AS HN: How do I build a sales team with little-to-no funding?

5 points by upgradeind 14 years ago | 8 comments

Some background: I founded upgradeindustries.com, which sells my creation known as BoardX. BoardX, in a nutshell, is a boutique circuitboard for hobbyists and tinkerers that want something Arduino compatible but not quite as...gimpy.

I had a successful, but small, Kickstarter campaign that funded initial production. The money has been burned through with lots of exta items in stock left over.

So to the question: Every company needs a sales team, right? Or at least guy that's dedicated to spreading the word, making contacts, and staying on top of the blogs/social networks.

I've tried using friends, offering to kick them back some money from sales they generate, partial ownership, you name it, but nobody seems to stick. I know tons of engineers, but it's like nobody has the itch to spend time outside of their day jobs on something that won't pay off immediately.

My question is, how do I attract one of those types to my start up that's up and running, but is only barely self sustaining at this point? I don't see myself being able to quit my day job for a long time at this pace. Since I'm the sole technical founder, I really don't have ability to be lead designer and lead cheer leader without stopping one for the benefit of the other.

If anybody has experience in this arena, I'd sure love to hear from them.

ScottWhigham 14 years ago |

"Every company needs a sales team, right?"

Let's call it what it is: it's a 1-person company that sells a $75 item. I understand how you might think you need a salesperson but I don't think that's feasible yet. Put yourself in a salesperson-who-is-looking-for-work's shoes:

* Here's a company that sells a $75 niche/boutique item

* They aren't offering a salary

* You will probably make $15 per board sold (20% of gross)

* You need $3000 per month to live and $6000 per month to thrive

* That means you need to sell between 200 and 400 boards per month

* They don't have any customer lists/base to offer you (which means you have to come up with your own customers)

* Founder has no history managing sales team or doing sales

* Founder isn't able to make a full-time living yet

Would you do it?

How about if you gave them a 50% commission? They still have a $3000 nut to contend with which means they'd have to sell 80 boards a month. Where are they going to sell 80 boards a month? Do you have any ideas for them? You have to sell them on being a salesperson for you - you need to have the vision first for the "How?" and then find people that buy into your vision.

I think that most founders in your position are going to be the salesperson, the designer, the builder, the stocker, the mail room guy, the IT guy, the programmer, the financial person, the biz dev guy, the marketing guy, etc. Build up sales, build up stock, and learn how to do it all. Nobody said it was easy.

upgradeind 14 years ago | |

Eh I look at it like this: if a sales person is confident in their abilities in social marketing/online ads, it would be a great deal for them because they're getting in to it late in the game after everything else, including the board is designed on in stock. They don't have to worry about it being vaporware, etc.

ScottWhigham 14 years ago | | |

Wait - that's not a "salesperson" in the traditional sense, is it? A traditional salesperson calls on clients, closes deals, and gets paid a commission for each sale. A "sales team" is a team of such salespeople. A salesperson couldn't care less about a lot of things you listed ("... staying on top of the blogs/social networks"). A salesperson cares about finding qualified leads, calling those leads, following up with those leads, and closing deals (and ideally for 1000+ units at a time in your case).

An "affiliate marketer" posts ads and gets paid a commission per action (account created, sale). The affiliate marketers want to create a buzz and get people talking about a product. Affiliate marketers though are thinking "One sale at a time" rather than "1000 units per sale". I think you could easily find affiliate marketers - that's never, ever going to be difficult as long as you are willing to pay a significant enough percentage (30%-50% will attract the better ones).

I'd just advise caution here and perhaps a little more study. You wouldn't be the first guy who some affiliate marketer "tricked" into signing an exclusive contract only to then learn that the affiliate marketer couldn't/wouldn't really sell your product...

uptown 14 years ago |

The trick is finding somebody that has both shares your vision for your products, and the chops to sell. I don't think you're wrong to go with the percentage-of-sales angle, but you're selling a niche product that doesn't have widespread appeal, so it's important that your salesperson has access to the right potential customers. That may not be the friends you've already asked, so they're right to turn you down.

Some other things to try:

1. List the parts needed to build X and sell them as a kit.

2. A/B test showing and hiding your stock levels

3. Get engaged (if your'e not) in websites and blogs with communities of people that buy this kind of stuff. You're likely to meet someone that may be interested in coming aboard on one of those sites.

4. If you get a decent-sized community of customers, hold a contest to build the best thing using your parts. Winner gets a prize of some sort and their parts-list/instructions featured. You reap the rewards from sales of components to compete. (This one may not be feasible if your user-base is small)

upgradeind 14 years ago | |

Hmm those are good ideas. At the moment, a rather strange side effect of having these boards mass produced is that the completed boards are cheaper than the boards + parts separated. So I'd actually make much less money selling deconstructed kits.

But yeah it's kind of strange, I frequently hear complaining that start ups can often seem to be marketing people looking for a technical founder to deliver their product on a silver platter. For me, it's just the opposite. I've got the product now I just need somebody to help put it on the map.

wilfra 14 years ago |

You're looking for a non-technical co-founder. Far easier to find one of those than it is to find a technical co-founder. Consider yourself lucky.

Try posting this on Quora (more business types) or a site like founder2be.com.

As somebody else said, the key is finding somebody who shares your vision, not just somebody who can sell.

You could also create an affiliate program and put it on a site like cj.com or clickbank.com who manage the affiliate relationship for a cut and send you lots of affiliates. Affiliates are basically the internet version of commission only sales reps.

Another option would be AdWords. If you can convert traffic that should be profitable. You can get longtail relevant keyword traffic for $0.05-$0.30/click if you bargain hunt+spend a lot of time w/ the keyword tool. Doesn't take a whole lot of signups/click to make that profitable at $75.

Good luck.

upgradeind 14 years ago | |

Hey thanks for the tips, I'll check this out. I tried adwords, saw absolutely no ROI after lots of experimentation.