Beyond Borders: How a Small Biz Sells to the World
Kimberly L. McCall, Copyright 2004

As a small-business neophyte seven years ago, I planned to make a living selling to Maine enterprises. Quit laughing. As many of you in the service game well grasp, depending solely on Pine Tree State receivables would leave one indigent or, at the very least, forced to drive a Kia. Bless the Web, business potential doesn’t stop at the York tollbooth.

Steve Waterhouse knows the power of selling his services beyond Maine. Waterhouse, president of Scarborough-based Waterhouse Group (www.waterhousegroup.com), is successfully selling his services to the world. Founded in 1993, Waterhouse provides sales consulting, training and coaching to companies such as Coca Cola, MCI and the U.S. Navy. In the midst of supporting clients in Dubai, Sidney, Los Angeles and Tokyo, Waterhouse found time to write the new book, The Team Selling Solution: Creating and Managing Teams That Win the Complex Sale (McGraw-Hill, 2004).

After starting his career in the early 80s as a design engineer on the Patriot missile system with Raytheon in Massachusetts, Waterhouse worked with Portland-based Vortech, which tested semiconductors. He launched Waterhouse Group after selling the Pennysaver newspaper group he and his wife ran for four years. I asked Waterhouse how his Maine-based business has flourished and landed deals with some of the world’s top brands.

Marketing Angel: It seems like there are at least three trillion sales consultants out there. How do you market yourself to stand out from the crowd?

Waterhouse: My training and experience gives me an advantage when dealing with companies that sell technical or engineering-based products. Very few sales consultants understand the market like I do. Focusing on my niche, I’m able to win a very high percentage of the business I go after. I think every businessperson has to find his own advantage in the market and then build his marketing around it.

Marketing Angel: You live in Maine, but sell worldwide. Can you offer advice to Maine business owners who’d like to sell nationally or internationally?

Waterhouse: First, think big. Just because you’re in Maine doesn’t mean you have to do the bulk of your business here. I do very little business locally. Using the Web, e-mail, direct mail and the telephone, I’ve been able to do business from Dubai to Tokyo.

Second, get out there. If you have value for companies around the world, you must be proactive and get the word out. The more clearly you define your niche, and the bigger your value in that market, the wider your geographic pull will be.

Third, look the part. I looked at my target customers’ websites and marketing materials, then asked my designers to make me look like them. This way, my prospects feel comfortable doing business with me, and seldom care where I’m located.

Marketing Angel: What’s been the most powerful marketing tactic you’ve used?

Waterhouse: The Web. We find that a high percentage of our word-of-mouth referrals come to the website first, then call. Our electronic newsletter helps us keep in touch with Web visitors at a very low cost. It’s amazing to see the quality of the business that comes from the website, including clients Sun Microsystems, Caterpillar Tractor and Iron Mountain.

I do very little traditional advertising. It’s much more effective to write articles and get them in magazines and trade journals. I work to get quoted in stories in key publications. When we do advertise, we use business publications, and use our ads to point people to our website.

Marketing Angel: Do tell, how'd you get the book deal?

Waterhouse: I’m a dyslexic who was thrown out of high-school senior English, so if I can do it, anyone can. I started writing because it was a requirement for success. Every time I wrote an article, I used it in my newsletter, sent it to publications and posted it on my website. One day, an editor from McGraw-Hill called. If you know anything about this business, you know that just doesn’t happen. He’d been reading my work and wondered if I would be interested in writing a book. I was too excited to even fake being cool.

Marketing Angel: What has the book done for business?

Waterhouse: I was under no illusions when I wrote this book. I knew that the chances of selling large numbers of books were very slim, and that royalty money would never pay for the effort. On the other hand, a book is one of the biggest credibility makers you can have. Companies know that major publishing houses are very particular, so they look at the book as McGraw-Hill’s stamp of approval. Leaders of major companies endorsed my book, and it’s been a very powerful door opener. I call it the million-dollar business card. When my marketing materials sit on a CEO’s desk next to my competitors’, and mine includes a signed copy of my book with a pile of CEO endorsements on the jacket, I win.

Marketing Angel: And now, the important stuff: April. Red Sox. Discuss.

Waterhouse: Any small businessperson has to be a Red Sox fan. We believe that anything is possible. We keep getting up to bat, no matter what the odds, or how well funded the competition is.

Kimberly L. McCall ("Marketing Angel") is president of McCall Media & Marketing, Inc., a business communications and writing company in Maine. She's the author of Sell it, Baby! Marketing Angel's 37 Down-to-Earth & Practical How-To's on Marketing, Branding & Sales. Sign up for the free Marketing Angel newsletter at www.MarketingAngel.com.