Sales and customers reach a critical mass. Employee numbers are now becoming significant. Whereas sales was crucial previously, the imperative now shifts towards developing the company’s brand position in the market and an operational, decentralised infrastructure with the capability to sustain growth as the “hot product” fades and members of the initial founding team moves on.

Presentations will typically have two key communication tools: the first is the entrepreneur (& a second team member) as communicators; the second is a PowerPoint presentation & presentation folder.

At pitch meetings, it is clearly important to get it right and make the favourable first impression. This cannot be done alone; it is impossible to pitch, present and listen at the same time.

Building trust in your company and its product amongst prospective customers, often in other countries, is one of the biggest marketing challenges for the rapid growth stage entrepreneur. There is significant brand benefit in having a key prospective customer or group of customers visit your company premises, meet your key management, staff and advisors/suppliers.

Once you have segmented your target market, identified the target audience’s buying process and devised your positioning, you will find that the best way to structure, equip and manage your sales force will be apparent.

In the not so distant past, companies designed their marketing channels (or go-to-market networks and mechanisms) in a very simple and straightforward way. They sold their products directly to all customers in the one way. Such a ‘one size fits all’ channel strategy is no longer tenable in today’s fragmented markets and customer multi-segments.

You will need different mixes of marketing communication tools as your business evolves through the growth path and as products go through the lifecycle.

Choosing the best way to enter a market is no simple task. Should the market entry objective be rapid acquisition of significant market share or stay below the radar to secretly build market share? There is no single strategy to fit all companies, products and markets. However the following framework can be used to guide decisions about the right market entry strategy for your venture.

Complete the following four statements and use them as the basis for creating your company’s brand name, logo and tag-line.

Branding is one of the most difficult challenges the entrepreneur faces in creating and then subsequently realising value in the business venture.

Al and Laura Ries * make the point that being first to market with a new product or invention doesn’t mean you win. You also have to be first in the market’s ‘mind’ for that product.

The favoured export market entry strategy favoured is to select a first-priority region, secure initial business revenues and then focus on building operations there, rather than trying to expand into all regions at once. This is termed the win-and-build approach.

The favoured export market entry strategy favoured is to select a first-priority region, secure initial business revenues and then focus on building operations there, rather than trying to expand into all regions at once. This is termed the win-and-build approach.

As the business enters into rapid growth stage and marketing and sales effort increases, it is important to focus new staff in sales and service on the target segments.

Fuelling rapid growth comes from gaining sustainable competitive advantage and differentiation - which will come from looking for ‘response bases’ to identify an uncovered (unsatisfied) market segment.