Done with the certifications? Time to get serious about capturing the market. The certifications will continue to come up, but after a few basic certifications, one should move all their focus on marketing the business. Start attending all the conferences, pre bid meetings. Meet the prospective Clients. Try to get under the wings of bigger businesses. It is very difficult to start off yourself, though not impossible, but as they say, get some experience first, especially if you are new in the market. See how the market works, how one get most out of market’s behavior.

This is the most important and time consuming part. One has to be very vigilant about the time. Try to get several appointments in a day. Make most of it, do not waste your time. Like they say, bearing the child is the easy part, raising the child according to the expectations is the difficult part. This is the time to raise the business, and this time will reflect your future standing in the market. One make market aware that they exist, build their credibility, learn from others, make other companies who have been in the market for a long time, be your mentor, and I tell you they would be more than happy to help you out, guide you, because right now your business is not the threat to them, rather they can benefit from you. For example, let’s say your company is HUB certified or Women Business Certified. A big company bids for some project, only to find out they have to have either this number of Women Business Certified Company, or may be HUB certified company. Now they find that they are few less of these certified companies, so if you are under their wings, they will put you on their sub’s list. So never leave any opportunity thinking it might not work. Don’t argue with yourself, let them say “NO”, because then there is a chance of saying “YES” too. As the first rule of negotiation, “you don’t ask you don’t get”.

Whenever I introduce my company to anyone, I tell them “I am looking for small contracts.” Here is an important thing to be noted, never say “we are not looking for big projects, we are looking for small contracts” this would give the other person a negative vibe that they are not ready to accept the challenges. Always try to keep the conversation in the positive mode. Recently I happened to attend a pre bid meeting. A high level personnel asked me, “is a one million project is big for you or small?” to think about it, for a startup business, it sound pretty big, but my reply was, “it depends, if you give me a project and tell me to manage everything, it’s a small project for us, as at the end of the day, I will get 15% or maximum 20% out of it, but if you give me the project as a work, it will be rather big for us”.

Make yourself visible in the market as well as to the people, don’t hesitate to ask and never think you can’t do it. Keep these things in mind and you will be home.