SoftwareCEO Community

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:
http://bit.ly/bmQJoy

I hope this report helps you all with your software businesses.

Using their paper?

pdevlin — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:20:35 GMT

We are getting a lot more pressure to use the clients contracts instead of ours. Is this simply a negotiating position, or are many of you having to use the buyers paper to get a deal done?

Simple, Affordable Global Licenses

webguy — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:21:23 GMT

Hello guys,

An important advantage of outsourcing is that considerable amount of money can be saved on the cost of labor. However, costs shoot up when licensing traditional software. This is because legacy software providers have very expensive and complex licensing models. However, we trusted Zephyr 3.0 since it provided very simple and cost effective global licenses.

Introduction to marketing.

ronaldeddy — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:13:43 GMT

In marketing there is a consistent growth over previous several years this term has many add on concept.It is a solution to the marketing solutions. Many enterprises check for the solution in marketing and advertising to maximize their profits.

Another Test

predmertest — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:49:39 GMT

This is a test of the posting system.

Testing

predmertest — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:47:32 GMT

Testing the post system.