NZ Sales Manager launches

Last week saw the launch of my latest project, "NZ Sales Manager" - NZ's fortnightly e-magazine for sales professionals.

NZ Sales Manager is a free fortnightly e-mag delivering thought provoking articles, industry news, events and updates for forward thinking sales managers, business owners or sales professionals.

You can subscribe or find out more about NZ Sales Manager by visiting www.nzsalesmanager.co.nz.

This is a good example of the birth, evaluation and execution of an idea.

How I got the idea:

Being in the sales industry both as a salesperson and then business owner I always wondered why there was no specific publication for salespeople - after all there were over 186,000 Kiwi's employed in sales roles in 2006. Being close to the sales industry I spotted a gap and was able to find out that many others in the sales industry felt the same way.

Assessing the opportunity

Applying the five criteria from my previous post:

1) Am I passionate about the product/service/industry?

Absolutely. I believe that salespeople are the most important people in business and that learning how to sell is an essential skill for all entrepreneurs. (You don't have to agree with me!)

2) Does a market exist for your product or service and is the market big enough?

Yep. Having been immersed in the sales industry for the last 8 years I've been able to gauge what the industry needs. Is the market big enough? Definitely.

3) Is there a gap for you to become Number 1 in?

Yep. There is no existing independent and regular publication specifically for the sales industry.

4) Is it systemisable and can it run without me?

Yep again. There are far more capable people than me when it comes to putting a magazine together - printed or otherwise. While it has long been a goal of mine to create a publication such as this, all the elements of production and promotion can be done without me.

5) Cost. Do I have the resources?

In this case "yes". A few years ago "no".

Anyway, I am conscious of the difference between being a preacher and a teacher and hope this helps as a practical illustration of how to turn an idea into a business!

Richard Liew started his first business at the age of 23 and founded the Rev Sales Network, a personal and professional development network for salespeople when he was 27. Along the way he has helped develop sales strategies for several startup’s, helped extreme sport ‘le parkour’ (freerunning) find it’s feet in NZ, and is a regular newspaper and magazine contributor on the topics of sales and marketing. He is currently working on a recruitment related internet business. Email Richard here.