I SAW THE LIGHT! ..Making money in the Offline Biz has NEVER been easier!

[ChrisByrns]

I'll say only five words: Niche Hosting plus free Design.

1) Get yourself a Reseller Account.

2) Offer Hosting + domain registration at reasonable rates to niche customers (e.g.: offer it only to dentists or restaurant owners or whatever).

3) charge 'em like $29.95/month for hosting + maintenance and give 'em a custom design for FREE as an incentive to sign up (24 month hosting contract). You could even outsource the whole design part.

THING IS: Those business owners, they ALL know each other.. one restaurant owner meets another one.. they talk about websites.. restaurant owner A says: "look at my new homepage".. restaurant owner B replies "wow, who did that?".. SHABANG! You get a new customer.

It's all about word-of-mouth propaganda.

I started a new venture last week and i already have 27 customers, each paying about 30 bucks per month (But i won't tell you my niche, LOL )


Cheerz,
Chris.

[Maria Gudelis]

Congrats Chris!! I love the forced sign up for 24 month hosting - brilliant!

I can just imagine now your upsell $$$ now too!!!!

[Frank Bruno]

Thanks for sharing great business model.

One thing about professionals....

They want higher standards so you may end up shelling out 1/2 or more for a good site design from your 24mo contracts unless your doing it yourself.

Frank Bruno

[ChrisByrns]

Oh btw, in order to speed up the process of getting the first few customers i did this:
I advertised my service on niche forums and said something like:

"[described my killer offer] .. since we are new on the market we'd first like to get some response on our offer - we'll start our services when we get at least 20 interested clients, so have a look at our website and pre-register for our hosting/design offer - and don't hesitate to tell your buddies about this, SPREAD THE WORD!"

IF you really have something good to offer, they WILL do everything they can to refer you some customers since they WANT (NEED) your design/hosting and they realize they won't get it if you won't get any other clients.

[ChrisByrns]

Originally Posted by Frank Bruno

One thing about professionals....

They want higher standards so you may end up shelling out 1/2 or more for a good site design from your 24mo contracts unless your doing it yourself.

Yep, that's right - I'm doin' it all myself and my standard is VERY high.
But i'm pretty sure that even if you outsource the design work, you *can* make a nice income.

[koolwarrior]

chris...what webhost are you using for reseller hosting? I'm definitely interested in doing something like this.

[ChrisByrns]

Originally Posted by koolwarrior

chris...what webhost are you using for reseller hosting? I'm definitely interested in doing something like this.

I'm using a local company over here in germany - but you could check out.. perhaps hostgator or surpasshosting, never tried'em tho.

[joe.marsh]

Chris...

Another great idea and system.

Thats why I love this forum.

Thanks,
Joe

[koolwarrior]

i have hostgator now for my own collection of websites. I was just looking at hostgators reseller packages.

Now, I definitely might do it. A+

[xlfutur1]

It sounds good, but what do you do when 100 of your clients want changes to their website in 1 week? do you just hand it over to them and make them do stuff on their own? I suppose you could charge a backend package for maintenance. Have you had this problem yet?

[IMDimWit]

Nice model and congrats on your success. I'm off to check on a reseller account...

[pj413]

Originally Posted by ChrisByrns

I'll say only five words: Niche Hosting plus free Design.

1) Get yourself a Reseller Account.

2) Offer Hosting + domain registration at reasonable rates to niche customers (e.g.: offer it only to dentists or restaurant owners or whatever).

3) charge 'em like $29.95/month for hosting + maintenance and give 'em a custom design for FREE as an incentive to sign up (24 month hosting contract). You could even outsource the whole design part.

THING IS: Those business owners, they ALL know each other.. one restaurant owner meets another one.. they talk about websites.. restaurant owner A says: "look at my new homepage".. restaurant owner B replies "wow, who did that?".. SHABANG! You get a new customer.

It's all about word-of-mouth propaganda.

I started a new venture last week and i already have 27 customers, each paying about 30 bucks per month (But i won't tell you my niche, LOL )


Cheerz,
Chris.

Very nice offline model, but how much would it cost to outsource the web design?

[ChrisByrns]

Originally Posted by xlfutur1

It sounds good, but what do you do when 100 of your clients want changes to their website in 1 week? do you just hand it over to them and make them do stuff on their own? I suppose you could charge a backend package for maintenance. Have you had this problem yet?

Well, personally, i'm providing my services to a niche where the sites won't need to be updated for a long time (or it would just be some very minor changes.. like exchanging one photo or something..)

[BizBoost]

Originally Posted by pj413

Very nice offline model, but how much would it cost to outsource the web design?

research over at scriptlance.com

[richdirtygirl]

Originally Posted by ChrisByrns

I'll say only five words: Niche Hosting plus free Design.

1) Get yourself a Reseller Account.

2) Offer Hosting + domain registration at reasonable rates to niche customers (e.g.: offer it only to dentists or restaurant owners or whatever).

3) charge 'em like $29.95/month for hosting + maintenance and give 'em a custom design for FREE as an incentive to sign up (24 month hosting contract). You could even outsource the whole design part.

THING IS: Those business owners, they ALL know each other.. one restaurant owner meets another one.. they talk about websites.. restaurant owner A says: "look at my new homepage".. restaurant owner B replies "wow, who did that?".. SHABANG! You get a new customer.

It's all about word-of-mouth propaganda.

I started a new venture last week and i already have 27 customers, each paying about 30 bucks per month (But i won't tell you my niche, LOL )


Cheerz,
Chris.

Nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!

You add a package for promotion and you have them!!!!

RDG

[Oracle_320th]

great job This proves that online business can make a lot money from offline world

[FlightGuy]

Maria made a great point - now they're all upsell $$ potential.

Start talking to them about lead capture mechanisms and how much they need to have it installed on their website, and what it can do for them. Use real figures and statistics (restaurants are very easy to do this with).

Great job, keep it up!

John Dennis

[richdirtygirl]

Originally Posted by FlightGuy

Maria made a great point - now they're all upsell $$ potential.

Start talking to them about lead capture mechanisms and how much they need to have it installed on their website, and what it can do for them. Use real figures and statistics (restaurants are very easy to do this with).

Great job, keep it up!

John Dennis

Yep!! there is a buzz starting around about giving local marketing services. If you do it right, you have them...

for local it is pretty easy to rank high and get multiple positions in first page on google.

Once you do that for one business for certain keywords, they can't leave you because you just change the links and move all that traffic to the next in line...

To make this work for several companies in the same niche in the same city would need some thought... and it also gives interesting bidding possibilities.

The main idea of what I'm talking about is here:

IM Leadership

Saw it like 5 times already, just can't take it out of my mind... will find the way out eventually... lol

RDG

[Vince Runza Online]

No matter how you go about this, IM for offline rocks!

There's only one real threat -- what if some IM'er in your area beats you to it?!

[chrisnegro]

What do you think the price points of $39.95? Do you think this will work or do you think this is pushing it?

P.S. Nice tip Chris !

Cheers,

Chris Negro

[GoGetta]

Awesome tip Chris!

Chris Negro - I would think that price would be ok!

GoGetta

[Charles Montgomery]

Originally Posted by chrisnegro

What do you think the price points of $39.95? Do you think this will work or do you think this is pushing it?

P.S. Nice tip Chris !

Cheers,

Chris Negro

I have ran across a couple of clients with outrageous hosting bills (some services included), but still.

Client A, was signed up with a company that was charging $90 a month. His site was a five page HTML site, with very little traffic - and no scripts.

The company said they were providing maintenance and traffic - THEY WERE NOT - at least, none of those things were measurable.

Client B was quoted $800 a month hosting/maintenance, and would build the website for free. This is with a huge International telecom corp. They promised 60 PPC visitors a month.

Judging by those two cases, does $39.95 seem like a lot? I DONT THINK SO!

[Nevada Gal]

Originally Posted by ChrisByrns

I started a new venture last week and i already have 27 customers, each paying about 30 bucks per month (But i won't tell you my niche, LOL )


Cheerz,
Chris.

Gee Chris, and I was ready to turn my hosting over to you....LOL

Great job and great idea. Way to roll the dough $$$

Lisa, the NevadaGal

[dejoliet31]

Geat job, Chris. You have given me another door opener in the offline biz... even without knowing your niche. LOL.

[Adaptive]

Awesome tip, Chris, thanks!

I wonder if there's enough interest in the theme of Offline Marketing to make a dedicated forum for it?

Regards,
Allen

[Riz]

Hi Allen,

There is a lot of interest in offline marketing. I know of 3 other forums specifically dedicated for this.

Baal

Originally Posted by Adaptive

Awesome tip, Chris, thanks!

I wonder if there's enough interest in the theme of Offline Marketing to make a dedicated forum for it?

Regards,
Allen

[GoGetta]

Yeh Baal's right, there are a few forums dedicated to offline marketing already.

Namely,

Offline Is A Goldmine
Local Biz Builders

Awesome forums if you are interested in learning more about this niche and what you can do! Everyone doing this now is more than happy to help as well!

GoGetta

[JordanFrancis]

Firstly, thank you Chris for sharing your business model.

Okay. So let me get this straight:

You provide a free site, domain registration (?) and hosting for $30 a month on a 24 month contract. Is that right? I didn't see you mention any additional prices for the domain registration, so forgive me if I am wrong.

So that means that each customer is worth a total of around $720 (over the 2 year period) without taking into consideration your costs (hosting + your time creating the site, maintaining it + support).

Am I missing something here? Because that looks like a great deal for your customers but not at all for you.

On the other hand, all of the above relates to the front-end - and there ARE plenty of back-end potentials to explore.

Ultimately, it is indeed impressive that you got 27 customers in such a short time. I just hope you don't get too bogged down with maintenance and support for your $800/month (minus fees)

[kevin1mil]

Thanks for sharing, Chris.

So you just help them to create a site tat's all?? or you have to update content on behalf of them?

[Phil Spinelli]

You're under cutting yourself.

I hear the yellow pages is charging $400 per month for a basic site (one year contract).

biglocal.com charges 99 to $149 per month, just to submit your site to some directories and you get a crappy free website (one year contract)

If you're offering anything worth while, $30 per month is a joke (on you)

There are a lot of cheap people out their, but many also agree you get what you pay for. Charging more, will probably get you better clients too

You should be charging to build the site, especially if it's SEO'd.
You should be charging more for monthly hosting.
You should be selling more sales, customer and profits, NOT just a website

[moncef]

Originally Posted by JordanFrancis

Firstly, thank you Chris for sharing your business model.

Okay. So let me get this straight:

You provide a free site, domain registration (?) and hosting for $30 a month on a 24 month contract. Is that right? I didn't see you mention any additional prices for the domain registration, so forgive me if I am wrong.

So that means that each customer is worth a total of around $720 (over the 2 year period) without taking into consideration your costs (hosting + your time creating the site, maintaining it + support).

Am I missing something here? Because that looks like a great deal for your customers but not at all for you.

On the other hand, all of the above relates to the front-end - and there ARE plenty of back-end potentials to explore.

Ultimately, it is indeed impressive that you got 27 customers in such a short time. I just hope you don't get too bogged down with maintenance and support for your $800/month (minus fees)

Was going to basically post the same question.
Can somebody explain this better?

Regards,

Moncef

[ChrisByrns]

My hosting package includes a free top-level domain (.com or .de). On top of that they get a free design. (But my clients have to provide the content/texts)

The thing is: The design takes me about 2 hours, it's really just a simple 2 or 3 page html site with custom header/footer/design elements.

Those pages are pretty static and the maintenace is basically just changing a line of text or replacing an image once every month, if that!

The fact that i got 27 customers in such a short period is just because:

a) i was (and still am) the first and only to provide this kind of service to this niche
b) the people in this niche all NEED/WANT a basic, static site
c) those people are VAIN as hell and WILL show their new site to their colleagues, who also NEED a site
d) $30 a month is just a drop in the bucket for them, i can easily bump my prices up to like $60/mo (what i'm in fact going to do) and still get new clients.

[JordanFrancis]

Thank for providing more details, Chris.

Regarding whether it is too low a price or not... you can charge whatever you want - at least you got paying clients, and quickly. Which is more than many will ever do, whatever the price.

It's all good in this wonderful diverse world of ours

[Steve Sanchez]

Awesome idea. Thanks for sharing. I love this place.

[Phil Spinelli]

I charge $100 per hour for consulting (and my clients always make that back, plus some), so in a sense, my consulting is FREE

For a basic website and SEO, I would charge at lease $500 (and that's low) and minimum $100 per month for maintenance (and my clients always make that back, plus some) so in a sense, my web design and maintenance is FREE

And I'm cheaper then many others.

Actually, I'm FREE. My services don't cost my clients anything.

That's how you guys should be selling your services.

If you're providing value to your clients, charge em for it.
If you can increase their amount of prospects, charge em for it
If you can increase their conversion from prospects to paying customer, charge em for it
If you can increase their customer value/worth, charge em for it


They will pay you any amount (within reason) if you are generating more in profits then they are paying you.

[Ken Leatherman]

Chris,

Congrats on your business plan and the results you have had.

Some of you folks are forgetting that Chris obviously wanted to do a test of his chosen niche and get people that would share their site with the others in the same niche. Then he also has shown he will boot the price for his later customers. Good thinking Chris.

You have to remember that many of these offline folks will continue to renew their contract with him, just as they do automatically with their yellow page ad. His residual income from this basic plan over say 10 years will bring him over $92,000 and this of course does not include the other customers he will continue to ad at the higher price of $60 per month.

I say again go get em Chris.

Ken Leatherman
The Old Geezer

[Phil Spinelli]

Everybody has their own thing.

But this kinda stuff has already been tested.

good luck

[merigot123]

Obviously with the way things are economically, marketers have a tremendous edge when it goes to tapping into the offline which is wide open. It is a of matter of going out there and applying the necessary skills. You just cannot fail if you are honest with people and if the value provided always exceeds the return (in the beginning ) because you want those peopleto keep coming back for more.
Cheers...

[ChrisByrns]

Originally Posted by Phil Spinelli

You're under cutting yourself. (...)

biglocal.com charges 99 to $149 per month, just to submit your site to some directories and you get a crappy free website (one year contract)

See? "a crappy free website" - I could perhaps also charge like $150 per month, but if the client's not happy he/she wouldn't recommend me to his/her buddies. By offering a low fee + high quality, my service is more attractive and i get more attention.

But as you said - Each to their own.

[Jay Rhome]

Thanks for sharing this. All my IM efforts have been colossal failures. In fact, I can't even remember failing at something for so long (13+ FULL time months) but in a weird way I've developed expertise that could be very useful for local businesses. I knew that, but didn't feel like getting into the sales/personal service business model again, but you made me change my mind. It beats "regular" jobs. I too feel you should charge more but it got your foot in the door so go reap your rewards.

[Randy Bheites]

That's great that you clicked with this market. You have to have the temperament for that business model though. Me, I hate customers, don't like having to interact with them. I much prefer business models with lots of automation and handing off customer relations to others.

[william.jack38]

Hey bryns, done a good job. But what the reason for hiding your niche? Its a mouth publicity so no one can eat your money. Please share with us.

[Tsnyder]

My question is if you started the business one week before your
original post and got 27 customers in that week what could you
possibly have done that was of any real value other than putting
a website on a hosting account?

Are they expected to promote it themselves? How would you
have time to do what is necessary for good search engine results
for all 27 in one week? That's a lot of work.

I'm not trying to be negative about your success but call me
skeptical about the real value to the customer.

Tsnyder

[ChrisByrns]

Originally Posted by Tsnyder

what could youpossibly have done that was of any real value other than putting a website on a hosting account?

I did just that, plus the design expertise (when it comes to that niche) i offered was enough to convice my potential clients.

Originally Posted by Tsnyder

Are they expected to promote it themselves?

they promote it themselves, and they already knew how to do it. Just they didn't have a site they *could* promote.

[ChrisByrns]

Originally Posted by william.jack38

Hey bryns, done a good job. But what the reason for hiding your niche? Its a mouth publicity so no one can eat your money. Please share with us.

Okay here you go:

I'm offering domain-name registration + hosting + design to:

"professional" ladies (call them h**kers, h*es, pr*stitutes, escorts - whatever you like)

The first client i got was actually an escort agency, they wanted sites for all their 16 ladies - from that point the word spread in no time.

[Glenn Leader]

Originally Posted by Tsnyder

%< snipped

I'm not trying to be negative about your success but call me
skeptical about the real value to the customer.

Tsnyder

One thing the OP can do is put a front end on his sites and create a
directory for his city/niche, and then promote that. A blog would be
a simple solution, and would work well for this application.



Glenn

[MichaelHiles]

Congratulations, you just invented a web development company (which incidently is a pretty old business model).

You'll soon find that your $360 a year client that gets a free site in exchange for expensive hosting will ultimately turn into $2500 in overhead.

You're goint to have to figure out how you're going to afford all the changes they are going to want to make to the website on an ongoing basis, track your hourly work and connect that with accounting so you can get billed accordingly, and then deal with all the issues when they figure out that they can use a whole plethora of free sitebuilder tools with much cheaper hosting and demand to get out of the deal with you - suing your on the same basis of a health club where you cannot force someone to pay for services that they don't use in the future.

I think it's amusing how a bunch of IM guys are freaking out over a very old business model that was invented 15 years ago... and trying to rush to the table and compete in a very mature market. I mean, it's great that everyone is out rustling up local business -- but the path is littered with landmines. It's not the autopilot nirvana that IM'ers dream about with money coming in while you sleep.

It's a lot, lot, lot of ongoing, hard work.

I started a web development company in 1994 and sold it in 1999 to a large publishing firm.

Yes, ExRat, I am talking about my experience again, because I have it. ;-)

[ChrisByrns]

Originally Posted by MichaelHiles

You're goint to have to figure out how you're going to afford all the changes they are going to want (...)

I can't stress this enough - in this niche it's pretty much set up and forget.
It's not that they need a completely new site each and every month. Believe me, i made my homework regarding this niche.

[MichaelHiles]

Originally Posted by ChrisByrns

I can't stress this enough - in this niche it's pretty much set up and forget.
It's not that they need a completely new site each and every month. Believe me, i made my homework regarding this niche.

Yeah, I guess that hookers don't really need to keep their profiles updated. I can't imagine any of them actually getting any better looking over time, or dropping STDs off the roster.

[ChrisByrns]

Originally Posted by MichaelHiles

Yeah, I guess that hookers don't really need to keep their profiles updated. I can't imagine any of them actually getting any better looking over time, or dropping STDs off the roster.

Well, my clients aren't those trailer park, redneck, std-ridden, cheap ass kind of h*es. They are business women with class and style (and more money than the average IM'er).