I am going to shameless promote here, I own a digital marketing business myself and have ownership in another agency that does both websites and marketing so I know this space and I would love to talk to you more about it and help you grow.

The phone is your best friend and we have tried both up front pricing and quote only pricing and we have had lots of mixed results depending on the area.

There is a lot of things you need to consider before you set your pricing, such as costs, profit margins you want to maintain, and what you are worth. Once you have those metrics you can more easily price.

Not a lot of detailed information but to be honest in order to protect my own trade secrets I don't want to post more than that here.

Treat him like any other customer. Don't be intimidated by him or his position. I know it is a short answer but honestly that is the best thing you can do. He will see right through you if you do anything else.

There are a couple of ways to do this. First off you need to schedule a time to have a "live demo" of the software. Make sure during this demo you have real world applications they can see right away.

Make sure this live demo is a video chat with your best rep you have in the office. I am assuming the software has a nice price tag to it so make sure it is a non pressure presentation. Show off the software and make sure that you answer questions quickly. The demo should follow their needs so start it off by asking what they want to use the software for.

You will grow quickly with live demos. Any high dollar service needs proof before customers are normally ready to buy.

Okay so I am going to lead by saying I have a bias regarding crowdfunding. Now on to my answer:

Kickstarter is for products not companies. If you create a good product and do a kickstarter campaign you will be able to use the funds raised for the product to build your company.

https://www.crowdfunder.com/ however is for businesses so it might be a better bet for you.

https://www.prosper.com/ would be my recommendation because it is crowdfunded loans. This is real money without strings attached other than the fact that it is a loan. They cap out at 35,000 so if you need serious capital then you should look at a bank or an investor.

In general (with prosper being the only exception) I hate crowdfunding sites. There are a couple of reasons but this article sums it all up pretty well: http://www.zdnet.com/article/despite-its-popularity-i-hate-kickstarter/

Prosper is very different in that you are getting a loan, a non predatory interest rate (6.68% to 35.97% APR depending of course on your credit score, the amount you are asking etc.) and you get the cash in days that you can use without lifting your skirt so to speak.

To disclose here, I am a member of Prosper and help fund loans. However the only reason why I do is because I believe in their company more than any other crowdfunded site out there. Unlike sites like Kickstarter, the site is overseen by the SEC, has accredited investors, people that actually put there money into the site to fund loans have to deal with the IRS and the SEC so you as one getting a loan are protected like crazy.

I would love to discuss more about your business and help guide you through the process if you are interested. Give me a call.

The best music curation is done by people. Having worked in the music industry for a number of years including radio station, live sound, stage, concerts, and music production, potential customers love to find a good station that they can just hit play and enjoy. If you have a good DJ you will have a big company. There are lots of ways to go about doing it to from doing it entirely by yourself with developers to using services like Live 365. In my experience, customers always ranked music picked by a DJ higher than those picked by Pandora, Google, iTunes etc.

The downside to curation systems is they are designed to find things you enjoy which means your music is consistently going to be the same. DJ's are able to introduce you to music you might not have discovered otherwise.

As a side note I am not an old guy reminiscing about the good ol days. I'm in my 20's with active Pandora, Google Play All Access, and iTunes accounts. I love being able to discover a song through the radio or being occasionally surprised by Google (it's algorithm isn't as good as Pandora so it sometimes thinks I would enjoy some pretty strange songs) and then adding it to my Google Play account.

This would be an interesting business indeed. You need to be careful with laws in varying states however. The reason why you are always warned that there may be someone recording or monitoring your call for "training purposes" is most states require both parties know that a recording device is in use. When starting up a three way call you need to disclose that there is a third party that is listening in on the call.

However using the same line for "training purposes" is actually a great way to do it. Something else you can do is use Google voice since it will record your phone calls for you. The catch is they have to call you for Google to record the call (again this is for legal purposes) but all you will have to do is press 4 and they will record the whole thing.

In this kind of a business you can easily have your client call you and then you call the prospect so you can record the call. Just make sure that the client alerts the prospect that the call "may be monitored for training purposes" which is completely true in your case.

As far as marketing goes I think a great place to start would be to find small business owners who use cold calling as a way of getting new clients. Then I would create a package where you monitor X number of calls and then go to their office or a skype call or Google Hangout or something and train them on how to do better. I would also suggest having written material they can keep as well. You have a fantastic idea!

Let me know if you need any help in marketing or setting up the business.