Market entrance

Even when you are building a market around your product or services, you enter a market, because it is many layers of markets. A person exist not only in yours, but also in the market around a tooth paste, a washing soap, an enterprise or organisational model, a car, and countless other products. If and when your product is close to another product (solves the same or a similar problem), the markets overlap and you enter the other’s market.

Get a lay of the land first

When in a context and business that chooses to not work with investments and use pull marketing, a vision becomes less important. For building a sound commercialisation strategy, some generalisations and research for a map that shows us some of the market place dynamics can be really handy.

• Make a value map from raw materials to finished product(s)/service(s).
• Analyse what’s happening with dominating major players “near you”.
• Analyse the waste for pressures and constraints on processing and disposal.
• Look at environmental factors: Cultural, demographic, economic, natural, political, military, and technological.
• Do internet searches using “industry analysis” with the name of the with your product/service associated industry. Locate two or three good review articles discussing trends in that industry.
• Contact agencies and local Chambers of Commerce to see what kind of studies have been conducted on specific industry trends.
• Try a “trade outlook” (or translation thereof in/for your local language/context) search.

When entering

When a new company, product or service enters a marketplace to put up a new stall, it introduces a disruption away from the equilibrium the market place can be imagined to be in. The reaction to your entrance can vary dependent on market capacity.

• When demand is higher than capacity, likely your competitors get distracted.
• If supply is higher than demand, you can expect competitors to act more aggressively to your entrance.

Whatever, your entrance will elicit a response.

Anticipate responses

A stakeholder is any business or person that will be affected by your entry. Impact can be positive, negative or neutral, reflecting if and how much they believe they will be affected by your entrance. Who will benefit, and who will be harmed by a paradigm shift? All stakeholders negatively affected by your entry, will have reason to attempt to thwart your success. Anticipate and consider how to deal best with what is likely to happen.

You only get one time to make a first impression … … And that works both ways. The Making an Entrance workshop explores ways of entering a group, and the effect our behavior can have on others.

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