It is after developing your strategy and
plans for your business and marketing as in the previous post that you are ready
for execution.
Operational Excellence is a key in this
phase, assuming you have developed your products and services hence you decided
to do your business and have reached to this point.
That is, the end-to-end chain of marketing,
BD (business development)/sales follow-up of leads generated, and distribution of
your products & services you’re your local staff or partner operating
smoothly, to deliver value to your target customers.
From web content I come across it seems
many people tend to think marketing and sales are different and it is a
challenge for the two to work together. To customers all functions of the
company/business/brand is the same. You need to provide high quality customer
experience at all touch points, online and offline.
Doing marketing targeting the market and
customers you are not so familiar with is a challenge while there is some ways
to overcome that. And, when your marketing becomes a success; i.e. generates
leads (e.g. customers are interested in your products & services and wanting
to know more) you need to make sure you follow up and this is sales, which
needs to be done locally otherwise it would not work.
And, what is more, distribution which come
next is a challenge especially if your business of selling tangible products as
you can imagine. You cannot do this globally only but what if you cannot set up
an entity in Japan and hire local staff?
Moreover, collecting money from your
customers after delivery is crucial and this also requires someone doing this
locally. How can you overcome this?
This is one of the topics I have covered in
my two eBooks I wrote, which was published by StartiaLab, a leading Japanese
eBook publisher in November, 2015.
English version: 7 Things to Know to be Successful in Business in Japan
