I spend a lot of time in bookstores and surfing the Internet.  I’m looking for new ideas and solutions to age-old problems, breakthrough thinking and different perspectives on what’s going on in the world.  I like going to regular brick-and-mortar bookstores because I can compare books side-by-side, look over a book to see if it’s what I want to read.  There are still some things you just can’t do with the Internet! 

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to go to a couple bookstores that aren’t on my regular route.  As I went through the business, management, technology, and software sections of the store, I noticed that there weren’t any books that addressed the marketing needs of the independent emerging technology markets.  You know the companies I’m talking about; Google in 1999, Larry Ellison before Oracle was telling any fortunes.   These are the businesses fueling the economy and creating jobs in all sectors.  Our reliance on accurate data continues to grow.  Who wants their medical records inaccurate?  Who doesn’t appreciate maps that get us around construction, available on your cell phone? 

The independent emerging technology entrepreneurs are the people that make that happen.  But we’ll never know all of the great apps being developed if those businesses don’t market.  Marketing is another skill set, just like programming.  How do they learn how to market their products?  I’ve been in sales and marketing a very long time.  I’ve read countless books on the subject, tracked down articles, listened to seminars.  If you’ve created software to solve a need and now you’re ready to market it, you don’t have time to read all there is on marketing, figure out which parts you need to know, and which parts you don’t.  What you need is a focused integrated marketing system that walks you through the steps you need to complete to get your product to market.  I’ve looked and it just isn’t out there. 

I’ve created business development systems for many companies, across many advanced technology markets.  You can’t just put one together from reading books.  You have to know what works and why.  There’s always more than one way to accomplish a task, how do you know which is the right way for you?  I’ve discovered certain things that seem to work best for emerging technology businesses.  I’ll be sharing with you some of the things I’ve learned in the future with my blog postings.  So stay with us.

So my question to all of you is, what do you need to know to market your product?  What is the one thing you wish someone had told you when you started that you had to learn the hard way?  I’m looking forward to hearing your responses.

 Tripp Braden is a marketing consultant who specializes in developing seven figure partnerships.  Discover how to grow your company through extraordinary partnerships by visiting http://www.HighGrowthBusiness.com where you can find resources and products to increase your success.