May I ask how niche the directory website is? With selling anything at all, it's about uncovering the need for the exact target market. So are you clear about what the value is to the client? What expensive problem are you solving for them that isn't already covered by local directory listings? ...
Remember newspapers? There were lots of them, weeklies, dailies, community, local shoppers, etc. Some are still around. Do you think these little individual media outlets had a strategy or sales force going after large Fortune 500 advertisers? Nope. They used a system of brokers and represen...
Instead of repeating the wisdom of others, I'll link to it below. Here is a great blog post on hiring your first salesperson: http://tomtunguz.com/when-to-hire-a-salesperson Also, Mark Suster has written a ton of great post on his blog about startup sales. http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/o...
Option #1 (recommended): Use https://www.voiq.com/ and skip hiring someone. Option #2: Hire an SDR (right out of college, ex-athlete): and pay them an hourly rate as a consultant (3 month trial period). Pay them upon deals closing (commission % - the % will depend on your margins and the the ...
First of all, it sounds like you have a great idea with a positive impact. To your question: Make sure to include a chat option in whatever page you have clicked-through from your PPC. In addition, what information are you able to capture on your landing page (that I presume clicks through)?...
Do those prospects come from an opt-in process? Are they aware that your brand obtained their data? If not, than you are cold-calling them and no matter who it is, we humans do not like to receive cold-calls, right. Though, you are in a premium market, thus you are in the market to put in a lot...
The discipline of "sales enablement" has become a top priority for many enterprise businesses. Depending on the definition you embrace, the idea is that smart companies equip their customer-facing staff with the necessary buyer insights, narratives, and sales collateral/tools to engage in meanin...
I would look at a startup call Introhive. They have a unique approach to this issue based on personal connections. *Disclosure - I do not work for them but I have friends who do.
There are many strategies that work for new sales people using LinkedIn, one of my favorite is active lead gen. For high ticket sales, new hires do well to talk to the sales manager about who the company's best clients are. Armed with this knowledge, the sales person can profile the common trai...
Do you have any internal sales professionals? You should at LEAST have an internal sales director who sets the strategy for a sales force. Then you determine if the proper path is a contracted sales force. I've known companies that have used outside sales teams however NONE that have seen the typ...