3 Things to Remember When Planning Your Sales Pitch

Sales is a very important–yet often overlooked–part of a business plan. The truth of the matter is that you need a solid sales plan to get your product noticed and turn consumers into customers. But what are the elements startups should remember when planning their sales division?

1. Make sure you are financially set.

You know that cliche, “You need to spend money to make money”? Launching a startup isn’t cheap and you need to make sure you have the financial backing to keep you going until you start to turn a profit. Regardless of whether you’ve chosen to fund your startup through crowdfunding, venture capitalists or loans, you need to be sure that the funding is there for when you need it.

2. Know your product and know your market.

Both of these concepts should be obvious, but in case they are not: in order to successfully launch your startup into the competitive FinTech or InsurTech field, you need to know your company and product well enough that you can argue its worth to any potential buyers and you need to know your market to know how to work within it.

Are you actually the first company to launch a product and service in the field or do you have competitors? What makes your startup unique and profitable? These are things you need to know and use to survive those stressful early days. Use these facts to push your startup as the ideal investment.

3. Develop a solid sales and marketing campaign.

Yes, the product/service is important. But how you sell it may be even more important. Pitch it to the wrong section of the market and you’ll fail. Launch an unsuccessful initial marketing plan and you will fall flat before you ever taste success. Target your most profitable audience and research the best way to reach them. This will be especially important in the burgeoning FinTech and InsurTech markets, as you need to sell people on a new form of technology and the wrong sales campaign will send them to your competition.

In order to grow your business you need to increase your customer base and revenue and a successful sales plan is the best way to achieve this. Create a plan that reaches your target audience and watch as your revenue grows.

How Millennials and FinTech Are Changing the Loan Process

Millennials, as they grow as a force in the market, are becoming incredibly important to companies and knowing how their lives differ from the previous dominating generation (the baby boomers) is important for any company that wants to gain their patronage.

There are obvious and well-known differences between the two groups. Familiarity with modern technology, for example, acts as a divider. But there are also less known factors that smart startups can use to create winning companies for the millennial market.

The relationship millennials have with the credit industry is very different to the one baby boomers had and have. After witnessing the 2008 financial crisis, millennials are incredibly wary of these institutions providing (supposedly necessary) loans that in turn lead to a solid credit rating. On top of that, thanks to changes made in the credit industry, those who actually decide to apply for credit cards have more difficulty when it comes to getting their application approved.

But then what do members of this generation do if they need a credit rating? Whether you trust the big banks or not, a positive credit rating is very much needed to take many of the conventional steps one takes in becoming a proper adult (car loan, mortgage, etc.).

FinTech saw this need and came up with a new borrowing experience. The startup Float allows its clients to take out micro-credit lines (from $50-$1000) that are linked with their debit cards. With an easy online application and an instant credit decision, it’s clear that this startup is going to positively impact the lives of many busy and stressed millennials desperate to establish themselves in the adult world.

Although Float is still in its early stages and not yet available nationwide, the company will definitely prosper in a market anxious for a new borrowing experience. Borrowing is definitely set for a makeover and naturally FinTech has stepped up to the plate.

How Startups Will Lead the Bitcoin Revolution

The bitcoin revolution is coming and when it reaches full impact our relationship to currency will be overhauled. With the value of bitcoin continuing to rise and the benefits becoming more and more understood by the world’s population, startups can ingrain themselves in the new world order by using their services to show how amazing bitcoin is.

It is true that change is hard and conventional currency is bred into our society. The right startups, however, can change the tide.

Look at Purse. A true  game changer, it states in its mission that it seeks to make bitcoin useful and it is doing this by providing more situations in which it can be used. By first offering customers the opportunity to use bitcoin and then adding in an incentive in the form of a discount to bitcoin transactions, Purse is aiming to make bitcoin the easier and better option.

Of course, another great way to win people over is to tie your startup to a service or technology that is fully engrained in their lives. For example, social media.

This is what Reveal did. The startup uses its custom social network system to connect users across the globe. Then, it chose to incorporate a reward system into its software. Original users (or “founding members”) will receive access to compensation from advertisers through Reveal’s own payment system. As advertisers are required to use Reveal Coin, the use of the technology will lead to stock prices increasing, increasing the portfolio of the founding members. What greater benefit could there be than revolutionizing people’s use of money and increasing their financial portfolio?

Money is definitely changing and the innovation seen in FinTech startups are a great example of why money is undergoing this evolution and where it will end up. It is definitely an exciting time in the world of cryptocurrency.

How Startups Will Beat Back Big Banks

Remember David and Goliath? This massive giant, so sure of his superiority, was overtaken by his miniscule opponent because David knew how to best use the tools he had at hand.