Bolts from the blue: how to turn them into good business
What’s the best way to handle unsolicited approaches in an age where anyone and everyone can send a message via your website?
One day in 1999, three 20-something Indian men just out of their MBAs sat under a big tree in Mumbai and decided that cinema management software was their ticket to success. They founded a company called BigTree Entertainment and, seeking a supplier, sent a speculative email to Auckland-based Vista Entertainment Solutions.
CEO Murray Holdaway (pictured) takes up the story: “We said we’d help them out, talked to them on the phone over several months, did some online demos and made a sale of about US$50,000. Then we were looking at ourselves saying, ‘we’ll have to send the software to people we have never met – will they send the money?’”
The money did arrive … and 11 years later, with BigTree acting as Indian agent, Vista software is installed in 60-70 percent of India’s modern multiplexes; India is Vista’s second most important market in numbers of site installations. And those three young men, now in their 30s, are “very close family friends,” says Holdaway.
So what’s his advice for making the most of unsolicited approaches?
Respond swiftly to enquiries. Vista policy is to reply to every single website-generated information request within 24 hours. “We’ve all had experiences when you get to a website, fill in a form and don’t hear anything for a week,” says Holdaway. “That’s unacceptable – you’ll never do business internationally like that. And that first contact should be fast and caring, sending back something intelligent and personal. Something like ‘we’re glad you’re interested, we’d like to know more about you’.”
Look to make connections, by mentioning, perhaps, that your business already has a customer in that country. “We try immediately to establish a rapport, to make them feel good about dealing with us.”
Keep an open mind and don’t have any preconceived notions “based on race or country or anything like that. Treat every approach as a potential opportunity; a lot of people are unnecessarily suspicious.”
Validate. Ask questions about the business and what it aims to achieve; is it customer group one you seek? Trust gut instinct.
Tap New Zealand Trade and Enterprise insight. NZTE offices in New Delhi and Mumbai can research companies; Holdaway has been impressed with its service in India.
Ask for a sizeable deposit before anything is commissioned. “We tend to go for about 30 percent – enough to be significant.”
Be patient with others’ English, and don’t think that because someone struggles with English that they lack smarts or knowledge.
These days, Holdaway guesstimates that anywhere up to 40 percent of Vista’s new business overall stems from unsolicited approaches. However, he adds that India is the source of the majority of approaches that go nowhere, often from “one-man-bands emailing from their bedrooms … that’s because Indians are so entrepreneurial.”
Auckland-based Walker Group Architects got into India after a picture of its Metro Sky City Entertainment Centre, taken by principal and keen photographer Ashley Gillard-Allen, was part of an exhibition in London in 1999.
A senior staffer of Inox, an industrial group keen to enter the multiplex business, saw it; Gillard-Allen was invited to Mumbai, though at his own cost. “I thought: well, what have I got to lose? At worst I might waste a week, but I would have gained a week of experience.”
Photo: An Inox multiplex in Goa.
The company has since designed 10 multiplex cinemas for Inox and has been involved in shopping centres, food courts, leisure facilities and apartment buildings. But Gillard-Allen wouldn’t recommend rushing to India: “Show that you are keen, but don’t jump on a plane. Get the client to come and see you, to make the effort.”
Peter Baker, NZTE Beachheads advisor for India, says that companies should consciously position themselves to make the most of unsolicited approaches. That should include networking and joining industry groups to get known – and making the most of the groups’ collective knowledge to check out bona fides.
Baker is surprised how few Kiwi companies in India know each other. The potential in knowing what fellow New Zealanders do is too often overlooked, he says. So is the value of joining bodies like the Australian New Zealand Business Association in India and the Wellington-based India New Zealand Business Council. “Why would you not want to join?” he asks. “Some of the members are major players who would be very useful.”
- by Julie Middleton
This article was written in November 2010. Photos: supplied/Wikimedia Commons.