So many conversations in bars and coffee shops in Center City, or the few conferences I’ve attended, trying to answer the same question: Who can help us better sell Technical.ly?
I was introduced to that Temple graduating senior. I struck up a partnership with Jason, who had been in digital media agency sales after a Fairmount drink. The former newspaper online sales manager felt promising, so I bought him a second Guinness at Bishops Collar. We made an offer to a former local TV web sales person, who turned us down for a similarly crummy offer at an even more weak local offering. Tara was dating a game designer we knew, and she was the first we had a formal arrangement with, set up at an Old City coffee shop. After an event with a local group of founders, a few more coffee meetings followed. Then there was the big-haired former rock DJ turned local TV ad exec: We never decided if we thought he was brilliant or deranged. (Looking back it was definitely the latter).
In all these cases, we tried to work out some commission-only offering for a product that didn’t have any sales. We tried simple percentages, and more complicated ones — with variable rates depending on inbound or outbound, new or existing relationships and product types.
In the end, the only way to was through. We didn’t really know what Technical.ly was selling, so of course no sales rep would succeed. We didn’t have enough audience for digital ads, not enough tech for product sales, not formal enough events for sponorships.
As founders, we had to figure it out ourselves. No entrepreneur can succeed without a heavy dose of sales. Once our events model was clearer in recent years, we’ve had success. We hired our first full-time biz dev rep and then others. We needed clear value prop, clear prospects, clear inventory, clear processes. It can be improved upon but all that needed to be determined first, and the entrepreneur is the only one who is going to do that.