HOW DO I MARKET THIS? -- COLD CALLS?

How much is 10% for the average sale?

First and foremost, i think you should do your due diligence so that you are sure you are not going to be burning your cables later on in the future.

Secondly, get the company to draft a Memorandum of Understanding between both parties so that you are sure the relationship is well documented to avoid any unhealthy stories that might want to crop up later.

With respect to marketing, try visiting your Local Chamber of Commerce and see if you can get a list of construction companies and their websites so that you can contact them.

Also, you will do yourself a whole lot of good by driving around town in the cool of the day so identify where constructions are taking place and walk up to them to introduce your business and the products you have for sale.

This i think should give you a fine head start.

God bless you.

So the owner turned you out and made you into one of his salespeople. What happened to selling websites?
Did he at least hire you to do the initial web project/site that you mentioned previously?
Do you have a signed contract detailing specific terms and conditions for this new gig?

My personal view for only 100 dollars it's not worth it.

If you want to go comission only sales I can think of much better , I am looking to pay 20% for sales guys selling websites and SEO .

But if you want to go with this then I would suggest housing associations and landlords. But working with these client types won't give fast deals as bigger fish take longer to land.

Honestly, this sounds like you just picked up a sales job that are a dime-a-dozen in Florida. Not saying it is a bad thing at all. It can pay very well when you do sign those larger deals. What happened to your personal business where you can profit a thousand or more per sale plus monthly residual?

Not sure if this will help, but here are a few ideas to get you some leads.
Commercial Realtors. They know investors, builders and so on. An investor may be an apartment building, hotel, track housing, investor. Those types of buildings need what you're selling. He/she may also have a few builders in their rolodex and perhaps won't mind refering you.
Property perservation companies.
Property management companies.
Talking to some interior designers couldn't hurt, they usually have contractors and such that they regularly use.
Anyhow, hoped that helped a little. Good luck!

PPC with flyers. In other words, have a flyer with your code on it.

Partner with home furnishing & build-it stores to put one in a bag of every customer's purchases. You'll probably have to split commission with the stores, but the distribution channel will be worth it.

For all wondering, yes, I did score an initial web design deal in accordance with this deal as well. & I would not consider this to be a typical sales position as it goes a bit deeper than that. The end goal is to begin outsourcing, so that I have a team of marketers basically doing the work for me at a 5% commission. This way, I will be garnering 5% of overall earnings by the team of marketers I will be mentoring/supervising, and they themselves will receive the additional 5%. The plan would be to continue to outsource until I have a large, dedicated team. From then on it would basically be an autopilot operation - simply monitoring my marketing team and watching the sales/commissions fly in.

@Jason, thank you! Great idea. I'm going to look into that one for sure.

Thanks to everybody who has left feedback thus far. Please keep the feedback coming! Much appreciated.

-- Jon.

First get your contract stating out everything.
I think they do they own marketing beside going only with you and waiting for you to generate sales for them...In that said if they have a website try to get a control over it. Why don't you go on salary + comm. That would be much better for you.
But have a business card w/your code on and start w/architects and lumber yards. Also kitchen and bath suppliers. ON is a huge market place.

Joe

Jon,

I know they building like crazy around Milton area...about 30 mi West from Toronto. That would be a great area to start with. Several larger construction co and they may buying in quantity. You can PM for more info.

Thanks! I'll have to text the CEO and ask how much of Milton he has covered already -- it seems he has the majority of Southern ON covered himself but I'd love to score some leads locally. I'll send you a PM, maybe even cut you a percentage if you can help me out. Thanks!

Yeah, I don't want to sound negative, but it just sounds like a CEO liked your initiative and thought 'I want this guy to sell for me', therefore turning you into a sales person.

I would be thinking long term. So you make a $20 000 sale, but how often and for how much time and effort? Could you have gotten 5 clients on SEO packages at $1000 per month in the time it took to get a once off $20 000 sale?

The bottom line I think is that you could spend the time working for someone working on your own business. But hey, it's just my opinion.

Really not to discourage you but I have seen it all before. Yeah you may make some sales and it seems like a big carrot is being hung in front of you and the fact that you feel "special" because some big wig likes you, thats what they do.

Trust me Ive come across many of those in my day. In the long run you will get screwed on the deal, yeah you may give them a nice referral and make some 1 time coin, but THEY own the business. Do you really think they are going to keep paying you 10%for life everytime a customer reorders, highly doubtful.

Once you turn them on to the company they wont be calling you to place additional orders, they will work with the company and their sales crew directly.

I realize that you are excited about the attention but you are likely to make MUCH more money long term by focusing on building your OWN business and not some one elses.

Good luck either way!

Every business owner is a sales person and anyone that tries to tell you otherwise and anyone that tries to tell you otherwise is kidding themselves or lying.

The best don't necessarily have the best product or service - they are the best sales people.

You don't need to think about where to start, you need to think about the whole process.

Prospecting
Qualifying
Presenting
Closing

You also need to think about time management. There is no silver bullet and you will need to spend a lot of time on this venture if you really want to be successful - as you do on any business venture. You just need to make sure your time is being used productively.

Have you read any sales books in the past? Can I recommend Advanced Selling Strategies by Brian Tracy as a starting point? I bought a copy from an Op Shop for $3.50 some years ago and reading it has been priceless!

Don't be discouraged by people telling you not to sell this product or that the commission is not high enough (although I would've asked for 20). One of the best sales stories I have heard of related to a man who sold light bulbs. Having said that, be prepared to walk away if it doesn't work. Don't be stubborn to the detriment of other business opportunities.

Good Luck!

Hamish

Here's a good lead for you Jon. http://sourcing.alibaba.com/rfq_sear...empered+glass+

If you want to sell commercially and internationally.... I have sold literally tons (by the ton literally) of stuff here. I dont want to open a can of worms, just go to this site and let your imagination run wild for a minute. There are also a ton of foreign agents and distributors looking for opportunities to represent American companies. You may even be able to land regular distribution contracts with some.

Over 146 million dollars per day exchange hands on this site. Warning: Some will tell you there are scammers on the site, and there are some, but its one of the biggest sites in the world. There are bound to be. If you want to hear from successful experience I have sold a ton of bulk stuff here, but dont have time to get into it... Just nose around and see if this doesnt spark some ideas.

No matter what anybody else tells you- You know someone who has done it. So dont let em throw you.

I think developing online relationships with a few overseas construction developers and major distributors is a better bet than cold calling on this one.

Alibaba is the World Bizarre.

I did read the questions but decided to add this to the conversation.

I still think its too good to be true ( I have seen this sort of stuff before)

But you need to Get a list ,cold call to setup your appointments and then close in person.

I would see if you could get 10%-25% of the increased business.
Think about that. If you start a national campaign, you won't want all the leads.
If his site starts ranking well, he will get the business as a result.
Where as, if you get a cut of the increase, it won't matter.
This is called a contingency deal. If this is an option, let me know. We will partner and increase business in the next 90 days.

I don't want to sound negative, but this really sounds like you took a sales job...for someone else.

The fact is that most of these companies have a guy on staff who is in charge of their "marketing", and he makes commission PLUS $150k per year salary. They will gladly take any help they dont have to pay out of pocket for.

There are a million distributors who will gladly take a person who is willing to kill themselves on marketing and carry all the risk. These situations are no lose for companies like that. I agree with the poster above, if they are hiring you as a commission salesman thats one thing, but if they are hiring you to be in charge of their marketing and design strategies and plans for them... Get some cash up front like their privileged staff people have, or tell them "I could do this for ANYONE on commission, even myself...Why would I do it for you with no salary?"

Or tell them "Quit blowing smoke at me"... you are getting a free salesman and free marketing, I could as easily do it for your competitor. I think the poster above me is correct. They are trying to take advantage.

A true multimillion dollar company pays its marketing people well...PLUS gives them a percentage.

As a liquidation broker I have often been disappointed in myself for having sold hundreds of thousands of dollars for other peoples companies, while their marketing guys get all the credit, and bonuses on top of salaries... and I make a measly $15-20k for pulling off something that none of their salesman could all year long while they were collecting those salaries.

As a good broker, I could be a valuable salaried staff person for any one of those companies- But why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?


In short, if they want you to buil;d a network for them that their salespeople are failing to build... then you need a few months operating capital at least. They cant be taking you very seriously if you arent asking for that.

In short, I could be wrong, but I feel you got on the right path selling Internet marketing services, then got sucked down the first rabbit hole, which, if someone doesnt tell you now, is more than likely going to be a long frustrating, broke journey the way you are viewing it.

I say in this with great care, not sarcasm nor insult. You are very zaelous...now marry your passion with reason so that if you are going to be a shooting start that burns to its own destruction, at least you can rise out the ashes each day like a Pheonix, as Gibran says.... Your OP is the passion, and the advice on this thread presents reason.

Anyway, I have spent alot of time on this thread, hopefully you can appreciate that time, and understand that Im trying to help and I didnt make a million dollars posting here. It was taken because its clear you have some qualities that are special and we dont want to see you fall down a rabbit hole.

Ps. Tell them you were cold calling other distributors to see if there was interest and one offered you a salary so you may have to reconsider.

Thanks John, and thank you to everyone else who contributed to the conversation.

Some immensely valid points were raised here and I'm taking them all into consideration. Firstly, thanks John for clarifying your Alibaba suggestion and causing for me to have a wider understanding on how to make the concept work as best as possible. I will most definitely be looking into Alibaba and other trade sites in the near future.

In terms of questions raised about salary, I completely understand that and to a point, agree. The thing to keep in mind is that I'm still just a teenager. I'm being given a nice opportunity here and I quite-frankly understand why the CEO wouldn't want to take a risk on me by providing me with a salary -- a commission based position provides him with a security net, and while I understand the importance of salary here I also understand his concerns.

My plan is to work on comission on a very short term basis. Once I have proven that I can sell product, create networks, and manage marketers, I will definitely ensure that there is a salary in place.

In the mean time, I'm not going to put all of my eggs in one basket. I'm going to continue growing my Web Service operation while I set up some healthy networking opportunities and pick up some commissions to prove my worth and hopefully work from there.

Yes, I will be investing some time into initializing this - but I don't feel as though it is time wasted. I'm going to learn from this experience, and I'm confident that I WILL profit from it as well. While some are saying that I should continue to run my own business and make 10x the money, the realistic answer is that it would take much more time and effort to even raise half the money I would receive from doing a project like this at this time.

It's something I'll do in the future.. but as of right now - I feel like this opportunity is my best bet to make a lot of capital in a nice time frame and to learn some immense business/marketing tactics. I'm not throwing in the towel to some big corporate guy so that I can make him money. I'm aware of what I'm getting into and I know that I can make it work.

Thanks to everybody who took the time to help out. I honestly appreciate it VERY much!

If anybody else has any more suggestions in terms of how/where to sell, it would be greatly appreciated if you could let me know your ideas via reply.

THANKS EVERYONE!

There are sites such as Manufactur​ers-Repres​entatives.​com and others like it where you build a sales force to market your product state by state in the US.


Local glass companies outsource all their tempered glass needs and most of them sell shower doors too! A list of glass companies will be cheap.

I'd suggest networking with local builders, and also possibly attending some trade shows.

As mwds120 mentioned above, start calling on builders and architects. Make sure everyone knows you :-). Also, contact commercial contractors. That's where the biggest money is, but you won't be getting 10% commission on commercial work. get everything in writing.

One more think. if the owner of your company has a major relationship with that Chinese company, he could become an exclusive distributor for their product to North America (providing, they are not contracted with too many clients already). This scenario would give you an opportunity to sell your product to other contractors nationwide.

Thomas

I have used the site. But only as a man. rep. It is free to join as a rep but costs money to advertise for reps but i do not know how much.

Reading other posts: If you are looking to go directly to contractors join bidclerk.com hands down best site for finding construction avtivity. We use bid clerk to identify apartment projects being built in our territory. It really is a must have if you are selling directly to contractors..especially multi-family type projects such as apartments, hotels and assited living facilities.

I would also suggest asking the factory for the funds to join any sites. I know it takes money to make money....but I have learned lessons the hard way...so I try not to get upside down in any business deals.

I have never tried finding sales reps on the site. I am sure it is just a list of anyone who ever signed up the site under that category. I have had discussions with companies that have contacted me because of the site but have never made any deals, just never the right fit.