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Amongst my many ventures I run a new, small and unregistered content writing company. I have developed a decent working model with 15 employees. I am inexperienced in "for-profit" field.

I am willing to share 50% revenues on standard market rates. Is there any forum or community where I can find resellers for my services. Should I post an advert on Craiglists?

Please advise.

Thanks for all your help.

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I cannot post on Craiglists because they need a phone verified account from a USA phone. Also, I spoke to some professional outsourcing companies to hire sales staff, but their retainer fees are way out of our budget. (We are bootstrapping) – Prateek Mishra Nov 14 '10 at 13:42

4 Answers

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Craigslist? No, that would be unlikely to work well.

The thing about a good supplier-reseller relationship is that it takes inter-human trust both ways. The reseller needs to know that the product is good, and that the supplier will deliver respectable after-sales service. The supplier needs to know that the reseller won't deliver over-sold sales, i.e. sales where the supplier will end up looking bad no matter what.

Some ideas:

  1. First off, you must register your company, and set up a open, honest, understandable webpage explaining who you are, what you do, which references you have, where you are located, etc. Being transparent about your identity is step number one in building trust.

  2. You should consider starting a blog, and blogging about things relevant to your industry.

  3. Do a comprehensive search, and identify all the leading blogs and BBS's/forums within your field. Write a personalized introduction to each blogger, and let them know you're looking for new business. Create a presence on the forums, and write some good answers. On each forum, make sure to fill out your profile information so that forum members can write you back.

  4. Find people who consume services such as yours, but have professional knowledge of the field. Find online advertising bureaus, SEO consultants, or anyone else who needs content writing on a regular basis, and sell to them. You want to target bureaus and other B2B consumers of your services, because it takes more effort to sell to B2C consumers. In effect you're looking to get the bureaus to "resell" your service by bundling it with their own service and selling it to end users.

  5. While trade shows are much criticized, if you're new in the field, you can still make lots of good connections at trade shows. Go to the next one there is.

You should expect building out a reseller network to take time and energy. Do not make big compromises on your resellers, they represent you in the market, and if they're dishonorable it reflects on you (to a certain measure). Take your time, build trust, and verify how your resellers are handling things.

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Thanks for your suggestions. I have been working on them and it looks good so far. I really appreciate your help. – Prateek Mishra Dec 14 '10 at 3:49
up vote 1 down vote

I'm not sure reseller is the right word here. It sounds to me like what you are really looking for are websites where you can advertise your services? Is that correct? You mentioned you are bootstrapping, here are some suggestions for you to advertise your service that have a low monetary cost (but are time intensive):

  1. If you haven't already, start a blog. If you do have a blog, make sure to post regularly. Because you are in the business of selling content, having a blog on your website is probably more important for your business than for most of us. Every article you write is an advertisement for your business. By consistently producing good content you are proving the quality of your work. A potential customer may be more likely to choose you over the competition, if the competition doesn't have any proof of their work.

  2. Consider guest posting on other blogs. This allows you to put your service in front of people that may not have known about you any other way. Again, every blog post you write is an advertisement in itself, because it gives you the ability to showcase the quality of your writers. For the highest success rate, look for blogs in your industry. A big one is CopyBlogger. You can also try blogs that are not as targeted (like startup/small business blogs), but realize that your return on investment will not be as high. I'd be happy to volunteer my blog, and others on this site may be willing to help out as well.

  3. Also try article directories, like EzineArticles.

  4. Become active on LinkedIn:

    1. Search for people interested in your service, and engage them, without being spammy.

    2. Search for your competitors. Look at who recommends them, because they could be potential customers, and engage them. Look at what LinkedIn groups your competitors belong to, and join and participate in those groups.

    3. Actively participate on LinkedIn answers.

  5. Include your website and business information in your profile on this site. I think most of the users here have websites of their own. It's possible some of them may be in need of your content writing services. Just take a look at this question: Technical writing/Online help for web application. Those that have seen this question now know that you provide such a service, and may contact you.

  6. Take a look at the English Language and Usage StackExchange site. Include your business information in your profile and contribute to the site. Don't spam them, but instead be helpful and answer lots of questions.

You mentioned you are based out of India and Brazil. Some people may have some concerns hiring you to write english content because of that. By having lots of good quality content out on the web for people to see, you can eliminate that fear.

Hope this helps.

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While I asked about resellers in this question; your answer is very helpful. You just gave me a walkthrough for enhancing my online presence. Thanks a tonn. :) – Prateek Mishra Dec 14 '10 at 3:50
up vote 0 down vote

With In house talent for Content Writing, I bet the best approach would be to get a Blog started.

  • 60% Blog on topics that pertain to your potential consumers.
  • 30% Blog on topics that are interest to pertinent Industry (Content Writing)
  • 10% Blog on Anti Patterns, on Why your potential Customers should have used services like yours.

NB: The numbers are arbitrary... but my idea was on getting more in the face of the potential customer, and a little bit for your competing writers..

And as Jesper Mortensen said, Get Introduced to complimentary bloggers, and request for business, Its a give and take..

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up vote 0 down vote

Have you considered hiring a homeless guy to stand outside your building shaking a sign? It may just work???

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