@Lawrence & @Kate. (thanks for the heads up on the website.)
Sorry for the lack or clarity and details, here is a breakdown:
We are a Freelancer marketplace. Customers can use MyCrowd to find, hire and manage freelancers. Similar to oDesk, eLance, fiverr, etc. We actually aggregate several platforms in our backend, so we currently have 10 million workers available.
Its a two sided market (customer on one side, workers on the other.) We focused on solving the worker side first and now that is done its time to drive customers.
One of our biggest value props is that we are building out tight integrations into specific pieces of software to make all this super easy. This is relevant because there are several levels of selling:
1) High level partnerships. Getting our button inside other software so MyCrowd is one click away.
2) Affiliate partnerships. Finding affiliates who have a natural fit in the ecosystem, could become a channel, etc. and setup a rev share.
3) Selling into companies, who would use the service at volume (10-100 employees)
4) lower level sales force pounding the pavement (or email) to get single users onto the system.
Our rev model is simple- we take 10% of each transaction fee.
#1 and #2 could be very big deals. As an example, I am discussing a partnership with a major A/B Testing Software provider to bring MyCrowd into their app and to help service their 6k customers. We integrate into their software, then we co-market to their customers. This could obviously scale very fast. But this relationship took months to build.
Affiliate deals could look something like a Site Optimization company referring customers to us once they consult and tell them what needs to be done. They could hire designers and programmers on MyCrowd to implement. We would do a rev share. Setting up the partnerships is key here.
#3 and #4 is more direct sales. Leads come in through our marketing efforts, and we will also have an email marketing campaign.
@JohnWallace - I'll check out the book. Do you have a recommendation for a BD firm?
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I have personally tried to sell to all four target groups and have had some success with each, but I cannot scale my efforts enough to move the needle. I need help. As John pointed out, maybe hiring a rep, maybe hiring a BD firm, maybe bringing in a sales partner to help build out this side of the practice.
And that is the crux of the question....which direction do people think I should go?
thanks
Matthew
mycrowd.com