Attributor
A web-monitoring anti-piracy solution company
The Challenge: Though a veteran of inside sales, when Attributor’s CEO stepped up to lead the fledgling company, he wanted to avoid the mistake made by many startups – ramping up sales efforts without fully understanding their market or their customers. He wondered if he had the right customer-product fit, a repeatable sales process, the right model – should it be direct/field sales or just inside sales – how should he price the product? What he wanted and needed was real data so he could make intelligent decisions about his sales strategy.
The Solution: He hired Phone Works to implement a pilot program to help him understand his market and customers, and to test the feasibility of using an inside – or other – sales model. He recognized that a pilot would answer his questions, without spending a lot of investor money or wasting valuable time. Phone Works came in, rapidly set up an efficient sales process, then quickly tested a number of hypotheses and combinations of phone and Web approaches.
The Result
- Learned that the fastest track to revenue was selling to the newspaper market
- By year end, Attributor had sales or commitments with 80% of US newspapers
