The owner, Pat Newman, has extensive sales experience and has worked for a couple different types of door-to-door sales companies. While there, he quickly realized what it takes to succeed in sales. This allowed him to rise to the top of his field and he remained the top income-earner for seven years in a row.

While working hard in his sales positions, Pat also worked on his hobby of creating websites for friends and then hosting them on his own server. Eventually he was managing an average of 21 websites a week, just by word of mouth. Pat realized the revenue from his hobby was greater than that for his position in sales. Therefore, he decided to quit his sales job and founded Portal Code, Inc.

MARKET ANALYSIS

Of the 20,000 business in the area, only 15 percent have a website and, of this 15 percent, it is estimated that only 4 percent have spent more than $1,000 on their site. This has resulted in a lot of websites that need some professional attention and redesign. We are estimating that in the next 12 months we are going to capture 10 percent of this market, which will result in rebuilding existing sites and designing new sites.

Competition

There are five web design firms listed in the local yellow pages with large ads that will the sell the same type of service for design and hosting that we plan to provide. This seems excessive simply because of the cost to advertise in this medium and the lack of quality websites published to date. We checked the competing companies's sites and called each with a list of questions. Here are our direct competitors and their prices:

Tomas Web Design-$3,500 starting price
Pitter Patter Webs-$3,200 starting price
United Web Company-$2,600 starting price
Wilson Web Services-$1,600 starting price
Brown and Hill Internet Sites-$800 starting price

We will position our starting price in the mid-level range of $2,900. Our hosting will range from $75 per month to $500 per month based on the requirements of the client.

OPERATIONS

Staff

We will employ the following staff:

2 web designers, including the owner and one hired designer.
3 sales staff. These sales staff will be outside sales staff to call on the business market.
1 telemarketer. This telemarketer will sell websites to the home market via cold calls on the phone and scan the internet, for prospects etc. This person will also answer the phone and provide client services.
1 accountant, part-time. The owner's wife will manage this area. She will also continue to work at her day job as a sales associate for a major retailer, and manage the accounting functions of Portal Code, Inc. in the evening. This will allow for a steady stream of income coming into the household.

Equipment

The equipment required to start this business includes:

6 IBM desktop computers
2 Apple notebook computers
ZED Website design software
Paypilta Art software
Photoshop Professional software
MSN Office Suite software
ACCPAC Accounting software
Norton Anti-Virus and Firewall software
4 desks and chairs
2 fax machines
1 wireless router
1 server

In addition, we will require traditional office products necessary to running an office such as pens, paperclips, etc.

MARKETING & SALES

Sales Staff

Compensation

Our sales staff will follow the following sales strategy:

We will be the first web design firm to sell websites door to door. We will hire seasoned sales staff that will make cold calls on prospective clients.

The key to this strategy is simple; we will divide the region into territories, with each one being equal. Each sales rep will be given a sales quota; this quota is going to be fair but must be met each month. We have set the quota higher than what we need to succeed, so in the event we come in at 30 percent below budget, we will still make money and the sales staff will still earn a good income.

Sales staff can expect the following compensation:

Base salary of $200 per week
Car allowance of $100 per week
Cell phone allowance of $50 per week

Each sales person will be required to supply their own notebook computer. The reason for this is to prevent the staff from handling our equipment or increasing our costs for equipment.

We will offer the sales staff the following commission structure:

Based on a quota of $15,000 per month of 6 websites per month, we will give the rep a 20 percent commission over and above their salary.
We will give the sales rep a $500 quarterly bonus if they meet their sales budget.
We will give the sales rep a 5 percent bonus if they find a lead in another sale representative's territory and hand over the lead. This will insure great team work, as well focus the sales staff on performance verses in-fighting which is common with highly productive sales staff.

The reason the earning for the sales staff seems high is simply because we strongly feel the only way to grow sales for a new firm is to attack the market aggressively. We will start out slowly, however, and only hire 1 sales staff for the first 3 months. We will then add staff as we continue to grow and expand.

Responsibilities

The sales rep will be expected to go out and make cold calls on local businesses on a daily basis. This will be done by sitting down with the owners of the business and show them how we could increase as well improve their web presence and the positive results of having increased web awareness.

The sales rep will also be expected to network with a variety of business associations, like the local Chamber of Commerce, national business networks, and small business administrations.

Finally, because our main focus for sales will be direct and door-to-door, we will only run a small advertisement in the Yellow Pages. At the end of the day, the success of our company will be based on our sales staff.

One of the main keys to our sales success will be understanding our clients and their needs. We will find a coach in the target business area, whose role will be to act as a guide for this sale. We will have at least one coach per industry. The coach will provide information and interpret statistics about the industry outlook, buying influences, and other important factors.

Strategic Selling

We will employ the method of strategic selling. This means we will strive to achieve the following benchmarks for each and every potential sale.

Position yourself with the real decision makers
Spot key client needs
Ask for the order
Listen 80 percent of the time, talk only 20 percent of the time and no more
Always treat old clients like new clients
Always ask for referrals; make it a habit to get two referrals for every sale you make.
Do not stop until all your client's needs are taken care of
Always follow up on your sales to make sure the client is still satisfied

Sales Projections

Quite simply, we will focus our efforts into sales and marketing. Our office will be set up in a simple, inexpensive location that is centrally located with free parking so all the sales staff have easy access to the office.

FINANCIAL ANALYSIS

Start-up Expenses

We will focus solely on revenue growth of our firm and as we move along, we will establish a good client base. The key to our success will be to ''keep it simple.'' We will invest $20,000 on computer equipment and office equipment. This will allow us to also have money for cash flows.

Start-up Expenses