SoftwareCEO Community

offshore development

pmarc — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:30:44 GMT

I have used many offshore vendors for website development but never for application development and wish to know ahead the problems that are likely to happen -- beyond what I can guess. The new project is an online database which pulls items and also performs calculations and reporting , and this product is optionally downloadable. Thanx, if all this helps to know for your reply.

How many of you use Blogs for Marketing?

guerino1 — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 14:50:20 GMT

Hi,

How many of you use Blogs to help market your products and/or services?

And, if you do use Blogs, do you find them to be useful?

My Best,

Frank

How to market software product

pmarc — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 15:36:32 GMT

I'm developing a homeowner construction software product and need to know the mechanics of how I can sell it. The methods I adopt will affect how the product is designed, to some extent.... access, security other aspects.

My target websites (DIY market and allied outdoor products) are of 2 types: those that will re-sell these kinds of products and allow their visitors to pay and download it, and those who will not.

I'm ***uming the ones that will not will let me advertise on their site or do affiliate marketing. I don't have the $10k to pay Commission Junction and my ad budget is very small. So this angle is a tough one unless I'm missing something? Advice desired. [To create a product hoping to find cheap affiliate marketing programs is a crap shoot. From what I know, it's tough enough if you have money].

Regarding the re-sellers, I'm naive: how would I track the downloads to know what to bill the re-seller, or be sure my contract payment terms are being met?

Are there media I'm leaving out and what plan would you tell me to take? I've also thought about embedding the core product into a broader website and also selling related items supplied by drop-shippers. But I know no matter how you do it, going alone on 1 website is mickey mouse. Been there with SEO and paid ads. And I'm aware of Adsense. Seems like non-sense if you want to make real money.

If you've got any bright ideas I might send you some of my excess inventory (probably an outdoor rocking chair - seen at www.brookbend.com).

Another idea: anyone know a distributor of software that matches this category, or know how to find distributors. The brick and mortar or catalog business may be a big oppt'y.

Yay! I see the constant popup XML error box is fixed

bbrasky — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:34:55 GMT

Thanks for fixing it, webmaster! Hopefully this site can start to attract some good traffic again. I was driven off, but I'm glad I checked back, and I hope to contribute here more in the future!

Outsourcing of Blogging

Cosoft — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:53:06 GMT

Blogging is now so prevalent that even a primary student knows how to utilize it to express his thoughts and feelings. For visionary entrepreneurs, blogging is seen to be a mean of marketing. With the popularity of blogs, it had proven its advantages and its superiority as advertisement, e.g. interactivity. Through blogging, one can interact with customers and showcase of value being provided, which makes up for the deficiency of advertisement.

Can you believe that blogging can also be outsourced? With the enlargement of scope and growing of focus degree of blogging as a marketing tool, the concept of �blogging outsourcing� appears. Someone may wonder why. It�s such a simple thing! Yes, it seems not complicated but pretty significant. It is a form of marketing, being relevant with an enterprise�s value proposition. What�s important is that blogging is not just writing but exposure of the enterprise�s culture.

Blogging calls for the following basic qualifications: literal ability, professional knowledge (such as cosmetics), management practice, awareness and ease application of internet. That�s to say, the blogs posted must arouse people�s desire to read, only by which the blog has the value that it possessed. It�s not that easy to find someone in a company to handle this job; though there is someone, he must be rounded by hands of complex routine affairs. Then �blogging outsourcing� emerges properly.

According to the reality, this kind of outsourcing is a wise choice for small/medium-sized enterprise in that it not only costs little but brings obvious value. At the same time, it saves internal staff a good chunk of time to work on more important things. Blogging outsourcing has become an irresistible trend. Considering these, Why not join the army of outsourcing blog marketing?

Need business partners for ManageFieldStaff.com

uniquegodwin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:29:56 GMT

Hello,

I would like to invite anyone interested in partnering with a 5 year old software company with 30 years experience in Business.

ManageFieldStaff.com is a new innovative product...I would like to invite people into sales and marketing in partnering with us to take this forward.We have a full fledged highly skilled and talented technical team here in India.

Contact me for further details to contact@cdtech.in or reply to this post...

Thanks

Appropriate Commission Level for 1099 Contractor

zendudes — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:57:08 GMT

Hello,

I am new to this forum and have searched extensively through threads that I hoped might have been able to help me. Unfortunately, most of what I have found is rather stale, dating back many years in some cases. Please try to help me based on your recent knowledge; since as we all know, things have changed...I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

I have been a professional sales representative for over 30 years and have always worked on straight commission. In my last position, I was EVP of the largest privately held small business brokerage firm in the US, and worked remotely from my home office. Because I have a strong background generally in IT, I decided to investigate an ad I saw published by a Managed Services Provider who was looking for help selling an add on dash board building application for the PSA they use. They realized that the app could be of benefit to other MSPs using the same PSA, so they started a new website for the product.

The original offer was 10% of total gross sales. I was told that 80% of potential clients would purchase the software after a 15-day trial evaluation. The company has been providing me with lists of potential users and most contacts are at the C level. I started working about 45 days ago and discovered that although the owner had already made "10 sales or so," many of those sales were made to Peer Group members who had worked on a beta version of the product. There was no proven sales process in place to complete a sale.

As a result, I quickly suggested that just dumping a link on someone for a trial eval (even if they had requested one from the website) was not going to be an effective way of generating sales. I recommended changing the strategy to setting up web meetings where we would walk the client through installing the app locally to access their own data, and then give them a head start on how to use the software features to access their database to their best advantage based on their own reporting preferences.

In the last month, I did approximately 40 one-hour installations and demos, together with the person who hired me and who was instrumental in the development of the app. For the last 10 webmeetings, I have been doing the install and demo by myself, although my colleague is still attending the meetings. It can take up to 10 attempts to reach the client initially to have a conversation at the C level that creates the desire in the client to want to see a demo based on their own data.

During our web meetings, we have learned that the software is not in a true ready-to-market state. More frequently than not, there are database anomalies that creep up during the demo and this does not instill confidence in the client, thereby increasing the sales cycle. In addition, the software is a work-in-progress, meaning that we are "partnering with the community of users" to further develop the product based on the purchasers' feedback--"What features do you not see that you would like to have added in the next update?" Therefore, what was to be an off the shelf, easy to sell solution, has become an extremely consultation heavy sale. We have sold about 10K in the last two weeks.

I have let the person who hired me (I am not in direct contact with the owner) know that the agreement of 10% commission will not provide enough income for me during this developmental part of the process. I think she already knows that it will be close to impossible to find someone else with my level of expertise to do this work uless there is a drastic change in the compensation model. For example, if we do 500K over the next year with the product selling for between 1K and 2.5K with an average sale of 1.75K, that means I have to sell an average of six units per week. I already see how much work is involved in this project and I just do not think that 50K in compensation is nearly enough.

The absolute minimum I think is fair is 30% of the gross, which would mean 150K total compensation, and I am doubtful we will even hit 500K. The person who hired me says that the owner does not want to talk about compensation until after I am bringing in more sales. I say that if no sales come in, nobody is going to make money, so his position that he wants to capture his initial investment (keeping 50% of the gross for himself and setting aside 25% for marketing, of which sales commission is not included) is moot. I keep asking for what if scenarios and a commitment to a future based on what seems to be fair. Instead, I am becoming completely discouraged, not having any idea of when we are going to negotiate a more realistic deal. At this stage, I am starting to view every new outgoing call I make as slave labor that I will probably not be compensated for fairly, and obviously, I am not a slave.

What do you think is fair in a situation like this?

Thanks!

Help Needed: Looking for Filenet Solution providers

DrRaj — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:53:48 GMT

Hi All,
This is my first post over here. Anyways i came here looking for companies that have previous experience with providing solutions for Filenet software on java platform.

Please do go through this thread https://www.softwareceo.com/forums/s...ead.php?t=4040 before answering.

-Thanks.

Documentation on Pyramid Sales?

guerino1 — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 20:33:16 GMT

Hi,

I've been looking for documentation that clearly defines what is or isn't a Pyramid Sales program. There's quite a bit of material on the web but most of it looks incomplete or subject to personal interpretation of the writer. Things get more complex when you take into account that different states have different rules.

We have a situation where we'd like to build a member-based sales model. Members will get a Member License, upon meeting certain entry criteria (like taking a certification exam). Once they get their Member License, we'd like to then be able to allow the Members to use their licenses as a way to 1) offer discounts to future prospects and 2) get a piece of the margins for any sales that can be tied back to their Membership ID. This would allow us to reward our members, financially, for bringing on new members and reselling products and services.

What we don't want to do, under any circumstance, is create a Pyramid Sales scheme that would violate any laws, so we're looking for solid documentation that clearly delineates what is or isn't a pyramid. Is there a solid reference on the topic that someone could please recommend?

Thanks, in advance, for any help you can offer.

My Best,

FG

Is Outsourcing Beneficial or Adverse to the US Economy?

Cosoft — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:07:43 GMT

According to recent news, a bill authored by the Congressman Jerry McNerney of United States gives rise to some discussion. It wrote, "Tax loopholes that encourage corporations to ship jobs abroad would be closed ". Corporations outsourcing jobs oversea, e.g. some "tax haven countries" such as India, Pakistan will be punished in the proposal. However, this saying seems to arouse sentiments with people. Regardless of its reason, the fact is opposite to what said by the congressman, e.g. the gains brought by outsourcing outweigh the losses.

A research conducted by an American panel shows that American consumers, workers and business are benefiting from outsourcing.

Increased in products sales; Outsourcing reduces the enterprises' costs, makes things more cheaply so they will be more attractive and available to consumers. The investigation notes that globalization of computer hardware manufacturing led to a 10 to 30 percent decline in prices, making such equipment more affordable and leading to a far greater increase in jobs in the long run.

More focused on professional skills; Companies mainly outsource some non-core or low-tech jobs to others, which leaves the jobs calls for high-level skill to local people. They can have more time and energy to focus on the professional jobs, improving productivity. It can encourage more American people to learn these skills to ensure their individual competitiveness. In some sense, this is a means to enhance workforce quality.

Increased ability to pay government's tax fee. Giving jobs to workers in less developed countries improves the United States economically and increases trade for US products. Therefore, It also increases a company�s ability to pay tax fee to the US government, which contributes greatly to a country's revenue.

Come to the conclusion, outsourcing is not what the popular belief is--it gives a lot of jobs to foreigners and it deprives local people of job opportunities (though it is the fact somewhat) and so outsourcing is adverse. Thus, from a broaden vision, the benefits or advantages outsourcing brings to US are much more than the disadvantages.

Partner Program Success Rates

shonky — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 06:52:13 GMT

Our company is presently looking at new go to market options through our partners. We provide a payments processing service for Europe and the Asia Pacific region and this is run as a managed service, ie essentially SaaS.

We have 3rd party partners in our industry who either own the customer relationship or integrate to our software. In discussions with them, their preference is that we commercially commit to the customers, they may provide 1st line support, but they would like a back-end cut of our revenue.

On this basis, has anyone had any success with commission-based partner programs? Things like "if you sell < 5000 widgets you are now a gold partner and receive 10% of the on-going revenue". Are there any pitfalls apart from manageability?

Thanks

Shonky

2011 Report on Customer Acquisition Methods

ChrisHeggem — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:04:31 GMT

Hey everybody, we've just released this this report that has some fascinating facts and figures for software businesses.

The data for this research comes from 184 successful software companies who shared their most effective customer acquisition strategies. This report covers:

⋅ The most effective acquisition methods
⋅ How much to spend on customer acquisition
⋅ 8 creative campaigns that work
⋅ Customer acquisition trends for 2011 and beyond

A great read for any software company! Download the FREE report:
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I hope this report helps you all with your software businesses.