“Woh first aana chahta hai lekin padna nahi chahta” – Deepti Dwivedi @ Udhyam Vyapaar in reference to an Entrepreneur she was working with.
At Udhyam Vyapaar, we work with grassroots entrepreneurs and help them scale and succeed. When we started, we were approaching them directly: going to their place of business, striking up a conversation and pitching Vyapaar. We’ve learnt a bit from that experience and here’s the synthesis of the responses to our pitch:
- “I do not want to listen” [10%]
- “I am tied up, can you come back later?” [60%]
- “Ok, tell me about Vyapaar” [30%]
After listening to the pitch:
- “I am not interested”/”I don’t need help” [50% drop-off]
- “Maybe I could use help but that is beside the point; what’s in it for you?” [20 drop-off%]
- “I am happy with my business, I don’t want to grow” [10 drop-off%]
- “Yes Sir. I need help with one thing (and just that one thing)” ( Typically Money or Hiring) [10% drop-off]
After significant drop-offs at various points above, less than 10% of the entrepreneurs we pitch to, end up actively working with us and over a 3 month time, the number of entrepreneurs actively engaged with us is around 5%.
We are trying other approaches now:
- Reaching entrepreneurs via influencers and
- Referrals from entrepreneurs who find value in working with us.
