Competing locally

[carpunky]

Hello,

I was really exited thinking about starting my own hosting company locally in my area. Then I found out in my little town there are 2 sites already.

Now both of these providers charge $25 per month and from $300 to $5,000 for a website and there work is really outstanding to boot. They mainly target the businesses in the area which I was going to do.

So I had a few ideas

First, I could offer FREE hosting to them and then upsell on aweber capturing the affiliate commission and provide related affiliate programs which would have my aff ID, since I am hosting for free in the first place. Or just charge 4.95 and promote aweber etc

Second idea was to create some kind of general template and offer this to the local community who wanted to get there feet wet in internet marketing. Much like Stone Evans created with pips but on a lesser scale that would float with the local community.

Any ideas would be appreciated

Thanks

[Quentin]

There will always be competition and the secret to it all is to add value.

Never sell yourself short.

I have a product at Offline Business Marketing Manual which if you PM I am happy to give you a copy of and it will show you some of the strategies I use to beat the competition.

Great looking websites is one thing but if you know how to assess them then you will probably find they look good but have absolutely no idea about marketing or generating traffic.

The manual will show you how to find all this out and then you can set your point of difference.

Quentin

[AndrewCavanagh]

You're getting hung up on trying to compete with someone else's product...someone else's service.

And you've missed what's really important in this whole equation...helping the business owners you work with make real sales and profits.

That doesn't depend on hosting or fancy looking websites.

If you were to focus on putting together some internet marketing strategies that make businesses real money then you would not only position yourself completely differently from anyone else in the market you'd also get hired over and over to implement strategy after strategy.

And you could be charging a whole lot more money based on the real value you provide to your clients.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[JaySabree]

And to add my 2 cents

If you position yourself around driving targeted customers to
businesses then you could JV with both those hosting companies
to offer your services as value ads. Find out what marketing those
hosting companies are offering and then let them know you're an expert
in all other forms of marketing. For example, if they do basic SEO
then find out how well they do it. Maybe they're only doing off site SEO.
You can offer on site SEO, e-mail marketing, video marketing, social media
marketing, article marketing, press release marketing, PPC etc. etc.

This maybe a starting point for you but if those hosting businesses have
been around for any period of time then they may have a large book of
customers that have great looking websites with very little sales coming
from them. Tell them that you'll do all the work and still give them 30%
for the referral.

[artsub]

Yeah, I like that post from Andrew... don't worry too much about what everyone else is doing... if you concentrate of 2 things... providing top service and products, and your marketing... you will fly.

[AndrewCavanagh]

I forgot to mention.

I've done 5 figure deals with business owners and never once have I ever charged for hosting.

Why would you bother.

You can charge thousands of dollars in fees for a project and you can charge substantial monthly fees for ongoing service and maintenance.

I would never even mention hosting costs or Aweber costs even if I'm paying for them (expect to say I'm taking care of them.)

I provide a service that helps a business make more sales and profits and they're paying me for results.

The nuts and bolts of how I do that are MY problem not theirs.

Do you expect your mechanic to charge you for workshop hire?

Not likely...you know that's figured in there somewhere but you just want your car running smoothly.

A professional mechanic gets results...he gets your car running as smooth as silk...and he doesn't talk about how he had to pay for and clean the workshop or the tools he used.

A professional internet marketer gets results too...real sales and profits for his clients.

If you're talking to your prospects about getting them results (instead of hosting and websites) your chances of getting hired go through the roof.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[healthforums]

Originally Posted by carpunky

Hello,

I was really exited thinking about starting my own hosting company locally in my area. Then I found out in my little town there are 2 sites already.

Now both of these providers charge $25 per month and from $300 to $5,000 for a website and there work is really outstanding to boot. They mainly target the businesses in the area which I was going to do.

So I had a few ideas

First, I could offer FREE hosting to them and then upsell on aweber capturing the affiliate commission and provide related affiliate programs which would have my aff ID, since I am hosting for free in the first place. Or just charge 4.95 and promote aweber etc

Second idea was to create some kind of general template and offer this to the local community who wanted to get there feet wet in internet marketing. Much like Stone Evans created with pips but on a lesser scale that would float with the local community.

Any ideas would be appreciated

Thanks

How about offering them FREE webdesign (to get their attention in ads and grab new clients).... but the catch is that they just pay you for the domain name ($9/yr), and hosting/maintenance costs -- for which you can charge like $25 - $49/m. I would suggest like writing it in a yearly contract or something. Put retail price for webdesign something like $999 so it seems like they are really saving a lot.

That way you can build recurring revenue -- so, basically after you have like 20 or so clients, your work will already be done and you can do other things to build more clients (give discounts for referrals, etc.). I know a good deal about web hosting so feel free to pm me if you have questions.