I just made $5,000! NOW WHAT???

Congratulations for making the sale, but I can honestly say I don't think I'll ever be parting with any money with you! lol

(how will we know to trust you can do a job from now on!?)

Daniel

Congratulations! Now go ahead and outsource the work you can't do to someone in India or the Philippines (who'll want a darn sight less than $5k) and make your profit as the middle man.

Outsource? Find someone with a good track record of successful projects, someone who is reliable and relatively cheap. Heck, you can find some people in this forum who would surely like to work with you.

Good luck Ricky Roma!

Tyrus

The key really to succeeding in your quest is your time scale. How long do you have to complete the project?

If it's only a few weeks at most worth of work, then you won't achieve much. I do have some suggestions... but nothing that would work if you're on too short a leash.

Kenneth

I agree with the other recommendations here -- since you don't know what you're doing, then outsource these tasks to an expert who can get results.

I have no idea wtf I am doing!


Now that is hilarious....good luck to you and you better ask for lots of help

So where does one find these people from India and the Philippines?

Jae

Your gift does appear to be in the sales area. If the SEO stuff isn't your strength, why not outsource the bulk of it? This would maximize your time and effort as you would be free to pitch to another offline company while others are doing the nuts and bolts of the service you just sold at far less than what you charged your customer.

Combining good sales tactics with outsourcing is a great way to maximize your profits.

Congrats! I think the new answer you might be seeking is found in the problem you're facing, which isn't much of a problem at all. Start looking to systematize your sales and web development processes separately. You're probably going to find that if you want to continue with the offline success you've found, you're likely to get swamped and/or completely overwhelmed with trying to find a last minute freelancer to do your work, or you've been so pre-occupied managing some of these freelancers that you're missing the boat on sales.

System up as soon as you can and then go, go, go!

So you talked someone into paying you for something that you don't really know how to deliver?

I hope it turns out well for you.

Why not have a plan in handy BEFORE you go out and sell your services. Yes everyone can sell. But not everyone will provide a valueable touch and marketing arsenal.

Do you know what the big difference between the two??

More sales, more money and more respect, work and word of mouth

If you know what you doing you take % of sales and services on top, not just fee.

Hello,

They want demographic results right? That isnt very hard...

How much competition is there for the keywords? If it less than 20k then it very easy

Regards
Shakul

Except for one thing.... we're talking about business and there are these creatures roaming around in the forest called lawyers. One slip, you're done.

Not saying that someone shouldn't step out and take a risk, but damn, at least get some hands on before selling yourself as something that you're not. That's a sure fire way to land yourself in civil court. At least get some liability insurance.

That's kind of crazy - how do you even know what you promised them is do-able for $5000?

Or did they hand over $5000 on some vague "I'll get good search engine rankings for your site" promise? Did you spell out how many new customers it might get them? Or what pages they might rank for?

Sounds like you should JV with someone who knows SEO and then you can go sell the service to a bunch of companies and your partner can do the work. But I would be careful, I think a lot of people might say they are SEO experts when they really know very little about it.

Lee

outsource everything

What you do now is exactly what you promised...thats what you do!

Did you promise Backlinks? Outsource it.

Did you promise better Google ranking? Outsource Onsite optimization

Did you promise Social Media Marketing? Outsource videos and bookmarking

etc.


Look at what you offered them, then find someone(s) who can do it!

Congratz!

Ummm, let's get this right...you essentially sold a service that you can't do and don't have anyone lined up to do it for you. It's situations like this that give IM a bad name to the offline world. Before you go selling your services you should know what you can deliver and can't deliver and who to go to if you sell what you can't do. Not after you've already taken the money.

Anyways, best of luck.

Great job IMO. It doesn't matter if you know what you are doing or not, as long as you know how to get the job done. Henry Ford, was uneducated and ignorant. But he was smart enough to know that he needed a team of people that knew what they were doing to get the job done.

Time to start collecting bids from eLance!

In my opinion the hard part is already done. Would you rather have a bunch of mechanics sitting around on the clock with no cars to fix or a bunch of cars to fix with no mechanics. I'd much rather have option 2.

David Preston has a great outsource program- I'm not sure if he offers it only to his Cash Cow Workshop owners or if anyone can use his outsource packages but it's worth looking into.

Well if you are not qualified then outsource and eat a bunch of your profit and move on. Maybe you should start a company and be the sales guy.

But it's clearly bad business NOT to have a plan before selling anything. Your reputation is not going to be much should you now fail.

Lee,

I truly do hope that you find some great people that you can outsource to. Once you've got them in place, you'll really be able to focus on selling, and can drive as much business as you can handle!

I wish you success!

Dennis

As long as you can deliver you are fine and I am very happy for you. i think many people on this forum would love to have the contract that you have managed to get- which shows exceptional sales skills.

By looking at your post count I can see you play an active role in this forum and with all the expertise on this forum you were well within your right to go and promise what you did to the business in regards to seo.

Some people may disagree with the saying that I am about to say but its also very true whether quoted back to front or in the way I will state it. Its not what you know but who you know.

Now knowing you have access to all the many professional people on this forum is enough for you to make things happen. So well done and its people like you that get places in life mate.

OMG!! The beginning of this thread is hilarious!! LOL

Good luck!

Iburrell,

The answer is probably in your contract --- Umm I mean agreement to scope of work.

Depending on what they are looking for, you can easily outsource all the steps and still over deliver.

As someone said before, lots a warriors here have more than enough skills to do what ever you agreed to performing.

SEO rarely means the same to everyone, so until you know what they believe they are paying for, it doesn't help you much to guess what people you need to hire or skills you need to learn for yourself.

If you don't currently have a scope of work agreement, get one, that is the only way you can deliver what the think they are getting.

Nothing wrong with sitting down with the client now and continue on the consultant phase of metrics and methods.

Mark Riddle

Seems what you've done is pulling some seriously polarized responses. It either prompts strong admiration of your gumption and confidence, or equally strong disapproval of your hubris and overpromising.

Somebody already mentioned Henry Ford as a good example of a guy who made big promises, then delegated.

An even more relevant example might be Thomas Edison. Before inventing the light bulb, he called a very large press conference to announce that he definitely would be releasing an electric light product before long. The thing is, he hadn't even started, and he had no idea it would take him many thousands of tries to deliver on his promise.

And lest you assume this was a one time thing, no - he regularly announced new products he intended to develop even though he hadn't begun them yet. This was his practice. It motivated him.

Would this be a good practice for everyone? Of course not, but Edison KNEW he could get the job done, one way or another. And he did.

The folks who're urging more caution are absolutely right - in almost all cases.

But when it comes to special cases like Edison (and hopefully our intrepid OP), well, there are always exceptions. And I for one am glad there are.

Another important point that hasn't gotten much comment is how eager the customer was to buy these services. All of you who DO know enough, and COULD deliver results might want to pay special attention to this. There are businesses out there right now who are famished for what you can do for them.

Folks, this is Dan Kennedy's "starving crowd with money to spend."

So why not stop the dithering (and the criticizing). Get up off your knowledge and go talk to some people. Get your own $5,000 checks. Then come back and tell us about it. I for one would love to read more of that.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

Oh and by the way, here's a WF thread from the other day filled with links to outsourcing

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ilippines.html

Cheers, Charles

Outsource everything and learn fast!

I believe you're a man of your word, so kudos to you. I get the vibe that if you couldn't deliver you wouldn't keep the money.

Regarding SEO, for the love of God don't go to eLance. Instead, find a fellow Warrior who has gotten RESULTS (not just read the latest SEO books).

I know Tim Castleman does a lot of this offline stuff; he probably knows some people. Get in touch with him, he's an awesome guy.

Above all, make sure whoever you hire can get you RESULTS, not just pretend to optimize things correctly.

Kind regards,

-Dan

congrats! now its time for you to use that money, outsource the SEO job to someone and you can just sit back and relax.

Like many have said, I think you should outsource the work... although I guess you won't know if it gets done right or not.

So in terms of finding someone good, first place to check is here on this forum. There is a section for Warriors who offer services, check t see which looks good and ask for references to contact.

But you probably know more then you think, but right now I would suggest outsourcing it.

Congrats on taking action!


Joel Osborne

I think the big thing is being able to communicate what you promised to whoever you're going to outsource and then make sure the results are there.

I'm in the same business...got in over my head with one client, but didn't structure the deal right and didn't get any cash in hand up front. Now I don't have the results I wanted for her, don't have the $$ to outsource to get them and she's losing her patience.

Get the $ and find people who will do the work. Yes, it's good to know a little about what you're selling, but as long as you communicate well and outsource even better, you'll do great.

Thanks for the encouragement guys!

hey. I really don't think you should have gotten into something you know nothing about... but that's just me.

Thanks,
Sebastian

Is it just me or is something backwards with that statement?

If I were you I'd outsource the work...seems like there are plenty of low-cost SEO options floating around on sites like eLance and the like...

On that note...congrats and good luck!

Chris

Well done to you.
At least you are honest about it.Nobody is perfect and as long as you get the job done as promised I don't see what the problem is.I bet the bosses of big companies havent got a clue about the work their staff does,thats why they have others working for them!
The same applies here .As long as you outsource what you can't do and make sure you deliver.How many salesmen sell stuff without full knowledge of what they are selling?
I wish you the best and keep on selling.
Lilian

what exactly have you promised this company? (seo is quite broad)

hopefully you have it all in a contract or agreement. and hopefully you haven't made any guarentees.

If you provide this thread with what exactly you have agreed to, people will be better able to tell you where to outsource the work (rather than just having posts telling you to outsource it).

Who knows, you may even get warriors who are willing to take on the job.

good luck

Simon

p.s. did you take payment upfront? or is there any accounts recievable?

Good deal Lee

Essentially you're acting as a middle man since you can't perform the services yourself.

The trick now is just to find someone reputable WITH results who *will* get the job done.

For all of your detractors I say - learn a lesson and go out and get some ninja-like business savvy and grab a $5k check for your own!

Ya I have learned a FEW things from this forum

As far as services that I have been contracted for:

-Getting the site to the top of the SE's for relevant keywords
-Increase the relevant traffic coming to the site (as of now the site is getting maybe 100 hits a month!)
-Perform a website audit offer suggestions/make changes accordingly
-Develop content for the web (already have alot of it) to increase awareness about the retro-fit services offered and how it can help ppl become more energy efficient as well as save them money
-Monitor traffic/analytics and look at the amount of inquires about the services. Determine if there is any pattern of what prevents prospective customers from contacting.
-That's all I can remember from the top of my head as I'm on my laptop

To put this all in perspective, the company that I am working with is just starting this new business model to add to their service line. They currently do ZERO online advertising. The entire industry does almost ZERO online advertising.

Their main offering is insulating houses and they do about $40M/yr in sales. This new biz model was inspired by the business model that a company in Utah is using to do $25M a yr just by performing retro-fit services. That company gets customers through direct-mail and online ads (one of the first to use this marketing platform for the industry)

The market is huge. HUGE!

I seriously recommend from day 1, you prepare some sort of report. Let them know what their current state of web site, give them analytical info about their current web site like # visitors, where do they come from, which pages they read, and for how long, etc.. This is your benchmark so later on you can tell them what you have done to improve those numbers and make them feel their money is well spent and hopefully you'll have more business down the line...

Anyway great job and good luck to you!

@ lburrell

well done.

those are easy to outsource.

but if they are doing 40MM a year, don't you think you should have asked for a bigger slice of the pie?

hopefully you can find some easy keywords to target.

Simon

wow great job on making $5k so fast without even knowing what you're gonna do! that's some great natural sales skills you got there - stick at this and you're gonna get great results fast mate!

One of our greatest presidents (Teddy Roosevlet?) said: If you are asked if you can accomplish something, say "yes" then get busy and learn how to do it!

Your timeframe may not allow for this, so like the others have said outsourcing is the way to go.

I prefer to have everything in place before I make an offer, but it sounds like you kinda got drawn into this one.

Once you get this account all set up and completed you'll have everything in place for tons of more customers.

You might enjoy a book by Timothy Ferris called The 4 Hour Work Week

best wishes
dana

Congrats on the sale. If you want to improve your sales and learn quite a bit about seo for Free, google stompernet , specifically stompernet the lost video and stompernet the adwords triangulation method. get on their email list. I have been following them for years and they are incredible.

I say "Well done" to Lee.

He clearly is a good saleman.

Outsource the work, and carry on finding new clients. He's better off concentrating on what he's good at, and increasing his knowledge of the rest 'as he goes along'.

When outsourcing, he may not pick the right team at first, but if he perseveres, he will land a team that will keep him in good stead for future projects. And if he ends up with little or no profit on this one, so what? - he still gains:

• He'll end up with an outsource person/team that he can rely on.
• And, he'll have provided the customer with what they want. Then he'll have made a name for himself and be in a position to get referrals and recommendations.

Col

Well all I know is I am new to the offline business and I wish I had someone like Lee doing sales for me, you can always outsource whatever you can't do, that is what I plan to do. Best of everything and keep us up to date on your results.