Hey there ho there, My name is Mike and I currently run a game development outsourcing/service company called Bitfold. Our company has several studios in the Ukraine/Russia who have been doing various game development outsourcing & services for years now and our suite of game/MMO engine technologies & game development competencies is excellent. We're gearing up for a big business development push to get our services & technologies greater exposure to the industry and sign up more clients that would have their business needs met by our services. That issue is however, that we're finding it a challenge to find game industry salespeople & business development personell. Good sales oriented people who can either understand game client needs and sell a solution that solves them OR build a sales team that can do so are immensley valuable to our kind of business. The problem is - is that they are also quite hard to find. So let me ask a few things: Firstly, a shameless plug: Does anyone here have any leads to good salespeople or sales-oriented people in the industry? If you know or are one of these people, there's a very good opportunity to profit and do interesting work in an entrepreneurial environment here. We're basically looking for an awesome salesperson who can help us build a sales team. Feel free to reply or PM if you are or know anybody who'd be interested in this. Secondly, has anyone else been running a business development effort for an awesome product/service but also had trouble finding good sales-oriented people? If so, what are your suggestions on where to look & what to do to find them? Any lively discussion that anyone would like to contribute is most welcome. Any inquiries from people looking to jump on this opportunity are also most welcome. Cheers all. P.S. Here's a bit of Eye Candy from game based on our 2D/3D engines: 3D Virtual World http://www.bitfold.net/hexwarz/Photos/Smootsy Outside MMO small.jpg That Controversial Left-Behind Game: http://img.getactivehub.com/gv2/custom_images/Faithfulamerica/eternalforces2.jpg Our In-House Browser Based MMO http://www.bitfold.net/hexwarz/Photos/2008_09_19_scr05.jpg

A key issue is that most salespeople aren't technical. You're looking for that rare mix of a good salesperson and a good technology person. It's difficult to even work out what problems a client might need solutions for if you don't understand a word of what they're talking about.

Too many people get carried away by their chosen career, blanking out any possibility of learning other skills, so most salespeople are incapable of understanding how a complex product works, let alone why anyone would want it.

You're looking for an extremely rare diamond. Good luck.

» Does anyone here have any leads to good salespeople
» or sales-oriented people in the industry?

Chicago is a bit off the main development centers, but Midway is undergoing restructuration nowadays. There might be some free talent roaming about...

-cb