Backstory: I’ve noticed a lot of companies have had trouble scaling up/down their sales teams depending on how they’re doing. Also, most outside sales teams just do phone sales. I’m seeing a lot of small/medium sized SaaS businesses that don’t use Intercom because of the amount of manpower/hours it takes. They’d rather pay their employees for other things.
The Idea: Intercom sales team as a service. The service would be commission only, so it’s no cost for the business owner.
Deep Dive: I actually reached out to a business owner about this idea. He said it was intriguing, but raised a few valid concerns.
If you were to start working on this idea, you should be prepared to have answers to both of these questions.
Before launching this business, you should also think about whether you want this to be a solo business, or whether you want it to scale and hire people. If you hired people, you’d probably want to give the majority of the commission to the rep. A business that provides this service would have to super scale in order to make profit.
Validation: As I mentioned earlier, the business owner that I reached out to was intrigued. He said he thought most owners would try it, because there's almost nothing to lose (except for the problems mentioned above).
Monetization: My initial thought is that this would be a commission-only service because it makes for a huge selling point. However, a lot of times companies might need you to go through training before you market their product through chat. If this is the case, I'd recommend trying to get paid for that. Also, I would imagine that each proposal would differ slightly depending on the businesses situation and needs. Have a discovery meeting so that you can better identify their needs before writing up a proposal.
