Marketing and Sales Representatives

The Counsel Connect Network (“CCN”) publishes legal Web sites, sites that discuss particular legal topics. We also partner with other legal Web sites that place our calls to action on their site. Our sites and these affiliated sites produce leads from prospective clients, which we then screen to determine if they have a viable case. If they do, we refer the prospective client to a suitable attorney in their area, in exchange for an introduction fee from that attorney.

We call these other legal websites “affiliate websites.”

Clients contact us in four different ways:

Web forms
(800) telephone numbers
Web chats
Click to call (the click enters their telephone number and asks us to call them)

B. What We Are Looking For

We are looking for:

Five or six marketing representatives who will contact these other sites. We have negotiated agreements with two marketing representatives so we have room for three or four more.
A sales manager who would manage the entire process, including supervising the marketing representatives. Much of his time will be spent as an individual contributor (selling) as opposed to managing the marketing representatives, particularly since we expect the marketing representatives to be quite self-managing.

C. Ideal Background and Characteristics

Ideal background and characteristics include:

General knowledge of the Internet and the Web is essential.
Prior professional experience in some aspect of the Internet and the Web is highly desired. The optimal would be digital media, advertising sales, or a similar background. For those without a strong Internet and Web background, we’re going to ask a lot of questions about how quickly you can come up to speed.
High energy
Exceptional intelligence. Whoever coined the phrase, “He does not suffer fools gladly” was probably thinking of us when he did so.
High level of intellectual curiosity, particularly when it comes to law, computers, the Internet and the Web
Intellectual depth. Thoughtful, reflective, analytical, a thinker
Prior successful experience in sales is highly desirable. If you lack such experience but you are exceptionally talented in other areas and you can convince us that you can make the transition, in exceptional cases we will consider you.
Self managing
Proactive, a doer
Exceptionally high level of personal responsibility and follow through
In most cases, an absolute minimum of at least five years of successful professional experience. Except for unusually talented people, this is not an appropriate position for a college or graduate student or someone who graduated just a few years ago. If you are the exception, then write to us.
Excellent computer skills
Excellent oral and written communication skills
Low total cost of interaction
Easy to reach on the telephone — A lot of people never took the “how to answer your telephone” class in high school. The last thing we need are people who are difficult to reach.
Willing to follow our systems and procedures. We are not looking for cowboys.
Team player — Marketing representatives will be working with other marketing representatives, in particular covering them when they are not available.
Willing to sell — This is a sales position, not a marketing position.

D. Our Team

Our company consists of some of the most talented entrepreneurs, technical talent and Internet professionals in the country. You would work with our CEO, James Mitchell, our President, William Leake, and our CTO, Keith MacKay.

E. The Process

Typical steps in the process are listed below. We have described the entire process, which involves the sales manager, the marketing reps, and the Web designer.

Our CEO and President, in conjunction with our strategic partner law firms, identifies a certain type of legal case to target — e.g., toxic mold, defective hip repairs, mesothelioma
The sales manager does keyword research as to the appropriate search terms for these types of cases.
The sales manager executes a program we have developed which runs those search terms and then writes to our database information about the top 100, 200 or 300 Web sites that appear for that search term. This information includes Whois information (we have automated the collection of Whois data) as well as the number of visitors per month (which we obtain from a traffic measurement service).
The sales manager eliminates the Web sites that are not appropriate for us to contact.
The marketing rep then seeks to develop a relationship with the sites that have been assigned to him. We have a proprietary, highly effective system to do this.
After the marketing rep has developed a relationship with the owner of that site, he proposes the idea of our placing our Web forms and telephone numbers on that site.
Starting with our form contract, the marketing rep (with the assistance of the sales manager) negotiate a contract with them.
You and our web designer discuss with them which size Web forms they would like to place on their site.
Our web designer studies their Web site and asks them about their design preferences.
Our web designer then enters the appropriate parameters in our database to customize their Web forms.
You show them our Web-based system that allows them to monitor each lead we receive from their site.
Our forms and telephone numbers go live on their site and leads will start to come in the same day. The marketing rep is not involved in handling these leads; instead, the marketing rep goes on to the next site.

F. Legal Website Watch

We have purchased the domain name Legal Website Watch, a site we will launch soon. It will be written for owners and publishers of legal websites. The site will discuss monetization strategies, trends in payments of referral fees, search engine optimization, Google AdWords, Google AdSense, other pay-per-click networks, Google Analytics, other Web metrics tools, WordPress, social networking, the evolution of HTML and XHTML, hosting companies, monetization, the FCC “must carry” regulations and other topics of interest to such owners and publishers of such sites. We will also write reviews of legal websites: their history, traffic, competitive positioning, future plans, and monetization strategies.

Consider, for example, Online Personals Watch, a site that examines the online dating/personals industry. OPW provides comprehensive coverage of its industry and almost everyone in the industry reads it. Our goal is publish a similar site for owners and publishers of legal websites.

We would be curious to hear your thoughts about this.

G. Computer Skills

We are exceptionally advanced users of computers. Our Chief Technology Officer, Keith MacKay, is a graduate of MIT and has managed over 1000 software development projects, including more than a dozen for Microsoft and more than 90 for Harvard Business School. Our CEO, James Mitchell, was a senior software engineer at Digital Equipment Corporation, had a research fellowship in information systems at Harvard Business School, and has managed more than twenty complex software projects. Our software developers are among the best in the world. For our Web sites, we typically use WordPress running on the LAMP (Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP) software stack. For our internal information systems, we use Microsoft development tools: Windows Server, SQL Server, .Net, Visual Basic, Access.

We have developed some of the most sophisticated software systems in the world. We do not expect or require all of our professionals to be software developers, but we do expect them to have a strong aptitude for computers, have a high level of intellectual curiosity about them, and to be keenly interested in enhancing their computer skills.

Applicants who are not computer proficient regularly assure us, “I can learn.” Our experience has been otherwise; realistically you will not be able to meet our expectations for computer proficiency within a reasonable time frame. The few times we have gone down the “I am not good at computers now but I can become good quickly” path it has not been a pleasant experience for us or for them.

If on the other hand you are really good at using computers and you want to become an expert, CCN would be a fantastic company for you! You will be working with some of the top software minds in the world, and we will show you things you have never imagined.

In the “If You Are Interested” section below, we ask numerous questions about your use of computers. Please do not let these questions intimidate you. As we mention below, there is probably no one on the planet who can provide a favorable response to all (or even most) of them. The comprehensive set of questions we ask does allow us (and you) to get an overall sense of how good you are at using computers.

H. Availability

It is essential that you be highly available, easy to reach on the telephone, incredibly responsive to voice mails and emails. One reason we have been so successful so quickly is that our professionals are easy to get a hold of, and thus we eliminate the time- and energy- draining practice of telephone tag. If you are not easy to get a hold of, this is the wrong position for you.

I. Follow Through

We seek to partner with and employ people who are “at the top of the food chain” in terms of personal responsibility and follow through. You must have a high level of personal responsibility. You do what you say you are going to do, you meet deadlines (or at least be reasonably close, since there really are no absolute deadlines in this business), and you are the furthest thing from a flake. You are diligent at returning e-mails and telephone calls not promptly, but quickly. We are highly successful entrepreneurs who get things done and we have zero (actually, negative) tolerance for flakes and space cadets. Please read our CEO’s essays on total cost of interaction, most appropriate form of communication, and the process should go smoothly, as well as his essay for prospective business associates.

J. What We Are Not Looking For

Having interviewed several marketing representatives, we have devised the following list of what we are not looking for include:

Those who are uncertain about their sales skills
Those who are selfish (me, me, me)
People with a low level of intellectual curiosity
People who do not carefully read the materials we send to them
People who are not really good at computers
People who are not looking to get a lot better at computers
Those who do not follow through
People with high total cost of interaction.

K. Not Making a Bad Impression

We are very careful about the marketing representatives we hire. If a marketing representative makes a bad impression upon the owner of a website, not only do we not make the sale, but he makes it very unlikely that another person from our organization will be able to turn the situation around six months later. So for every applicant, we ask yourselves, “Will he make a bad impression?”

L. Telephone Sales

You will be contacting the owners of websites across the U.S.; some owners will reside in other countries, but probably more than 90 percent are based in the U.S. It is not practical to fly to visit each one of these, so almost all of your selling will involve the telephone rather than in-person visits. Thus, it is essential that you enjoy this type of selling. If in order to be happy you need to meet lots of people in your job, this is the wrong situation for you.

M. Telecommuting

This is a telecommuting position; you do not need to reside in Boston. You do need to reside in the United States or Canada, however. Although we are increasingly becoming an international economy, for this position it does not make sense to us to partner with people outside North America, since the time zone, language and cultural barriers are simply too great.

N. Hours

We strongly prefer that you are able to devote full time to this opportunity, but we will consider part-time relationships. (Some define full-time as 60 hours a week, others as 40.) We require as an absolute minimum 20 hours a week. Less than that, the time and energy we consume in training and managing you are greater than what you can realistically accomplish. Those who seek to do this part-time frankly need to be even more outstanding in terms of talent and sales skills, as we do not want to spend much time training part-time partners.

O. Items to Note

Some items to note:

These positions are 95 percent sales and 5 percent marketing.
We are a startup and we will always have a startup mindset, even when we have over $100 million in revenues. Startups are a different culture than bureaucratic companies, and our M&S people need to understand startup culture and to be comfortable with that mindset.
Marketing representatives would work out of their house.
Almost all of the time, the sale will be made over the telephone rather than in person.
Sales cycle would rarely be more than two months, and in most cases would be less than one month.
Marketing representatives need to be already knowledgeable about the Web and the Internet.
Previous sales experience is strongly preferred. In unusual cases, we will consider making an exception.
We prefer applicants who have done technical sales, rather than, say, selling shoes.
This is not a job for someone with just a few years of professional experience.
Applicants should be based in the United States or Canada.
Applicants should be very good at using computers, and have a strong desire to get better at using them.
Applicants should be self managing. To the extent that the sales manager has to do more than minimal supervision of a marketing representative, we have picked the wrong person.
When we pitch a website, it is to enter into a business relationship in which we write them checks, rather than them writing us checks. This is a lot easier sale to make.
The earning potential is extraordinary.
There is no limit on compensation. If a marketing representative makes $3 million a year, that means we are also making a lot of money, and that is OK with us.

P. Please Read

If you are interested, please read:

Q. A Great Opportunity for the Right Person

This is a great opportunity for the right person. This position is suitable for an unusual person who has the entire package — exceptional intelligence, excellent computer skills, quick learner, someone who knows how to sell (or can learn quickly), someone who can build relationships, someone who is self-managing and who knows how to get things done. Exceptionally intelligent and talented people enjoy working with equally intelligent and talented people, and we offer that in spades. If you are not that kind of person, realistically it does not make sense to apply. On the other hand, if you are the right person, we want to hear from you today!

R. When You Apply

When you apply:

Please include the questions along with the answers; otherwise, we have no way of knowing which question you are answering. If you do not, we will simply write back and ask you to resend.
Please format your responses. Make it easy for us to read your answers. The best is to copy and paste the answers and responses into Microsoft Word, and then send us the Word file.
Please include the headings in your responses.
Please send us a resume.
If you have a writing samples, please send them.
In the subject line of the your e-mail, please include the position you are applying for.
Please send your response to jmitchell@kensingonllc.com, and also send it (including any attachments) to recruiting@kensingtonllc.com.

S. If You Are Interested

If you are interested, please answer the questions below. Many of these questions are computer questions. CCN is an exceptionally advanced user of computers, and it’s important that every professional who joins our firm is highly competent in using them and is keenly interested in becoming more proficient. We have included an extremely comprehensive set of questions. There is probably no person alive who could truthfully provide a favorable response to all of them, not even our Chief Technology Officer. Please do not let these questions scare you, we do not expect favorable responses from you to most of these questions. We have included all of them in order to get a comprehensive view of your skills. At the same time, after reading these questions, you might say to yourself, “Realistically, I am not very good at computers.” In that case, it makes no sense to apply, as we are the wrong firm for you.

If “(1-10)” is listed after the question, that means please provide an answer in English and also answer the question on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 = no experience or knowledge and 10 = world class guru.

If for any section you do not use that software package, just say that in your answer to the first question and then feel free to ignore the remaining questions in that section.

In your e-mail, please tell us:

Name and Contact Information

What is your full name?
What is your e-mail address?
Do you have any other e-mail addresses? If so, what are they?
Please list all of your telephone numbers.
Which telephone number is best to call you on? As noted below, please state this in your local time and in Boston time.
Do you have Skype?
If so, what is your Skype ID? (If you live outside the United States, please install Skype (www.skype.com) now (ideally before you fill out this form), so that when we want to call you after receiving your e-mail, we can do so.
Where do you live (city, state, country)?
What is your mailing address?
James Mitchell lives in Boston, and Boston is the same time zone as New York City, namely the East Coast time zone. When it is 9 a.m. in Boston, what time is it in your time zone? In other words, how many hours ahead or behind Boston are you?

Professional Experience

How much sales experience do you have? If it is listed on your resume, just briefly summarize your experience in two or three sentences.
Which CRM system do you prefer and why?
How much telephone selling (i.e., you actually landed the sale on the telephone, you never visited the customer or client in person) have you done?
How much do you enjoy telephone selling?
How comfortable are you with a position that will involve very little face-to-face selling?
Describe your sales style.
Tell us why you think you would good for this position.

Education and Professional Training

Briefly describe your education. If you have sent us a resume, then you can just refer us to your that.
Which professional organizations, if any, are you a member of?
Which Web sites and blogs topics do you read for professional purposes?
What other forms of professional development do you engage in, if any?
Which sales training courses have you taken, if any?

Skills

How strong are your oral communication skills? (1-10)
How well do you write? (1-10)
How detail oriented are you? (1-10)

Personal Responsibility

We are looking for professionals with an exceptionally high level of personal responsibility. Please tell us your thoughts about how this applies to you.
We are looking for professionals who are self-managing. How does this apply to you?

Responsiveness

How easy is it to reach you on the telephone? In other words, if 100 people call you in X days, what percentage of them are able to reach you when they call, as opposed to your calling them back?
How quickly do you return telephone calls?
How quickly do you respond to e-mails?
We will most likely need to talk with you at least once a day. What are your thoughts about that?
Have you read our CEO’s essay on what is the most appropriate form of communication? How do you feel about his statement that in many cases, it makes more sense to have a telephone call rather than sending e-mails back and forth?
We are looking for professionals with an exceptionally low total cost of interaction. How does this apply to you?

Commitment You Can Make to CCN

Are you currently employed?
How many hours per week are you currently working in your current job?
If so, are you planning on continuing with your current position, or would you quit your job to work with us?
If you will be quitting your position, how much notice do you need to give?
How soon would you be able to start?
Once you start, for the first 90 days, how many hours a week are you able to devote to this opportunity?
After those 90 days, how many hours a week will you be able to provide?
We want to get a sense of when you would be able to work, stated in both your time and in Boston time. Monday through Friday, when would you be able to work and for how many hours each day? Again, please state both your local time and Boston time.
On Saturdays and Sundays, when will be you able to work and for how many hours each day? Please state in your local time as well as Boston time.
Are you looking for a short-term, medium-term or long-term relationship with JI? How long can you commit to working with us?
Please tell us about family commitments. If you have kids, who takes care of them? Are there other relatives (e.g., parents) that you take care of?
What else is going on in your life? Hobbies? Board memberships? What other commitments do you have?

Salary History and Earnings Expectations

Please provide your salary history for the past five years, broken down into base salary, bonus, commission, and any other categories you think are relevant.
How much a month do you need to live on?
How much would you realistically like to make 12 months from now?
24 months from now?
36 months from now?

Miscellaneous

Is there anything else we should know about you?
Any comments you have on our idea?
Which topics for new legal Web sites do you think would be particularly worthwhile?
Are there any areas of the law, particularly in the area of mass torts, that you think we should be paying particular attention to?
Do you have a blog or Web site? “You” means yourself or a company that you control. If so, what is the URL?
What questions should we have asked but did not?
If we or one of our associates sent you an e-mail through LinkedIn, there was a nine digit number towards the end of the e-mail, immediate after their name. It would be in the format of 100-029-987, or something like that. Please list that number if you can find it in the e-mail we sent to you. If you cannot find it, do not worry about it.

Have You Sent Us

Have you sent us a chronological resume?
Have you sent us writing samples?

Sales Manager Position

Tell us about any management experience you have
(Answer this and the following questions only if you are interested in the sales manager position)
How much experience have you had in managing a virtual team?
Team leaders and project managers need to have a very high level of availability. How do you feel about that?

We will respond to every inquiry with 48 hours. Our founders have an impressive track record in starting, managing and selling businesses successfully. We are kick ass, get things done type of people and within 24 months, we expect to have more than 1000 affiliated Web sites. For the right person, this is an extraordinary opportunity.

We look forward to hearing from you!

James Mitchell
(310) 862-2355
jmitchell@counselconnectnetwork.com