Sales is king. It's the only think that can grow a business and also save it. Companies are like people, everyone does things slightly different. Some things work great for some companies, and for others it can be a complete flop. By some of the answers I see on here, there are a lot of praise for design and proper branding. However, I've seen a beautifully designed and incredibly branded company fail miserably; and I've also seen a brutally branded company flourish with millions in revenue. The only difference was that one produced sales, and the other didn't. It doesn't matter how you get there (of course it needs to be ethical), but companies need to produce sales. It depends on your sales strategy and approach to marketing. A business with poor branding must have a strong sales team. Vice versa, a company with fantastic modern branding must execute creative marketing strategies to bring in sales. Including partnerships, email marketing, paid advertising, and others. Moral of the story is that the one thing that works best in my company isn't going to be the best thing in yours. The only differentiator between good and great companies is customer service, or, unwavering service in general. You must make your customers and clients love you. Let me know if you have any questions. Just message me. I'll help you develop a winning sales strategy. That's all I do.

There is a sad reality to answering this question, but you're going to have to do the work yourself. Reason being, you're going to need money (capital) to hire and pay a sales team. This is one of those questions that the phrase "sales fixes all." Meaning, you're going to have to start selling yourself. Once you start making enough money to hire one sales person, you and that sales person can start selling enough revenue to hire another, at that point you can stop selling and have your 2 sales people sell on their own. The short answer is: you're going to have to start selling on your own. There is another way to do it, but u don't recommend it because of the high turnover and very shitty results: 100% commission based sales team. You could try to hire 3 or 4 commission based sales people, but they probably won't be any good. If they have any sales experience they'll know they should be making at least a small base salary. Pick up the phone and start selling on your own. Once you have enough revenue coming in the door you can easily hire a sales team.

The way I have found works best to get very good advisors in the past is to reach out to other entrepreneurs who have already done what you want to do very successfully, or at least something very similar. I simply start scouring LinkedIn to find the best entrepreneurs who have done something similar to what I have done and I message them asking for 5 minutes of their time. Basically all I do is ask for 5 minutes of their time for some advice on a new business you want to start. Then, once I get on the phone with them, I ask all of the questions I want answered. If they seem like a good person and like they want to help you, then I flat out ask them if they would be interested in becoming an equity advisor. An equity advisor is someone who gives you 4 hours per month (1 hour per week) to literally be a part of your team and collaborate on a weekly call or meeting. In exchange, they get about 1% of equity. If you have any questions or want to know about some of the other ways I find quality advisors, just message me and I'll share my experience with you. I also recommend to check out the reviews on my Clarity profile to see that my calls and advice are extremely helpful. I look forward to speaking with you!

August 2014 I decided I was going to start a large conference in Chicago for entrepreneurs to learn from other successful entrepreneurs. No money invested and without any real "connections" I hit the phones and used a ton of creative techniques to add over 30 speakers to my line up with names as big as Daymond John from ABC's Shark Tank. I got ahold of millionaire and billionaire entrepreneurs who professionally speak, as well as tons of professional speakers. I worked with them and still keep in contact with a ton of them. I used a call/email/linkedin/twitter strategy, but probably not what you'd expect. I'd love to help and if you or me don't think I helped you out very much, I will refund your money. No questions asked. Free email support until you reach your goal. See the reviews on my bio. Shoot me a message with questions.

My #1 rule on follow up is that you must be peristaltic, but not annoying. Be creative with his you are reaching out to them. I've been featured in a few articles on Inc. and Creator Magazine for how unique my follow up is. If you want some help strategizing for 5-10 minutes how you should follow up, shoot me a message and I'll help you out. I hate the feeling of being anxious on call follow up, but if you go about it the correct way and do it confidently, they will eventually respond.

There are plenty of pitch coaches on here, so if you wanted to learn for yourself - I am sure you could. However, easing dollars is more about the grind of contacting investors more so than it is giving the pitch. Don't get me wrong, your pitch needs to be great but more than half the battle is getting a meeting. If I were you, I would find a co-founder who has a great amount of sales experience and isn't afraid to cold call people. Then, I would hire a pitch coach off of clarity like Tyler Crowley or myself. Tyler is the godfather of pitch coaches (in my opinion). I would love to help you find a co-founder. I am pretty good at it and have done it a few times myself. If you need some help trying to figure out what your next steps are or how romantically find a co-founder and pitch them into joining you, feel free to shoot me a message. I would love to help. Check out the reviews on my Clarity profile, not only do I love to help but I can absolutely help you out.

Hey - I would highly recommend checking out Contently or one of the other content marketing companies that uses contract writers. The company Contently is amazing and they have like 50,000+ contract writers like you.

It really depends on how much you have to spend but in my experience, the lowest customer acquisition costs come from influencer marketing (non-organic word of mouth). I'm in no way affiliated with them, but Neo Reach (neoreach.com) has a scalable influencer marketing model that is genius. It's pricey, but genius. I can make an intro to one of the co-founders if necessary. I'd love to help you strategize a plan to increase app downloads. Shoot me a message because I checked out your website and have a few ideas on how you can make some small tweaks to your website and marketing to separate yourselves from your competitors. I'm confident I could be of some help to you as I have a lot of success hacking experience like the situation you're finding yourself in.

No one will steal your "idea." Entrepreneurship is 2% great ideas and 98% hard work and execution. You cannot operate your business in fear of others ripping off your success, or you will never find success. Not to mention, no one will steal your idea until they see it being successful, and at that time you'll already be ahead of the game. If you have more questions on specifics, don't hesitate to shoot me a message with more specific questions. I'd love to strategize an actionable plan with you to validate your startup. I have some great experience in this space and I'm confident I could help. I look forward to your message.

Here is the deal: as an entrepreneur, you must be the best sales person at your company. There aren't any excuses that can combat that. Then, once the business has a revenue stream, you may hire a small sales team to continue new business into the sales funnel. In order to become successful, you (and your co-founders) must make an effort to pursue those leads on your own. If you need help on developing a system or a sales process, do not hesitate to message me. I would love to help. I have done sales strategy consulting and coaching many times and have trained many entrepreneurs to become successful in sales. If you schedule a call with me and do not think it was worth your time and money, I will refund your money no questions asked. However, you should shoot me a message and explain to me a little bit better what your situation is exactly so I can figure out how I can best help. I always give free email support until your goals are achieved. Hope to see a message from you soon. - Colin