Rainmaker Reports Significant Progress Expanding Sales and Marketing Team with Addition of e-Commerce Industry Veterans

CAMPBELL, Calif., March 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Rainmaker Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: RMKR), a leading global provider of cloud-based B2B selling solutions that drive higher customer acquisition, renewals, and subscription sales for clients and their channel partners, today announced it has hired four new senior sales executives with strong e-commerce experience and added a Director of Marketing.  With these additions, Rainmaker strengthens its position to serve the significant opportunity it sees to help clients reach their mid-market business customers with its unique solution combining online sales and global sales agents to drive more revenue from online sales, renewals, and subscription licenses.

Rainmaker sees the opportunity in the B2B segment comprised of three major elements:

1. The underserved B2B mid-market segment.  The typical online B2B end-user order size ranges from $200 to $20,000.  While buyers consider these purchases important, manufacturers or publishers have typically not considered them big enough to warrant "special treatment" via a direct sales person.  By comparison, enterprise clients are supported by dedicated field representatives and consumers are supported by retail and emerging online application ("app") stores.
2. The software industry is an estimated $250 billion market according to a December 2010 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, "Global 100 Software Leaders: Key Players and Market Trends."  Helping its clients capture even a small percentage of this massive market represents a substantial growth opportunity for Rainmaker.
3. A major trend is taking place within the B2B marketplace today that is driving demand for online selling.  The convenience, the simplicity, and the immediacy of interactions that are happening in the consumer market are driving the expectations of business customers and the demand for B2B online selling.  Rainmaker is uniquely positioned to be able to help companies at the initial sale and at the time of renewal with a full suite of products that can target B2B customers on a global, cost efficient and consistent basis to drive more revenue.

Rainmaker's new senior sales executives include David Lechler, Fatima Madha, Andy Wamstad and Kevin Domino.  David Lechler has joined Rainmaker as Vice President of Sector Sales.  He brings over 16 years of sales and sales management experience and was previously Global Director of Sales, Marketing, and Business Development for the subscription vertical within Digital River's THINK Subscriptions, as well as Founder and CEO of several software-based energy efficiency companies.

Fatima Madha joins Rainmaker Systems as Director of Sales.  She brings over a decade of sales experience consulting with national and global accounts on strategic financial initiatives to deliver bottom line results.  Her previous experience includes seven years with industry leading SaaS technology and financial services companies, including Concur Technologies and American Express, helping them grow their mid-market account base.

Andy Wamstad brings over 12 years of online selling experience to Rainmaker as Director of Sales.  He previously drove online sales for Channel Intelligence, Intertech and Digital River. 

Kevin Domino joins Rainmaker as Sales Operations Manager.  He brings substantial experience managing numerous successful SaaS software deployments and building world-class teams, and previously served as Senior Director of Sales Operations at Digital River and Vice President of Business Development at Rudder Capital Corporation.

Tom Venable, Rainmaker's Senior VP of Sales and Marketing, commented, "We are very excited to welcome these experienced sales executives to Rainmaker that bring substantial e-commerce experience and are able to hit the ground running in selling our services.  As we enhance our reach in the global marketplace, we are very focused on leveraging our current portfolio for cross selling all of our services, as well as on-boarding new clients to capture the significant market opportunity we see ahead in the B2B e-commerce market."

Pamela Sziebert recently joined Rainmaker as the Director of Marketing to lead the company's Corporate Marketing and Demand Center.  Rainmaker's Demand Center delivers marketing and advertising agency services in support of its B2B online selling products.  Ms. Sziebert brings 14 years of marketing expertise in establishing market penetration strategies in B2B and consumer marketing environments and specializes in online performance marketing including search, affiliate, mobile, e-commerce, and social media marketing.  Prior to joining Rainmaker, she was VP of Marketing for LiveDeal, an online marketing and consulting company serving the mid-market, and VP of Advertising Operations for PartnerWeekly, the leading financial services affiliate marketing agency.

Rainmaker CEO Michael Silton commented, "The addition of these experienced sales and marketing veterans strengthens our capabilities to take advantage of the significant growth opportunities in the B2B market segment.  We are very excited about the opportunity we see to help companies more effectively sell to their business customers with our unique solution that combines cloud-based online sales and global sales agents."

For more information on Rainmaker products and solutions, visit http://www.rainmakersystems.com/solutions.

About Rainmaker

Rainmaker Systems, Inc. is a leading global provider of cloud-based B2B selling solutions that drive higher customer acquisition, renewals, subscriptions and education sales for clients and their channel partners.  Rainmaker provides these services on a consistent, global basis supporting multiple currencies and language capabilities. For more information, visit http://www.rainmakersystems.com or call 800-631-1545.

NOTE: Rainmaker Systems, the Rainmaker logo, and Sunset Direct are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.  All other service marks or trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

This press release contains forward-looking statements regarding future events.  These forward-looking statements are based on information available to Rainmaker as of this date and we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements.  These statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results could differ materially from current expectations.  Among the important factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are our client concentration, as we depend on a small number of clients for a significant percentage of our revenue, the possibility of the discontinuation and/or realignment of some client relationships, general market conditions, the current difficult macro-economic environment and its impact on our business, as our clients are reducing their overall marketing spending and our clients' customers are reducing their purchase of services contracts, the high degree of uncertainty and our limited visibility due to economic conditions, our ability to execute our business strategy, our ability to integrate acquisitions without disruption to our business, the effectiveness of our sales team and approach, our ability to target, analyze and forecast the revenue to be derived from a client and the costs associated with providing services to that client, the date during the course of a calendar year that a new client is acquired, the length of the integration cycle for new clients and the timing of revenues and costs associated therewith, our ability to expand our channel hosted contract solution and drive adoption of this solution by resellers, potential competition in the marketplace, the ability to retain and attract employees, market acceptance of our service programs and pricing options, our ability to maintain our existing technology platform and to deploy new technology, our ability to sign new clients and control expenses, and the financial condition of our clients' businesses, and other factors detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q.

SOURCE Rainmaker Systems, Inc.