Questions regarding selling products to both new and existing customers of the business.
3
votes
6answers
248 views
Clients taking a long time to pull the trigger
We are a startup building an e-learning tool for the medical education market, and we had a few meetings with colleges.
One potential client is taking a long time to decide whether to use our ...
3
votes
6answers
344 views
What are some effective ways to promote a book?
I am curious if anyone has any experience promoting a book. I have read a bunch of posts about various promotion methods but I have not seen a whole lot of posts on what is the most effective. By ...
3
votes
7answers
507 views
3
votes
6answers
248 views
How can I improve my enterprise sales?
I have a SaaS product that helps certain type of companies improve their sales leads. My target audience is VP or Director of Sales - anybody within the company whose job is to increase sales.
So far ...
3
votes
9answers
422 views
Do you start selling/advertising the product before its complete
Is better to start advertising, creating a buzz, (possibly) selling the product before its complete.??
3
votes
3answers
161 views
What type of employee do I need?
My SaaS company consists of myself (founder and developer), another developer, and a support person. Our new app is starting to gain traction, and as a result, I'm on the phone with potential / new ...
3
votes
5answers
152 views
What if you didn't START lean?
I have successfully launched a startup. It is a niche school management system for Montessori Schools. It's profitable but doesn't produce a lot of income (translated: can't quit my day job). My ...
3
votes
4answers
142 views
Semi Start-Up - Pricing Negotiation
I'd love to get your feedback on the following:
After several months of talking with the directors of this firm, I am near to closing the deal.
Overall, they love our solution and want to move ...
3
votes
2answers
221 views
Screen captures vs short videos which is more effective at converting customers?
Has anyone measured the effectiveness of static screen captures with text versus a screen cast with voice in converting customers (for a software application)? Do you find that it is a natural ...
3
votes
3answers
218 views
Even after 1 year, the ecommerce site isn't showing good results
Last year around august, I joined an eCommerce start-up(handicraft items) as the technical head. Though, the company was online for more than 4 months prior to me.
The website look and feel was ...
3
votes
3answers
546 views
CRM Packages - Market Research
Not totally sure if using this forum for this purpose is frowned upon but I thought I would try it as a way to start a debate focussed less on simply reviewing current market offerings and more on ...
3
votes
2answers
870 views
Building a Sales “Deck”
Guy Kawasaki in Art of the Start talks about having two decks, an investor pitch deck and also a sales deck. Have you found this to be useful? I'm about to go pitch to 2 - 3 potential customers as ...
3
votes
1answer
99 views
Giving away a free copy of software to entice people to leave their email
I've just been reading a book by Rob Walling titled "Start Small, Stay Small" and I came across an interesting idea (one of many he has in the book). I wondered what people on here thought.
My ...
3
votes
1answer
77 views
Sales website similar to the Answers.Onstartups format
I recently joined a startup and am glad that I found this website to help out with startup related questions etc...
I was wondering, does anyone know if there exists a similar website to that of ...
3
votes
2answers
255 views
Reseller Discounts for Annual Maintenance?
We offer our resellers (ones that actively go out and sell to customers) a 25% discount on software licenses.
We have just introduced an annual maintenance fee, at 20% of current list price at the ...
3
votes
4answers
148 views
What Is Your Opinion On “Freebie Marketing”?
From Wikipedia -
"Freebie marketing, also known as the razor and blades business model, is the concept of either giving away a salable item for nothing or charging an extremely low price to generate ...
3
votes
5answers
2k views
How to set up sales office in the US?
If, for example, I have a company headquartered outside the US and going to work with US companies.
What is the best way? Set up sales office in the US or hire independent sales person?
What kind of ...
3
votes
3answers
471 views
Mechanics of Getting a Customer Reference during enterprise sales
We are getting close to signing our first enterprise client. Among other things, we want them to help us sell to other companies in their industry, which they indicated they have access to. In past ...
3
votes
2answers
243 views
How to estimate future App Store sales?
Before launching an app in Apple's iPhone App Store, it would be useful to have at least a vague idea of the sales potential. But how on earth am I going to estimate this?
As an example, let's take a ...
3
votes
1answer
201 views
Small consultancy - first .NET software product out. Advice on release, marketing and selling?
About a year ago I set up a Ltd company to provide IT/Software consultancy to various firms in and around London, UK. This has been going very well and I just completed my first full years accounts ...
3
votes
3answers
272 views
Can you outsource sales for high tech companies?
Following on from my previous question about outsourced marketing can you outsource sales effort as well in b2b senarios?
Once marketing has brought in a qualified lead someone has to get the over ...
3
votes
3answers
245 views
What is the best way to reach decision-makers at large restaurant chains?
What is the best way to reach decision-makers at large restaurant chains? I'm thinking Chili's, Darden, Friday's, Applebee's, etc. We've had some luck reaching some individual locations, and small ...
3
votes
4answers
175 views
Lean startups - iterations
I've been looking into lean startups. One pressing question (for me anyway). If we take a basic cycle..
build -> deploy -> sell -> feedback -> build -> deploy -> sell -> feedback....
On each ...
3
votes
6answers
652 views
How to outsource marketing / sales
First of all I know that "sales and marketing" is my business it's not something to outsource.
However I'm in a different situation:
I don't have budget and the long-term commitment position to ...
3
votes
4answers
187 views
How do I decide on licensing terms for my popular app?
I wrote a sudoku application and put it in the chrome app store. It is quite popular. I have received serious requests from media companies asking to include my application as part of their mobile ...
3
votes
1answer
195 views
How to set up sales bonus in case of long sales cycle?
We are selling specialized accounting software for real estate management companies. As you would guess, nobody changes accounting software every month, so our sales cycle is 1-2 years and we are ...
3
votes
2answers
97 views
Should we target large customers with our software localization platform?
For the last 15 months we've been working hard to build a cloud-based platform that helps companies localize the software they build (named Amanuens). It all started from our own needs and we decided ...
3
votes
2answers
2k views
What kind of sales commission plan is Groupon using?
Groupon has been hiring sales people like crazy. Their turnover is probably very high but the sheer number of salespeople that they are adding to their company every month is something crazy to a ...
3
votes
4answers
636 views
How do you sell to corporate customers when you are a start up?
Our software product is sold to be intalled on the client side We are targeting large companies who can truly benefit from it and see the ROI. The challenge is the long sales cycles and being a ...
3
votes
2answers
105 views
Customer flexibility first - Monthly and/or Yearly charges?
We have one application sold to users - they make documents with it. These documents are then sold to their clients.The client must have the reader to view the media rich document. We make and sell ...
3
votes
6answers
494 views
How do you overcome the “free trial” objection?
A lot of products and services come with free trials and money-back guarntees, which sets the bar pretty low for those who don't/can't provide either. Obviously, the trick is to establish value and ...
3
votes
2answers
403 views
SaaS for Handling Sales, Demo Requests, Leads, Follow up emails
I know similar questions have already asked but I think we need something slightly different:
Capturing user info from our website to the CRM directly via an API
Sending welcome, followup emails to ...
3
votes
1answer
75 views
Whats your opinion on using freelancing sites over other lead generation techniques
We are an outsourced software product development company from India, quite recently started. We started using freelancing sites for finding prospects as it was the easiest way to get started till ...
3
votes
2answers
206 views
Are software download sites generating sales?
I sell a software which I registered with some download sites. They generate a lot of traffic in downloading and distributing the demo but don't generate much visitors or sales in relation to this. My ...
3
votes
2answers
264 views
Exclusivity Contracts, good or bad?
Recently at a meeting with a prospective client, my co-owner and I were introduced to an interesting situation.
Our product will be going into beta fairly soon, and we are making the rounds to local ...
3
votes
4answers
412 views
Interviewing sales people: what do you do to check their claims without asking for past W2s?
One of the favorite parts of my job is to recruit people for my company. From experience I have come to realize that no matter how busy you are, outsourcing recruiting and hiring is very shortsighted ...
3
votes
2answers
166 views
Should a free listing in a niche directory include full features?
I have built my own web directory for a niche business market.
The directory is still in its early days.
I have currently kept the basic plan completely free and I am not restricting the information ...
3
votes
2answers
89 views
How do you manage sales of your phone apps on different platforms?
everyone
I am developing phone apps and would like to introduce them on AppWorld, and later on, sell them on another platforms too. Since I'm a new developer, I need your help. How do you guys ...
3
votes
1answer
117 views
Best Strategy for moving into the US / Canadian market from Australia
The background
I represent a small Australian software developer. We have been working with our clients over here for 9 years on a product suite which is a worlds first for the targeted industry.
...
3
votes
3answers
549 views
Show competitors prices on e-commerce site, legal issues?
I am starting an ecommerce site selling electronics in the UK. I belive I can compete with price against others in this field, and was considering have a 'price compare' table on the product pages ...
3
votes
1answer
87 views
Hiring Specialized Sales Reps
Say you had a tech product that could be applicable to a various verticals like Healthcare, Financial, Education, Insurance, Manufacturing, etc... and you decided to ramp up your sales. Would you ...
3
votes
2answers
236 views
How to find statistics for a sales pitch?
We have developed a system that lets small businesses issue membership cards to their clients which can then be used as payment cards. The clients either preload the card with money or link it with a ...
3
votes
1answer
74 views
How do you know someone signing an agreement has the right to do so?
Always, wondered this, and never found a good answer. Guess the opposite applies, too -- how do you know someone does NOT have the right to enter a legal agreement on behalf of a company?
Please cite ...
3
votes
7answers
433 views
What should be the first steps in developing leads for a start up?
I have a high tech software start up B2B ...I know in my industry that competitors market through blogs, webinars, seo, associations, broadcast emails etc... I am targeting the Canadian Small to ...
3
votes
2answers
161 views
What to offer sales biz dev first hire / partner for product that has early sales traction?
Background:
I am a developer with a SaaS product that is bringing in revenue, but not enough to pay a sales person's salary (yet). The company shouldn't need outside funding. The product is ...
3
votes
2answers
239 views
Charging U.S. sales taxes on product purchased online and sold from foreign location
We are building an online application that will allow users to create and purchase high-quality typographic logos and business cards. The application is taking a while to develop so we've decided to ...
3
votes
3answers
216 views
Lead Generation as a Business partner.
A bit of background….
I have worked for IT consulting firms (B2B) for the past 8 years. More recently with Firms that are business a partners with major vendors. I have held just about every ...
3
votes
1answer
67 views
putting new and not cheap product on global market
we aren't exactly a startup because we've been in business for 4 years, developing products for telco companies in my country. What I insisted in last 2,5 years is that we sponsor development of one ...
3
votes
2answers
473 views
Where can I find independant commission based sales contractors?
I have spoken with many agencies and posted many ads. No joy.
Is there any place where I can find telecommuting sales force for selling IT services?
3
votes
1answer
194 views
Are there any websites for startups that are looking for marketing and sales consultants?
I was wondering if startups don't have the marketing and sales expertise in-house (between the partners) and don't want to hire full-time talent, are there any websites that you can look for them?
