AboutSteve Valiquette Expertise Service providers and customers alike can benefit from my experience in establishing Service Level Agreements (SLAs), Call Center Support Procedures, Issues Management, Special Event Procedures, Disaster/Recovery Planning, Catastrophic Event Management, and day-to-day Server Farm issues. I also have significant experience in project management, project lifecycle planning and product development. I can contribute to many "how-tos" like: how to build a website, how to develop project management procedures, How to get the most from your hosting provider and much more.
Experience
Past/Present clients Transitions Optical, IBM, Intel, Computer Sciences Corp, Imperial Chemical Industries, Victoria Secrets, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bank of America, SEARS, State Street Bank, Peterson's CollegeQuest, Mobil Oil Corporation, Sprint PCS, MCI/Worldcom, UPS.
Question I am working to develop a distribution network/channel for several intranet/internet based software products.
CSend. This is very easy to use, we provide several templates, and also have the ability to do just about anything the client wants as far as customization.
Very economical to stay in touch with all of your customers, association members, church members, school families, potential clients, restaurants can send customers their specials for the month, notify about special events, chambers can stay in touch with their members...there are so many applications, I cannot begin to list them all. Anyone who is doing a paper newsletter would save so much money...it is very easy to show this to them. And businesses cannot afford to "not" do this. Again, the applications are endless.
Reservation and e-commerce software RightPurchase. This software has many more applications than just e-commerce (I can provide the key features.) This is a very comprehensive e-commerce package
I also have excellent gaming software.
These are all exceptional products with strong support.
I would really like to develop a distribution network, where our products are in someone else's pipeline, and we just deliver the product, but that may not work. As I said, we have excellent support for the products, but my greatest frustration is the sales aspect. We have had a number of "sales" people, and have paid commission only, but they have not been motivated enough, have tried to "sell" instead of build relationships. So, I want to try another method in getting our product out into the market.
If I could connect with some datacenters or technology companies to feature our products on their sites it would be a win-win situation because I could add value through these products to their current customers.
Is this something your company would be interested in that we could discuss further? Or would you have any other suggestions?
Answer Marcia,
I feel your pain. Sales is the frustration of most businesses. Businesses like yours do well with Affiliate programs. I would setup an affliate program. This rewards sites that link to your site and pays then if a sale is completed. There are also managed affiliate networks you could join where everyone in the network would see what you have to offer and would decide whether to link to you or not.
It would be a positive step and it doesn't cost much.
You could also think about offering Shareware versions of your software to incite downloads and trials. When the trials expire, many will pay to buy a license. Or, many companies offer a stripped down version of their app for free and then if you want all the other features, you can buy the upgrade. I have customers that use these techniques and they sell literally millions of dollars worth of software. YOu can get demo and shareware software on big shareware sites like TUCOWS.COM.
