Local Sales Assault -- Feedback Wanted/Needed Funded Startup

4 replies
I just was brought into a start-up situation that just got funded, and wanted to immediately cut out all the traditional advertising BS and hit the web and the streets. Essentially the company has a product that allows businesses to track customers, their visits, spending habits etc. A low powered version of our system would be "frontflip.com" or similar.

Bottom Line: I want to assault with sales reps about 3-4 local markets, about 2-3 mid market and one major market like NYC. I need to secure about 1,000 merchant beta testers for our platform, and then later on we will upgrade them into paying clients since there business will be dependent on our system.

Advantages:
- Have some dollars to play with BUT doesn't mean Im here to spend it. Im still in shell shock from Bubble 1.0.
- Our commission model I am proposing will be heavy residual.
- Our price point starts at $50 a month for a B2B solution up to $350.00
- We earn on flat monthly and percent of sales, so ceiling is high for revenue

Wanted to tap into the WF brain trust ...
- Any tips to rack up retail merchants fast? All they need is a store front, decent foot traffic, a merchant account. Our contract is one page.
- Tips for recruiting independent sales reps, controlled by a top notch field training, team.
- Ways to leverage the web to get merchants to signup....

Our target market: Same people on groupon, living social, etc and who are pissed off at the results lol ...
#assault #b2b #local #offline #sales
  • Profile picture of the author EaglePiServ
    Hi,

    I understand this is a public forum and you don't want to give away too much but there's a few details missing from your outline. However,

    You've got a three-point problem.

    1. Sign up retailers

    What do retailers want? More (quality) traffic and more importantly increased dollars. If you want to sell them, you'll need to provide one or the other.

    Since your product seems to be a product that's more of a review product (in that they are reviewing metrics from sales that have been made vs traffic in the door) then you'll need to be able to show them quickly how it will provide an ROI for THEM. Not some, "Produces 20% ROI on average".

    Have you thought about offering a free trial to the retailers? Say a 90-day free trial - they get hand-held for those 90 days by someone who can show them exactly how they get return from the system. Sounds like your "field training team" could handle this. If they see a return, they won't want to turn off the faucet when the 90=day mark comes knocking.

    2. Sales Reps

    I've personally found that the residual offer means nothing to newer sales reps. They want money NOW. The promise of it down the line won't mean anything unless their paycheck is what they want it to be week 1.

    3. Leverage web to get merchants

    This kinda leads back to point 1. You have to bring them a value proposition for long-term success.

    I have a question - is this an MLM-style sales situation?
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    • Profile picture of the author RiskTaker
      We produce the traffic and we close the loop. Its a performance oriented trigger. IE when a client swipes their card and purchases we bill them. Just like a CPA network but offline.

      Free Trial - Doing a 6-12 month free trial for beta users, then a 3 month trial, then a 30 day trial. Staggering it in phases.

      MLM nope, but we do have overrides for Area managers who own their territory.
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  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
    RiskTaker can you PM me more info?
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    • Profile picture of the author RiskTaker
      Just PM me what you need, I can share enough to present the jist upon launch.
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