Advice for a recent Business Graduate, by Frank Hannigan

Great guest post from Frank Hannigan, Start-Up Founder, Advisor, Investor and Senior Executive. Presently serving on boards including RTÉ, MedXnote and the IMCA. A mentor and coach with Enterprise Ireland on a number of programmes including Com+, Mentor Panel, Advocates for Export Readiness, Business Partners and Platform 4 Growth. Read more about Frank in an informative interview in Irish Tech News here. Title image from Pixabay.

Hi,

Congratulations on your first job after college.

You asked for some advice so here goes….

First, business development is about creating value for customers.

It is not about amassing money or information.

A sale is made when you can articulate a win-win outcome to a customer

You must believe they are getting more value than the solution’s cost.

More importantly they need to believe that too.

Second,  niche always

The world does not need another “me too” solution.

Tailor your solutions to be unique if possible, and to address specific problems always.

Ordinary is hard to sell and low margin.

Third,  enjoy life.

I still have friends who I sold to 25 years ago.

Those relationships generate happiness and income on an ongoing basis.

Focusing on the sale and not the customer invariably leads to one transaction.

In college your professors explained that repeating or recurring revenues are prized more highly than transactional revenues.

They were right.

Enjoy your new job and aim to do it brilliantly.

Oscar Wilde put it well when he said ” We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars”

Every job is an opportunity to shine.

Ciao,
Frank H

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