1. Greetings
A lot of our Webkite team have expressed interest in hearing what has been taking place in
the new sales department.
Now that I am in my 2nd
month I thought it would be beneficial to deliver a summary of what
preparatory work was done here in my 1st
month.
So I've prepared a brief recap of things I've initiated or participated in …
it's not meant to be comprehensive, in fact, this is only about 2/3 of what was actually done,
but it will give some idea of the steps taken and what was accomplished.
So here goes:
Reviewed and researched our product and it's functionality.
Planned integration into the existing Webkite strategy and culture.
Planned integration of Sales into Customer Service, Design, and Development teams.
Created 2 sales employment ads
Placed Ads via Resumator in Indeed, and Craigslist.
Additionally, re-reviewed candidates that had previously applied for roles at Webkite for sales
team suitability.
Reviewed 63 new resumes.
Phone screened 52 people
Interviewed 26 people
(Thanks, Austin and Mike for help.)
(20 male, 6 female)
11 second interviews
Made offers to 8 candidates
Retained 5 new hires.
Began the sales training process for new salespeople.
(Thanks, Austin and Mike for helping with this)
Wrote front end, opening sales script for Chamber/Township market.
Researched sales leads;
Reviewed Chambers, Towns, Counties, and Associations as targets,
Previewed Store Locators as potential next market pursuit.
Researched Web Designers as future market, and contemplated our product's acceptance
by Web Designers.
Discussed interests and concerns of 14 web designers at a recent Meetup.
Structured an on-boarding protocol for new clients between sales and customer support.
(Thanks Alaina and Jennie for your insights on this.)
Initiated the redesign of a new responsive website for use on Webkite.com
Goals: tighten product definition, image, and message, to refine brand and generate leads.

2. Defined prospect “personas” with corresponding product pricing:
$99 Self Service, $299 Launchsite, $Custom Enterprise.
Created copy inducing the prospect to self identify as one of these personas.
(Thanks, Dan and Chris)
Researched and compared sites used by edirectory, brilliant directories, phpmydirectory
and other sites in the directory category, focused on characteristics of those with low bounce
rates, high hold times, and long page views, for common traits and structure.
Recommended similarly formatted structures with landing page phone number,
numerous calls to action, and use of a demo video, or descriptive slider.
Researched past keyword targeting/response/costs.
Researched our email lead response archive for tone and keyword subtleties.
Researched past buyer profiles and business/opportunity models.
Initiated an email drip campaign to be used with prospects entered into our sales funnel.
(Thanks Dan for launching this.)
Initiated targeting Forum-based advertising avenues.
Recommended experimenting with Vbulletin and OpenX advertising networks.
Conceptualized BestTownsinAmerica.com, an on-boarding theme and example website for
the township/community market.
Initiated implementing “LaunchSite”:
a standardized, modular, re-useable, maintainable, presentation and delivery webpage theme
to be used for a “standard” $299+ price base customer offering;
designed to demonstrate what we are selling, define the features included in the sale, and
accomplish product delivery “closure”.
Reviewed and researched sign-on “drops”.
Reviewed and researched cancellation “drops”.
Designed a temporary signup page.
Structured referral agreements for referring BFF's.
Created a Dignity Acknowledgement (our understanding of mutual respect in the workplace).
Made a sales call (which closed) in the field with Mike for the Pittsburgh Social Exchange
presentation. (Thanks, Mike)
Represented Webkite with Peter at Tech Top 50 VIP event.
Initiated Tech 50 Blog entry through Dan.
Represented Webkite with Eric at Tech Cocktail event.
Represented Webkite with Mike at the PSE networking event.

3. Participated in my first Kitejam. Created angels.flyasite.com.
Organized sales team participation in Kitejam for the creation of 4 other kites.
(Thanks, Alaina and Chris for walking us through the subtleties)
Obtained office phone number. Installed phone lines, (Thanks, Peter) computers, headsets,
desks and chairs, etc for the sales office.
(Thanks Christy for facilitating.)
Researched CRMs. Reviewed CRM demos.
I'm happy to see a new sales team with no prior Webkite knowledge, and with no experience
selling anything similar in this industry, with no traction, is moving forward with positive
outlooks, daily increases in product knowledge and refinements of technique, on a path of
success. Selling a platform like ours is a foundation building process, and we are on course
constructing that foundation.
It's been great working with Austin and Mike, who I work with hourly, helping with all of these
things, the rest of the new sales team, and everyone else here at Webkite.
I want to thank Peter and his team for creating and continuing to create such a great product
and opportunity; Eric for trusting me with access to the company and team that he has been
creating for the past 3 years; and everyone on the team for joining in the adventure.
I will always look back on this time as something great and fun I was fortunate enough to
have participated in.
I'm looking for month two to be just as rich an experience.
Gene
Sales Office before and after pics