Marketing Aquaculture Products — 1

and weaknesses.
• Assessment of target markets and less
obvious opportunities.
• Intelligence gathering of potential
customers and competitors.
• Lead generation for sales calls.
• Set sales policies and accounting
practices.
• Write, review and revise feasibility
studies, business plans, proposals,
product hand-outs, and presentations.
• Design and rehearse a concise “elevator
speech,” and a more involved sales
presentation.
• Network for internal businessenhancement
and sales leads.
• Create a marketing strategy “action plan”
of fi rst steps and longer-term goals.
• Encapsulate all of the above into a
written marketing strategy that becomes
part of your ongoing business plan and
active business model.
Most small- to medium-size companies do
not take the time to think about or establish
sound business plans that include procedures
for business development. Th ey rely on existing
contacts and perhaps the charisma of the
entrepreneur behind the venture. Th is can be
a fatal fl aw in running the business. Successful
small- to medium-size companies create business
plans and stick with them. Big businesses
even go a step further by developing formal
pipelines within their short-term business plans
where potential clients are assigned staff to
12 — Marketing Aquaculture Products
service their needs and develop sales. Progress
is routinely recorded and analyzed with respect
to the underlying reasons for wins and losses,
progress of opportunities in relation to the sales
process, note the most successful staff working
with the potential client and adjust the team
accordingly, and if sales are underway, look
at the sales customer service situation. Th ey
may even set up and manage alliances with
third-party companies to leverage one another’s
contacts and expertise.
Th e procedures and process of the big players
may seem out of the ballpark to the small
aquaculture producer, but this could not be
further from the truth. Successful businesses of
all sizes have universal procedures for ensuring
success, even in tough economic times. By
researching sound business-development practices,
developing a business and sales plan, and
networking, any size operation will benefi t.
So, where does one start? To get an order for
your aquaculture product, you need to do a
few things. First, identify companies (restaurants,
distributors, institutional food services)
and other potential outlets (farmer’s markets,
direct-to-consumer sales). MarketMaker will
help a great deal making this an easy exercise
(more on using MarketMaker in a later section).
Once you have your businesses and
outlets targeted, you need to identify the name
of the key person in that organization to whom
you hope to sell the product. Th is person is a
decision-maker. Don’t settle for anyone else.
If it is a restaurant, it may be the chef and not