How can an entrepreneur find competent, cheap and effective sales and marketing resources? This is a question that many startups and emerging companies must ask themselves every day. It is especially true for the bootstrapped or simply cash-strapped entrepreneur. In many cases the founders of these companies might have great development or operational skills, but lack the sales or closing genes necessary to bring in the business. Thus the dilemma, an entrepreneur has a great product, service or solution, but they don’t have the knowhow or sales and marketing team to build a pipeline and convert suspects to prospects, and then to new clients.

Of course, simply stated, the dilemma above actually represents two distinct issues, driving leads into the sales funnel (a marketing function) then qualifying and closing these leads (sales function). There does appear to be an answer to this question, with a new spin on an old methodology, the independent sales agent model. There are now opportunities for entrepreneurs to outsource the lead development and sales process using a virtual sales and marketing approach, thus conserving cash and mitigating startup risk. This model results in a true “reap what you sow” relationship, which emerging companies seem to like. In these cases, even a modest budget might be sufficient to pilot this model.

Why would this new virtual marketing and sales agent model work for a startup, entrepreneurship or cash strapped company? Hiring a great sales person, let’s say his name was Tom, even on a highly leveraged commission plan, with benefits, training and management time would cost at least $5,000 per month for most industries, and this is before any commissions or marketing costs are added. Because of our virtual approach, we were able to provide both the sales capacity AND the marketing for half the cost of a “Tom”. We think it is only possible to do this using a virtual, no overhead, internet based tools approach.

Though the sales agent is not typically full-time, the results are can be far superior because the management time, reporting, sales skills, marketing and lead generation are all incorporated into one streamlined, cost effective, outsourced solution. This concept may take a while to catch on with some emerging companies, but it is, in many ways, a better approach to the traditional path of securing large loans or a second mortgage, angel funding, or venture capital funding. And there is a hidden bonus, if the salesperson leaves, there is no need for a new hiring process, they are replaced under this model with another sales agent, trained and brought up to speed without cost to the entrepreneur.

This model eliminates the need to find the sales closer that can “do it all”, find and cultivate leads, follow-up on pipeline worthy accounts, provide marketing materials and presentation materials and finally close new business. It also reduces cash flow needs, venture capital or other funding requirements. All of these services can be provided together, at a lower cost than the traditional brick and mortar model. Perhaps it sounds too good to be true, but I think that is because this is a new approach to an old problem. This new approach, leveraging the virtual model, internet tools and an outsourced contractor methodology can deliver better results than the old-fashioned, hire a brand new internal sales and marketing team and hope it works, brick and mortar approach.