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A special post for those at early-stage b2b companies

I believe the notion of building an allyforce — exchanging securely and selectively account and contact information with other sales reps you know and trust — is applicable across pretty much any sales industry.

Early-stage (technology) companies get a little love and attention with this entry which has a good, comprehensive list of ways to develop leads.

I pulled a quote from one of the items from the blog: http://replytoall.typepad.com/reply_to_all/:

2.  Partner marketing

  • Bar none, partner leads are the most qualified you can get.  If you don’t have partners, get some
  • Keep in mind partnering is time and resource consuming.  It can also be perilous so don’t put all your eggs in one basket
  • A referral selling agreement is a must have in the legal docs arsenal.  It should be short and sweet that allows both parties to get paid if they refer business to each other.  Either a fixed dollar amount per deal or something like 8-10%.  Maybe has a co-marketing or press release agreement as well.

Partnering is hard, and can be very time and resource consuming.

But the process of automating who has given whom what, what types of information, and when — as well as intelligently identifying which accounts and which partners you can Target saves crucial time while unlocking valuable potential prospects.

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