in English

  • Fun Fame Fortune

  • Don't buy a ladder

  • Your apple tree is full of apples

     

     

stay in touch55.gif

 

go back to

Documents in English

Diez iez Vietnam

This book is about the story of life of prof. Adrie van Gelderen. I met him on one of my PUM missions where he was a local representative of PUM. Adrie told me he had a manuscript of his story of life and asked me my opinion about publishing it. I promised to read it and give my comments. And indeed I did: I told him that his book would not be a profitable cash cow, however, publishing your own literary thoughts will give tremendous satisfaction, it's fun to do and it's not expensive at all.

Now Adrie was seriously ill at that time and unfortunately he passed away before we could take his book into production. So we, being Adrie's friends, decided to publish the book posthumously and donate all the refunds to his 'affiliate-foundation'.

'Diez iez Vietnam!'  is written in English. A copy can be ordered by clicking the link.