A recession is a good time to sit back and analyze your go to market strategy and, part of this, to think about going international, online or through a reseller network. You may be already selling internationally in same language markets/through a few reseller partners – now is a good time to expand.

So why is it good to go international NOW?

• Spread risk (don’t put all eggs in one basket).
• Increase market base (there’s a variety of markets out there, from small to large software markets in both established and emerging economies. Not to mention that an increasing online population makes it easier than ever before to sell software online).
• Increase revenue.

Let’s dwell on this last point for a bit. When it comes to building a partner network, you need to start right about now to be fully up to speed when the recession is over and things start booming again. It doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t get anything out of your channel during the recession (that’s not a promise either), but in general you have to be ready to support it for at least 6 months without seeing much return.

There’s two trends – the Cloud and the Crowd – afoot in the software world, and if these trends have gotten buried by all the day to day trivia, let me give you a quick rundown on how they’re changing our industry.

Way back say two years ago, one of the first checks you’d write launching your startup would be to a graphic artist for a couple thousand dollars to execute your new company’s logo. It wouldn’t be cheap, but it would be good and they’d been recommended to you as someone who did good startup logos.

Now what you’d do is spend $39 at 99designs.com to post a design contest for your new company logo for say 1/4 of what you would have paid and let the crowd of 31,000 graphic artists submit designs to you. Then watch as 56, 92 or 124 (actual numbers) designers submit logos for your consideration. Joe the Graphic Artist might be good, but is he better than a hundred other graphic artists?

A week and a bit ago I attended an Online chat about Twitter and micro-blogging with Bob Walsh. I was actually @ home with my two young children and had joined in late (there were transcripts provided after – very useful. Thanks, Neil).

While I was trying to catch up with what had been said and make sense of the conversation, I realized that no matter what the announced theme was, people taking part could find something interesting to say, share, comment, digress to other topics and overall enjoy the experience. 25 folks joining in an online conversation on a work-related issue and having a good time – this would be my summary of the whole thing.

Picture taken during the "Casual Drinks with Avangate" Business Networking Event

I am sure that many of you participated to a wide range of events and noticed some good or bad practices.  I have recently been involved in organizing a business networking event for Avangate US office, so I put a lot of thought in it and also gained access to all stages of business event organizing, including feedback from participants.

In this post I will share some ideas from my experience as a business developer – ideas that work for a great networking event; in fact I think that these are the most important steps that must be completed to achieve the success and reputation you are targeting by organizing the event.

1. Have a self-explanatory name

Here in Silicon Valley there are tens of events daily. For the audience is quite difficult or time consuming to identify the right events if they are called like “Technology tools” or “International roundtable”; technology for what? Roundtable of whom? That’s why some events have audience and others have not.

I’m not sure how to start this post, but most techniques of overcoming the writer’s block say that you should write something and worry later about how it looks. Besides, I only have 27 minutes to write it until the next meeting.

Let’s see.

I want to talk about the way microISV present themselves on the market – as Bob Walsh says, when you have a microISV you have to wear about 47 hats – from creating the product, marketing, support and up to being the janitor. So how important is it to show bigger than you really are? Should you fake it until you make it?

25 minutes to the next meeting. Writer block gone.

Why do people like better to buy from bigger companies?

• They trust them more in giving their credit card details
• It’s unlikely that the company / product will disappear
• It’s a “warranty” for the software quality
• They think the afterward  support will be better

TrialPay Lead Follow-up integrated into Avangate platform

Everybody is complaining about low software sales since this crisis situation got on the front page. It’s easy to figure out why. The million dollar question now is how a software vendor can increase software sales or at least keep income on the survival level.

I believe the answer implies a bit of creativity on your side and openness to experimenting. The client is more and more difficult to convince into buying your software and that is why I propose to try out the TrialPay incentive, which is the big “GET IT FOR FREE” button.

For those of you who don’t know already, TrialPay gives you the possibility of offering your software product for free to your customer and in return receiving a certain amount of money (usually less than your list price, but more than the minimum you are willing to receive) by being a referrer for another brand inside the TrialPay network. And that of course, is way better than no sales.