How can I get a local business to sell my product?

How do I position a new business product towards enterprises?

• My friend runs a company which has mainly been into staffing. However, due to tough times, he has built a product in order to position his company to have more than one source of income for the business. However, the product is very new, developed by his company (with some hardware partners I think for the hardware) and he has been trying to sell it to other companies. It's a subscription based model, so you pay a monthly subscription in order to use it. While I am not very sure about the product itself, it's a hardware that supposedly helps businesses. In order to use it, you must pay the monthly subscription, as I said above. The problem is selling it. What's a good and an effective product strategy to sell this product to businesses and make a profit off it? I don't think going door-to-door, company-to-company and speaking good of the product is very efficient or effective. How would the company get the product out there? I know IBM is not a very good example since they're a fortune 500 company and my friend's company is very small (around 15-20 employees), but IBM distributes/sells it's business products to companies (large or small) and they don't go door-to-door advertising it to them, so what should my friend do?

• Answer:

  First off, did your friend research the market to see if it is wanted/ needed? Secondly, does he have a beta test group? If neither of the above was done it will be difficult to sell your product or service if no one wants it.  If both of the above had been done and there is legitimate interest my suggestion would be to allow a free month or two to try out the product with no commitment.