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MenuHow do I find someone who could sell my product?
Although we are getting decent amount of traction for our newly launched Ml and AI based company reports (datacusp.com) online marketplace.
I am looking at ways that can yield quick mutual benefits for interested individuals in the form of reseller or referral kind of model.
Any idea?
Answers
You've already received a lot of good ideas and suggestions and I've looked at your website. I suggest you add a "How it works" one minute video. Also I clicked the samples section and I still couldn't get it.
If you are looking for people who would sell your product on a commission basis, that is possible but not easy.
Feel free to get in touch.
Paid traffic from Outbrain, Taboola, Facebook, Google will generate far more profit than hiring someone.
Paid traffic also allows you to scale up forever, instead of hitting the block of hiring more humans, every time you'd like to increase your sales.
Essentially, are you looking for someone to just sell your product?
The first thing that comes to mind is checking out Upwork.com.
What exactly is the site - I checked it out, but couldn't make sense of it off the bat. I even typed up my website and had no results. If you'd like we can talk more about this and see how I can help.
You need a person with two kinds of expertise:
1. Who can run meaningful traffic to your website
2. Who can read user behavior while this meaningful traffic is browsing your website
Let me elaborate, driving traffic to a website is easy in a way but you want potential customer flow and exclusion of random traffic. So, target audience profiling is critical.
Secondly, user behavior will clearly suggest which company is someone is looking at. You want to sell banana to someone who has been checking different bananas in the market.
Someone who keeps a tight marketing cycle, hire them.
There are a couple of strategy and product questions that need to be addressed before considering paths forward for revenue generation. I've only taken a cursory look at your website.
Who are the most common end users and what is their purpose? Does offering packages or bundles make sense? That would be a simple upsell. E.g. One report $99, five reports $350.
Who in organizations are buying these reports? Strictly salespeople?
Is enterprise partnerships a path to pursue? If the target is international salespeople - is salesforce.com a logical partner? Do you have the ability and experience for enterprise level partnership agreements?
What makes sense for you to give up financially per sale? Does paying an internal salesperson on a primarily high commission percentage make sense and is it feasible?
Could you white label this to an Owler type competitor (assuming they are one) or become the horsepower behind a similar product. Don't give away all of your secret sauce but that type of agreement can be a huge step up rather than a salesperson knocking on doors and delivering steady but noticeable and profitable results.
While not necessarily an answer - I hope this outlines considerations and tradeoffs and isn't just telling you SEO techniques.
I would suggest as you are going alot of various industries, that you build individual sales funnels for each topic.
One of the ways that you can do is to write:
Top 3 trends for X industry (as a blog, video) and use it as a sponsored ad and for your audience that engages just retarget them. Of course to access the full report, they need to pay.
Also if you have key influencers as part of the research, you can go ahead and add it there!
There are multiple different angles to answer this question. I will start with a few clarifying questions first.
Who do you currently sell to? (industry, companies, individuals in those companies, etc)
What is your current sales process?
Where do you get traffic from? (digitally, phone, in person, etc)
There are only 3 ways in increase revenues in a company via sales. Get more customers, get them to come back more often, or sell them more things.
If you currently have maxed out your highest revenue channels, you would need to open a new channel, thus a new form of sales professional to step into that role. If you have not yet maxed it out, you would need someone with experience in maximizing that channel. This could mean hiring an industry leading sales person, or maybe a facebook ads expert or agency if that's your core means of sales.
Since you have a broad question, I can't give you a definitive answer but this may help get your head pointed in the right direction.
(quick note on the site, when you click purchase report, it takes you to a login screen. That presumes #1 that any user is already a member (at a min it should be a simple sign up as default not log in) and 2 that is a friction point in sales, the reality is you could capture an account on checkout for those folks that just want to buy a single report. make that as easy and as simple as possible and sales on the main page will increase.
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What do (bootstrapped) startups offer to new sales hires? Commission only? What are some good examples to keep people motivated and still survive?
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What would be a good answer for describing the size of your company to a potential prospect who might consider you too small to service their account?
What an awesome question! Businesses are running into this issue more frequently that ever, good news is, it can be done. Having worked on projects with oDesk, Fox Television and Wikipedia and having a very very small staff, it's certainly possible. Here's how I say it in our pitches to larger organizations: "Tractive West provides tailored video production services to organizations of all sizes. We have developed a distributed workflow using the latest digital tools. We leverage our small creative and management team with a world wide network of creative professionals, that means we can rapidly scale to meet the demands of any project while keeping our infrastructure and overhead lightweight and sustainable." Cheers and best of luck.SM
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How can a small offshore development company find companies/software sales people to sell their service in the US/UK?
My company does a lot of consulting with offshore firms who are looking for a way to generate new business, so I hear this question a lot. My first reaction is that you need to totally reverse your mindset when you talk about your own company. You mentioned that you have: a great software developers team, proven track record, passion, real value But, everyone says that. There a 10,000 companies that have those things, so a customer isn't going to notice it. You need to figure out what your company is best at (doesn't have to be technical) and present it as a solution to a specific problem that clients have. Maybe a speciality, or really good project management, really good communications, a special expertise or experience, a personality, experience with a certain type of client.. really anything.. But, there must be some thing that makes your company 'special' otherwise you will be lost in the mix. Don't worry about things like rates, or the fact that you have 'great' developers. Those are generic. Think about why a client would really choose you, and try to build on that! After you understand your company identity, it gets much easier to identify and engage marketing channels because you understand your target.DH
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How much equity should I ask as a CMO in a startup?
Greater risk = greater equity. How likely is this to fail or just break even? If you aren't receiving salary yet are among 4-6 non-founders with equivalent sweat investment, all of whom are lower on the totem pole than the two founders, figure out: 1) Taking into account all likely outcomes, what is the most likely outcome in terms of exit? (ex: $10MM.) Keep in mind that 90%+ of all tech startups fail (Allmand Law study), and of those that succeed 88% of M&A deals are under $100MM. Startups that exit at $1B+ are so rare they are called "unicorns"... so don't count on that, no matter how exciting it feels right now. 2) Figure out what 1% equity would give you in terms of payout for the most likely exit. For example, a $10MM exit would give you $100k for every 1% you own. 3) Decide what the chance is that the startup will fail / go bankrupt / get stuck at a $1MM business with no exit in sight. (According to Allman Law's study, 10% stay in business - and far fewer than that actually exit). 4) Multiply the % chance of success by the likely outcome if successful. Now each 1% of equity is worth $10k. You could get lucky and have it be worth millions, or it could be worth nothing. (With the hypothetical numbers I'm giving here, including the odds, you are working for $10k per 1% equity received if the most likely exit is $10MM and the % chance of failure is 90%.) 5) Come up with a vesting path. Commit to one year, get X equity at the end. If you were salaried, the path would be more like 4 years, but since it's free you deserve instant equity as long as you follow through for a reasonable period of time. 6) Assuming you get agreement in writing from the founders, what amount of $ would you take in exchange for 12 months of free work? Now multiply that by 2 to factor in the fact that the payout would be far down the road, and that there is risk. 7) What percentage share of equity would you need in order to equal that payout on exit? 8) Multiply that number by 2-3x to account for likely dilution over time. 9) If the founders aren't willing to give you that much equity in writing, then it's time to move on! If they are, then decide whether you're willing to take the risk in exchange for potentially big rewards (and of course, potentially empty pockets). It's a fascinating topic with a lot of speculation involved, so if you want to discuss in depth, set up a call with me on Clarity. Hope that helps!RD
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