HubShout | Online Marketing Solutions

I've been emailing with a reseller and I realized that our email discussion would probably benefit from community input...

He asks:

So, of course I can think of a million things - but I don't want to be a firehose. I want to help this guy make money fast and build a solid business with strong customer satisfaction, retention and profits. Where should he start???

My thoughts are usually around:

1) Where do you get your leads? If the lead-flow is small / weak / non-existent, you need immediate attention on your own marketing strategy to get leads into your funnel... We have Webinars on this.

2) Do you use a CRM? A sales person without a CRM is like a car with 3 wheels. They simply can't be as efficient or close at a high percentage when compared to someone who adopts industry-accepted sales management approaches (including strong use of a CRM for follow-ups.

3) Pricing. Have you decided on your mark-up? Too high and your close ratios will be low. Too low and you will lose interest in HubShout and/or SEM because you are not making enough money. I like to see resellers marking our products up by 50-100% from wholesale.

That's quite a bit for starters. Give us a little feedback on your situation and we will give you more specific feedback.

It sounds like this reseller is just getting started. When getting started, you need to get your first few clients so that you can start building a lead flow and getting positive referrals.

In my experience, those initial leads will come from existing contacts. Look through your Rolodex (or iphone contacts), business network, church, etc... to find some people who you think would benefit from online marketing. Setup a meeting and do a demo of the dashboard. It will be a great way to practice the demo to a friendly audience.

The goal at first is to get 5 customers from your existing business network. At that point you are officially in business and making a little money.

My advice is don't waste time searching for the perfect "system" or "silver bullet." Go out and find the first clients through your network.

I still have the first check that we got when we started HubShout. I keep it taped to my wall because we got that first customer through my personal contacts. BTW, that client has now been with us over 4 years.

I'm with chad on getting the first few clients in the door. The first few leads ends up moving the reseller from "theoretical" to "experiencial," which I found to be vital. I had someone on my team selling for me when we first started with HS and when I started selling myself, it was a learning curve. I had read all of the documentation, seen the dashboard and read the conversations between my employee and the clients with whom he was working. None of this beat the wisdom I gained by experiencing the sales process and the questions that the prospects and clients actually end up having.

As per pricing, I say 50%-100% markup works fine. I would only mark up the first month by 25%-75%, because I have found that the market doesn't hold 100% on that (at least not for my clients).

--------Client Retention-------- COMMUNICATION is KEY for client acquisition and retention: Always communicate with clients and prospects PROMPTLY, even if it is to say that you received their question or comment and will be getting back with them in 3 hours (or tomorrow...or that they asked a great question and you are going to find the answer for them and get back to them by the end of the week). I have clients (whether it be clients with HS or clients through other vendors and in other areas that deal with MRC) who were on their way out. I noticed that when some of my sales reps didn't keep a relationship with the client, the client wouldn't tell some my reps their concerns until they were already out the door with no way back in. We discussed this and now almost any client who wants to leave, lets us know any of their concerns ahead of time. I KNOW when they are getting ready to exit and I can then analyze whether or not there is a way to save them that fits within my business model. Some clients I have let drop their services and kept in touch with them after they dropped services and months later they came back. A client feels part of our family once they enter the door and they always feel that way, even when they leave. There are a couple of prospects with whom I communicated for years (a little here and a little there) before they become a client.

ABRIDGED VERSION: Client retention is an absolute necessity when dealing with Monthly Recurring Charges. Good communication, transparency and a good relationship with the client/prospect is the KEY to sales and retention.

Definitely webinars!! Most of our recent webinars focus on selling SEO and other services. But I suggest watching our Diversify Your Online Marketing webinar first. In the webinar, Chad talks about the recent Google updates and why it's so important to have a diversified marketing program. This is good information to have when talking (and selling) to prospects and clients.

The HubShout web grader (which is in your dashboard) helps you show your prospects how they compare to their competitors and where they're coming up short -- and that they need SEO services. This webinar explains it all.

These three webinars are about selling HubShout services:

Selling PPC

Selling Social Media

Selling Email Marketing

It may seem a little redundant but this forum itself is a great resource. The great thing about the forum is the interaction with other HubShout resellers. Folks like Mike can provide you with an "in the trenches" point of view that can be extremely valuable.

So jump right in, see for yourself. Post and you shall receive :-)

Does an account manager have to give us access to the lead management platform to track leads and opportunities? Same with the sales presentations and proposal templates that are available- is this something that we have to ask an account mgr to give us access?

Suggestion, a Tools Section in our back-office on the website for resellers may be very helpful. This could be for editable pricing, proposals, infographics, and other tools to help us out in the field.

Good suggestion. We are working on the Sales Proposal Tool part right now with an active Release that has the green light for development.... We can think about integrating the others into our road map as well.

This would make things a lot easier- awesome!