Questions regarding selling products to both new and existing customers of the business.
0
votes
3answers
274 views
The line between being a persistent salesperson and being a pest
I have a startup called Snip that makes software for stylists and salons. At this point, I'm doing something similar to sales but not exactly. I'll explain: at this early stage, I have a product that ...
2
votes
1answer
218 views
How to sell software tools to developers?
I have Windows desktop tools for developers. I have a few large companies that bought them. It is mostly project managers that did the buying and so far they found me via Google search(I have done a ...
1
vote
2answers
95 views
Nurturing new “almost” clients? How persistent to be? Sales / Account Management Course?
I've been working as a freelance developer for 10 years or so now, taking on projects and resourcing them with myself and other developers. All has been fine, but over the last 6 months I've been ...
1
vote
1answer
191 views
Outsourcing sales calls for online business
I am about to acquire a US online dropshipping business.
Most orders require the clients to fill out a detailed contact form and then a sales person calls them back to close the configuration and ...
8
votes
6answers
591 views
Do testimonials have any significant impact on sales?
Testimonials seem to be a great idea (social proof, etc), but I'm not sure they have any meaningful impact on sales. And they could actually be causing problems for our existing customers. For ...
1
vote
2answers
266 views
Obtaining new clients through email marketing
Right now I'm sitting behind my desk at a top 100 company, and quite frankly I started to hate my corporate job. I feel like it is killing my soul everyday.
I have always dreamed of owning my ...
4
votes
11answers
560 views
What is the distinction between sales and marketing?
What is the distinction between these two? In today's era it seems one overlaps each other and I'm wondering whether in a startup these roles can be covered by one person. Is it effective? Is there ...
1
vote
1answer
255 views
Android Market and SaaS. Is there problem?
I'm working on industry specific software. Basic idea is that I have big fat server somewhere, some web app. and mobile clients.
Now I started to think about legal parts of this model.
Reading ...
3
votes
7answers
507 views
2
votes
1answer
87 views
Verifying commodities in China before buying
I found some commodities in China, and I'm very interested in import them for reselling in my country. However I'd like to verify the commodity's status before make my first buy.
Do you know a way to ...
0
votes
1answer
97 views
Any Good Books on Building a Strong Sales Force?
I have a few subscription based services which have grown consistently though affiliates and resellers. I want to get a strong sales force going.
Do you have any books, training, blogs, etc. that ...
1
vote
4answers
491 views
What is a good structure/organization of a reliable marketing and sales team?
I am a co-founder of a startup company. We sell market data and analysis reports to manufacturers. Our reports have fairly high value, ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands dollars. ...
1
vote
4answers
285 views
Where/How do I find resellers for my content writing services?
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 ...
0
votes
1answer
132 views
'active affiliate' program for direct sales
I would like to hear people opinion about outsourcing direct sales to affiliates.
We expect our affiliates to do cold calls to prospects and close deals, we will do the actual delivery and provide ...
1
vote
3answers
490 views
Is this a fair partnership proposal?
I am the technical founder of a software product, the product is finished with good inputs from at least 6 to be customers. My to be Sales partner who is already helping me from the past 4 weeks ...
4
votes
2answers
138 views
Startup giving away product early or hold out?
So we are a SaaS model new recruitng tool and weve been trying to acquire our first couple of major deals. I read alot of books on starting up and have advised start ups my whole career. At first we ...
6
votes
4answers
2k views
Sales commission for SAAS startups
We are a SAAS startup with an average MRR of $300. We are planning to have both in-house and outside sales agents (without salary but 20-30% commission). What is the sales commission model you ...
2
votes
1answer
156 views
Where do Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) hang out?
We are launching a new quoting software product targeted at ISVs, but don't know where to find them. I won't include the link as I don't want to seem spammy, but it's in my profile if you want to ...
13
votes
6answers
446 views
Should we hire a sales or invest more time in our online presence?
We are a small software company with a process automation product. To do more sales, we would like to compare following options for next year:
Hire a sales guy. Someone capable of doing cold ...
4
votes
6answers
511 views
Good books on sales for non-sales people? [closed]
I'm looking for a good intro book on Sales done the right way.
Focusing on the customer's needs and problems.
Low-pressure selling.
Being willing to disqualify a customer.
Basically, my sales ...
1
vote
1answer
233 views
Sales quoting - what tools do you use to generate and manage quotes, and how much time do you spend? [closed]
I am curious what tools people are using out there to generate and manage their sales quotes. I would like to better understand the market for our online quoting system.
Where do most of your leads ...
6
votes
2answers
189 views
My sales person (independent, not employee) wants to be an angel investor
I started a surveillance technology company in May 2010. Since the beginning, we have been working with a person that has been in the security industry for quite a while. He was providing some input, ...
2
votes
2answers
118 views
Sales and Marketing Co-founder-Ivy League MBA or Industry Expert?
I am working on a software product, which is going to revolutionize a specific industry. I checked with couple of top guys in this industry and they are all impressed. It is a billion dollar problem. ...
1
vote
4answers
4k views
What is the rate for marketing and sales consultants?
I was wondering what the pay rate is for marketing and sales consultants that mainly work with startups. I know some companies hire on commission-base only and some offer share/equity in the company ...
1
vote
5answers
279 views
A customer gives a very low counteroffer for my service, how should I react?
I resigned from my former job and begin to prepare my international trade business. Since it probably will take me a lot of time before I make a profit, I also provide language ...
4
votes
3answers
321 views
What should be my first step to building a technical team for a start up?
I expect a large scale software project to come in which must be delivered successfully for us to get more business. I don't have enough in house resources to accomodate this project but I do have ...
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 ...
5
votes
2answers
194 views
Tool for reseller management
We have a web application we want to start selling on a per month basis.
We have several resellers that we would like to have resell our application and make a margin on doing so.
We don't want to ...
2
votes
2answers
213 views
How Can I Estimate How Many Software Sales My Competitors are Getting?
I'm in a field with several hundred competitors, a few big, some medium, but most are small ISVs.
Are there any tools out there that will help estimate how my competitors are doing in terms of sales ...
5
votes
1answer
95 views
How a company that uses a website like groupon calculates the minimum items they need to sell?
I have the intention of giving a try at one of those group buy like businesses that you can get prepared for you and start selling in your neighborhood or village. I understand, how the hold idea ...
7
votes
4answers
165 views
Can anyone share experiences in licensing content?
I have two companies that have interest in licensing my business's content (training materials). I want to offer exclusive and non-exclusive pricing options, maintenance fees (for annual updates), ...
8
votes
5answers
223 views
How best to deal with a rising Canadian dollar value for a software company?
My software company is in Canada. We sell our software for download from our web-site. Most of our sales are made in the US, though we do about %25 of our business in Canada and Europe. We sell our ...
0
votes
2answers
87 views
Pricing. Do you think USD120/Day is a reasonable rate for an English-Chinese translator in Mainland China? [closed]
When you need a translator to accompany you to factories, what rate do you think is reasonable for an English-Chinese translator in Mainland China?
3
votes
2answers
869 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 ...
2
votes
5answers
267 views
Possible To Sell Product To Current Employer?
I have an idea for productivity software that would be very beneficial to my current company (and to me in my current role). My current role involves no software development at all (I'm working for a ...
2
votes
1answer
618 views
When does an artist need to pay sales tax?
As a free-lance artist, tax preparers tell me I am like a printer and or graphics artist ... a service and no sales tax is required. The bulk of my work is portraits, murals, and some graphic design ...
3
votes
4answers
1k views
Is this teired commission schedule for referrals fair?
I'm an independent software consultant who is looking for referrals.
I've paid for referrals before and have noticed that sometimes I was happy with the price and sometimes I was not. For example, ...
2
votes
1answer
183 views
What is a fair amount to pay for consulting referrals?
I'm an independent software consultant who is looking for referrals.
I've come to the conclusion that perhaps I should pay for them and earlier today posted this question about a teired commision ...
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
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 ...
4
votes
5answers
637 views
Import from Manufacturer in bulk and outsource fullfillment to Amazon
Background
I'm not quitting my day job, but it would be fun to do some trading on the nights and weekends. My basic idea was to buy direct from manufacturer using sites like Alibaba.com and then ...
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 ...
1
vote
4answers
294 views
What incentives can I give business customers to sell my product to their network?
I have treated my first few business customers of my software product very well. They are senior managers of medium sized companites. My problem is that I cannot get them to sell my product in their ...
2
votes
1answer
219 views
retail point of sale software
Does anyone know what Point of Sale software that large retailers in the US (from Macys to CVS to Bestbuy) use?
What do you suggest for a person with a brand new idea in a better point of sale ...
0
votes
2answers
147 views
Do you feel anxious when you don't receive any inquiry from prospective clients for consecutive days?
What do you do when you don't receive any inquiries from potential clients for consecutive days?
5
votes
5answers
289 views
are payments processors mutually exclusive?
I'm bootstrapping a software business for the first time. I worked in 'stealth mode' for one full-year and now I've got about 100 private-beta-testers loving the software (and already begging for ...
9
votes
5answers
405 views
A/B testing a price point
Is it legally/ethically bad to run a split test on the price point of your product?
Temporary coupons don't test the right things and introduce other variables into the experiment, and changing the ...
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 ...
1
vote
3answers
122 views
Reaching marketing executives?
I am part of the executive team heading up a grass roots startup. We have a service that we intend to provide to marketing departments of software technology businesses. We need leads, and new ...
5
votes
3answers
136 views
Doing demos for unqualified leads
I get a lot of leads and I only want to do demos for qualified people. By qualified, they have to have access to $100k or more in capital.
Before, I was putting them in our sandbox (software), but ...
