Getting into a business

I have recently written to a well known branded running shoes company inUSA hoping to represent them in Malaysia. They are almost unheard of in Malaysia, and because of that I am hoping that they will be interested in my high level business plan that I submitted via an email. I dont expect them to respond to me bcos they have no idea who I am by looking at the plan. But surprisingly they came back to me a couple of days (thanks to the power of the Internet) via an email from their UK office. They have shown interest to explore further and have directed me to work with their local distributor in Malaysia. Huh!!!, you mean there is someone representing them...and if that is the case, these people are definitely not working or do not know how to sell the products. Dont even see any marketing campaign from them to promote their products in Malaysia.

Immediately I got in contact with the local distributor and started a conversation to explore a business partnership. I told them they have to be somewhat technically sound to sell a running shoes, not just selling it of the shelves. It wont work. It will be to their advantage if they have people in the running communities to promote the shoes. Immediately I zoomed in from that angle to take advantage of the knowledge and expereience I had, and the value-add I can offer (I knew the local distributor will not have that). I am applying the BLUE OCEAN strategy, thanks to LIFEMOU for introducing that to me. Make your competitors irrelavant ie those dealers out there that are already selling the products but have totally no clue how to promote it.

After listening to what I have briefly explain to them on my strategy and my knowledge of their products (thats my marketing speech), they are interested to listen to a more detail plan. They have even admitted that I know more than them on the products they sell. They have requested me to come out with a more detail plan and are willing to explore the business partnership.

Bang,Bang,Bang... I hit it on the right note. Will spend some time carving out the marketing plan and get some market research activities going to equip myself for the next meeting. I will crack my brain cells over the weekend to see how can I able to get this brand to command a pie in the current marketshare. I will start to seek feedbacks, advise and evaluations from fellow running frens about this product and its opportunity of doing well in the Malaysia market.

Teee Tittt, Teee Tittt, Teee Tittt - the alarm of my PDA phone rang. Its 0545. My wiffy said, are you doing your morning run? Woke up with blurry eyes....and I asked myself, where is my marketing plan. And I realized it was just a DREAM. Dream I will and I have always aspired to do something like that ie managing a business that have relation to my hobby and that is RUNNING. I hope this dream will come true in the near future; like a Walt Disney fairy tale story. Hopefully my dream will continue to complete my business plan.

Thats all folks !!!!