Questions regarding selling products to both new and existing customers of the business.
25
votes
22answers
4k views
Why do developers/techies avoid salespeople?
Over the past several months, we've been expanding our marketing efforts to include developers and other techies.
One thing we've noticed is that these front-line folks don't want to talk. At all. ...
20
votes
13answers
998 views
I'm a terrible salesperson. What can I do about it?
I'm a designer / developer. My product is ready for beta, so my focus has to shift towards sales and marketing. My problem is that I just cannot sell. I have an irrational fear of annoying people ...
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 ...
13
votes
8answers
6k views
Hiring sales people as independent contractors
Anyone have any experience hiring independant contracted sales people for a startup scenario? What types of an independant contracts have you used and issues to watch out for? What successful ...
12
votes
2answers
362 views
Sales pipelines. Should you only have 1 in a B2B software development company?
So you understand our scope: We are a custom software development company who have 2 primary markets
Mid sized companies who have ongoing internal needs for automation
...
11
votes
15answers
3k views
CRM / lead management software?
Can anyone recommend CRM / lead management software?
We have a bunch of customer leads, and managing them using a Google doc is getting unwieldy.
We are looking for an inexpensive solution, ...
11
votes
10answers
1k views
Really low conversion rate, what does it mean?
My startup sells a fairly expensive (2500$~) desktop product, we are new in a well-established market and it's been 2 months that we are selling the product.
We do have an evaluation request page ...
10
votes
4answers
241 views
Is it worth using box shots for online product sales?
I am selling professional software B2B online to engineers. Price tag around $1k.
Many online software vendors include an image of their product's packaging, a so-called "box shot". Of course, ...
9
votes
11answers
1k views
Anyone experimented with $49.95 vs. $50 Pricing for subscription software?
I've read a bunch of times in the retail world where the $49.95 (or $49.99) style pricing actually increases sales vs. just making it a round number like $50.
Has anyone tried this for a subscription ...
9
votes
3answers
419 views
When to give up on a product?
I'm getting ahead of myself here because my product hasn't launched yet, but I thought about this and would appreciate the thoughts of this community:
Imagine this:
You're launching a great app (or ...
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 ...
8
votes
12answers
597 views
How did you learn to sell?
I realize that selling is vital to mine (or any startup). But right now with little experience and tech background, let's just say I'm not proficient in sales.
So what books, blogs, advice, etc. have ...
8
votes
6answers
701 views
How to approach SEO for a new website?
We have just launched (yesterday actually!) a website for our startup - providing mobile and Facebook app development services. Sales will totally drive from leads generated from the website. ...
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 ...
8
votes
6answers
471 views
What's the most interesting Twitter strategy that you've seen a startup use?
It seems like most startups on Twitter use one of two strategies:
1) Broadcast links & information about the company.
2) Broadcast links & information about the industry related to the ...
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 ...
8
votes
7answers
557 views
Should I send sales emails from sales@companyname.com or myname@companyname.com?
I don't want to appear impersonal, but having a sales specific email address would be useful to let everyone who is doing sales have access to it.
What do you do? And how has it worked out for you?
8
votes
5answers
249 views
How to answer questions about estimates?
I have startup company and we have SaaS application which we sell as subscription.
There is a lot of competition(which is good) and often first question I get from prospectives is "How much?"
With ...
7
votes
5answers
2k views
How do I price my expensive software and charge $100,000 in a presentable way?
We have a software product that increases productivity of engineers and allows them to build/prototype new products. It costs $25,000 to use it for 3 months. A big name company is interested. How do I ...
7
votes
9answers
3k views
Using Facebook Connect - Pros and Cons
is Facebook Connect worth the efforts? any benefits in long term? are there any negative consequences like slow page loads and increased page download times etc?
Update:
Okay so I just tried ...
7
votes
10answers
1k views
What is the best way to do sales in a startup?
I am planning to launch a website, for which I would have to make face-to face sales to clients. Now, since I know my product the best, I feel that I am in the best position to convert the sale. In ...
7
votes
9answers
497 views
Developing and formalizing sales process
From day one and until recently our sales process was awesomely non-existent and very much adhoc. As we sell creative and web software development services, and lack of good process bit us in the ass ...
7
votes
5answers
301 views
How transparent should a Micro-ISV be?
I'm a one-man software shop. I do all the software development, design, marketing, etc for my business. And I'm a big believer in being very open with my customers. I maintain a blog at ...
7
votes
2answers
757 views
How do you ask a client to write a testimonial?
Any tips to collect testimonials? I have some clients. They seemed to be satisfied with my services, but they were reluctant to write a written testimonial. Please advise.
7
votes
5answers
2k views
What advantages does price discrimination have over the using the same price for everyone?
I'm trying to decide whether to change my pricing scheme from 'the same price for everyone' to 'a different price depending on which customer you are' (price discrimination / price differentiation). ...
7
votes
4answers
215 views
How can a bootstrapped startup start to expand sales without outside funding?
So I have a bootstraped startup that's starting to get some traction. A little background: we make a classroom recording appliance that works with fixed positioned cameras in classrooms to record and ...
7
votes
2answers
154 views
How to keep track of the all the people you're in contact with
I realized that I was losing track of people I have been in contact with once I got a call from a prospective vendor and they referred to a quote that I couldn't identify.
I would like to track:
...
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), ...
6
votes
4answers
2k views
Tips for Talking to NEW potential customers (cold-calls, cold-emails, etc)?
Question is in bold below, but some background first..
I've been "mulling over" a startup idea for a website geared towards medium-to-large law firms. Without going into too many details, my website ...
6
votes
5answers
320 views
Founder is responsible for sales and wants incentives in addition to our equal compensation
My partner is the founder and I am the co-founder of our company. He has a sales background and I have operations.
We agreed for him to have more equity (50/30) as the company/products were his ...
6
votes
3answers
1k views
How to recruit someone to help make sales on a commission basis?
I would like to get someone with me full time with good sales experience and contacts in my industry to help me get sales going but I don't have the budget to hire a sales guy? I expect your answer ...
6
votes
3answers
173 views
Resellers or Affliates?
What should I consider first, and why?
Setting up a Reseller Program for my software product.
or
Setting up an Affiliate Network for my software product.
6
votes
4answers
368 views
I made a product, now how can I find customers?
This question gets asked repeatedly every day on this site in many different facets, but essentially boils down to this:
I made a product. How do I get customers?
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 ...
6
votes
6answers
319 views
How do you handle the “how many customers do you have?” question when you are a start up?
So when you have little customer and I mean one what do you do when you are asked the question how many customers do you have and can you provide customer references when you are a start up?
6
votes
6answers
310 views
How can a Greenhorn get experience?
In this economic climate, competition for jobs is stiff. What should a smart, hardworking recent graduate of a business school program do to try to get a job that will give him the experience he needs ...
6
votes
5answers
399 views
Hire a sales guy for a part-time start-up?
Background:
I'm a tech guy with alot of product building experience
I've built and recently launched a SaaS/cloud application for a niche market, targeting small-size companies
The product provides ...
6
votes
2answers
161 views
Using technical evangelism\advocates
In the context of a software company, when does it make sense to hire a technical evangelist (also known as advocates now). Big companies have them and I've seen plenty of smaller companies with their ...
6
votes
7answers
328 views
startup: work on something i personally like or work on something that would sell?
I am going to start working on a project, but divided between two project ideas.
The first one is interesting to me personally, and I have been toying with it for some time as an evening hobby, but I ...
6
votes
4answers
339 views
What should a technical co-founder look for in a business co-founder?
This is the flip side of this question about what to look for in a technical co-founder.
If I have technical skills and can build a prototype myself, what sort of skills or experience should I look ...
6
votes
3answers
1k views
Online Sales Tax: location based on transaction server, shipping address, CC, or location of purchaser?
Online sales tax seems overly complicated. From what I've read, it seems like most states collect sales tax if your company has a physical presence; however, location on both ends is badly defined:
...
6
votes
4answers
517 views
Getting feedback from lost sales
Short of begging, what is an effective way(s) to get feedback from a lost sale? I'm thinking survey, but is there a more practical way?
6
votes
3answers
425 views
What points should one consider while desigining a comission structure for sales team?
I envision to create a sales team that can make sales while keeping customer satisfaction as the top priority. I want to develop a team that is good at sales but is not pushy. Are there any available ...
6
votes
2answers
225 views
Selling to small and medium businesses
I believe inbound marketing makes small businesses sales easier on both parties, but honestly I've haven't used direct sales much.
So should we focus on inbound marketing? Or have salespeople contact ...
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, ...
6
votes
6answers
1k views
Best affiliate solution for freemium/free trial web apps? [closed]
Most affiliate solutions are not designed to work with freemium or free trial business models.
Have you seen an affiliate app that can:
Make it simple to manage affiliate relationships
Can ...
5
votes
7answers
669 views
Price quote for enterprise customer
We got a quote request from a reseller for one of their customers for about a 100 licenses of our software with 4 years of support.
What is the a good way of structuring this quote without showing ...
5
votes
3answers
451 views
I have received an offer for my domain. what should I do?
I have received a great offer for the domain name techhotbed.com and techhotbed.net (all of which I own under a company name). A very powerful blog building company approaches me last week and made a ...
5
votes
6answers
296 views
B-to-B landing pages and conversions
Within the online marketing space, a standard rule I have heard about landing pages is to limit choice. Ideally you have one page, with your sales pitch and they can either take your desired action ...
5
votes
5answers
783 views
How to solve sales and marketing problem?
We are a team of developers that's started up a small software company with very few funds. We worked day and night without any salaries and finished developing two products: a complete Human ...
