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Peter Coker Insights facilitation, marketing, strategy

Founder, Table Insights, serial entrepreneur and strategist. I have supported and resourced business owners for 15 years. I am passionate about working with entrepreneurs and business-owners to tackle their most significant business problems through facilitation.

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Member since November 2014

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Clarity

Peter Coker

Founder, Table Insights, serial entrepreneur and strategist. I have supported and resourced business owners for 15 years. I am passionate about working with entrepreneurs and business-owners to tackle their most significant business problems through facilitation.

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Entrepreneurship Lean startup Startup Consulting Marketing Strategy Business Strategy Leadership Development

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Professional Services Sales & Marketing

I am a certified business advisor and expert facilitator with over 15 years experience in consulting, business development and marketing. I will work with you to tackle your business problems using a toolkit I have built through years of training and experience. I will be open and honest with you and I will be 100% present for you in order to find the answers you need.

Talent Development

I am a Leadership Development Facilitator, certified to lead structured programs based on Dr. John C. Maxwell's work. I work with business owners and managers to build superstar teams that get results.

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Peter Coker answered

I would like to sell my homemade cookies for the holiday season. Will this strategy for customer acquisition be a viable option?

I would begin with a question: Why did you choose local businesses as the target market for your cookies? The best tactical approaches to marketing and sales will fail if there is no problem to solve.
Have you spoken with some of the employees to find out if they find that they need a snack to power through the day and experience some difficulty in filling that need? What are they doing now to fill that need? Is it difficult, inconvenient unhealthy or costly? Would they rather take a break and walk 5 minutes to buy one or have it delivered.......
Questions like this might help you identify if there really is a problem worth solving. If there isn't, they won't buy your product even if they like it.

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Marketing Strategy

Customer Acquisition

bootstrapping

Peter Coker answered

How do you decide on a startup's business model?

You may need to provide further details, but there are models out there that could help clarify your thinking.
Try the book 'business model generation' to help with this. The dashboard is a tool I use with my clients and we have had really great results. The last client I worked with ended up finding an opportunity they had been blind to and did over a million dollars in the following six months.

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Business Strategy

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Business Coaching

Peter Coker answered

What's the cause of thoughtlessness among employees? Bad hiring? Or bad management?

I read your story and I feel your pain, but I have bad news. The problem is not your people, the problem is you.
You have a responsibility that goes way beyond developing great products that wow customers; you have the responsibility of leading!

Leadership is one of those subjects that most people feel they have covered, I thought I had it covered too until I found myself in exactly the same shoes as you are wearing right now, and boy did it pinch. It took a while for me to realize I was the problem but three things clued me in:

1. I found out that I kept firing and hiring new people and it did not make a difference

2. I met a friend who was building a great company with what I would consider average people and he was really getting things done. The difference was that leading people came natural to him while building products came natural to me

3. I finally came to terms with the fact that I enjoyed being the solution point and the center of the product development universe. Clients loved me, me people stood in awe of me and I loved it and hated it at the same time

You need to get into a leadership coaching program. I'm sure you will find some very capable people on clarity but trust me, the sooner you start, the better.

Your organization will not change until you change, and there is no better way to say it. Like I said, I know your pain and you are not alone in this my friend.

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Peter Coker answered

I think I made a mistake trying to be founder and co-founder of two companies at the same time.

You have provided a lot more information about company B than you have for A. All I know at this point is that you are passionate about A, it's your baby and you have no partners to deal with.
I would like to dig deeper into the source of your stress in company B since it would appear to be doing better than A ( Just a guess because you have not spoken to the profitability or success of A)
Working in a partnership means that your ideas and suggestions will be challenged and your vision may not always be supported. It requires you to develop the skills of influence and humility; Influence to get the cooperation of others for your vision and humility to follow where others have the better idea. If you are all strong visionaries, it's going to be a hard balance to achieve, but one that is well worth it especially where your business is a winner.
Again, I have more questions for you than answers at this point l, especially since I don't have the full picture; but if my guesses are right, there might be more to be accomplished with A AND B than you might think my friend.

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Entrepreneurship

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Peter Coker answered

How do I build a product after loosing all my initial funding money?

What can you do when you run out of money before your product is built? Take your unfinished product to market. Business is fundamentally about getting customers a lot more than it is about building products.
I would presume that your half finished product was being built to solve a real problem? You need to go out there and find a few people who are really badly going through the pain of the problem you propose to solve with your half finished product. Show them how it works now and what it would do when finished and ask if they would be willing to place an order if you could deliver the product. In fact, could you get them to give you a purchase order? Even better.

If you can get that far, getting the finance for your business will not be that hard anymore.

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Funding

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Product Development

Peter Coker answered

What would be a good answer for describing the size of your company to a potential prospect who might consider you too small to service their account?

I have a question for you: Are their fears justified?
You see, the question is not really about size, it's more about the risks associated with size.
Have you honestly laid out all the risks that such companies might face by working with you and asked yourself how you have mitigated those risks? It's a better strategy than deflecting from the facts and hoping the company would take a gamble on you.
If you can lay out for them the risks that you know are true and genuine concerns and can show them how you have addressed those risks in your delivery model (If you have not done this, are you really prepared to handle such large accounts?) you will find that the question of size was never really the problem.

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Business Development

Sales

Marketing

Peter Coker answered

What should my consulting rates be as a freelance developer who can also do SEO, social media optimization and other marketing services?

Pricing is a marketing decision! You cannot answer that question by asking a forum like this. You need to ask your customers and prospects. List out the top companies in your field that serve the same market you are targeting and check out what they charge and how their services are bundled. Test out your findings with as many people in your target market as you can and carefully record the feedback you are getting. Adjust when required and keep reviewing your market and competition. It's ok to start as one person but extra help is important too. I will be happy to work with you to make this happen.

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WordPress Development

Consulting

Sales

Peter Coker answered

How can I effectively use an old email list from a previous business to jump start my next business?

My advise would be that you treat the list as though you'd had no previous dealings with them. They are not past customers and they have shown no interest in buying a coffee subscription, so treat this scenario like you would any first time meeting with a total stranger; get to know them or get them to know you.
Provide some valuable content to them for free that is connected to your current product. If you're lucky, a few of them will resonate with your content and may even show interest in the product. Woo them!
If your product is a match for just 10% of your list, it's a great start. Focus on delivering superior value to them so you can get them to introduce you to their network.
It's all about relationship and delivering outstanding value from there. I wish you all the best in your new venture my friend.

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Member since November 2014