Just Starting Out? Here's An Easy, Fast-Start Business Model That Works!

[internetmarketer99]

Internet marketing can be very frustrating when you're first starting out:

What direction do I take?
Affiliate Marketing...? Clickbank? Commission Junction?
CPA seems 'hot', should I try that...?
What about "creating my own product"...?
How about the "offline market"...?
Adwords PPC...?

Too many people starting out in IM get stuck in a 'death spiral' - they try their hand at something, maybe a review page & article marketing, don't see much success right away, so they move to something else, like trying to promote CPA offers, then on to something else, etc....

Here's a pretty easy business model that you can start almost right away, can generate good revenues, and most importantly, can be easily grown to a serious, ongoing, and very lucrative business.

The foundation is to offer free, basic websites, to anyone who doesn't already have one.

Did you know Hostgator will pay you $100 for everyone that signs up for a basic $7.95 monthly hosting account??

That's right. If you don't already have one, sign up at Commission Junction. Apply for Hostgator's affiliate program - it's an automatic acceptance.

From then on, whenever someone uses your link to go to Hostgator and signs up for a cheap shared hosting account, you get $100!

Once someone signs up, you have them purchase a .info domain name (very cheap - appx. $2.99, plus good keyword availability). With their hosting account, they get a cPanel account. From cPanel, you can do an instant, one-button Wordpress installation.

You can get zillions of very nice, appropriately suitable, and free themes: WordPress › Free WordPress Themes

Add a company name, use whatever basic info is available (company brochure, restaurant menu, flyer, advertisement, etc.) to create a post. This is then their homepage, on their own site.

Your time - appx. 15 minutes to log in to their cPanel, install Wordpress, copy a theme to the theme's directory, and create a brief post.

They have their own website, you've got $100!

Now of course you don't have to stop there. Might they want a listing in Google's Local Business Directory? It's free (to you), and takes very little time. And almost always worth another 50 bucks to your customer.

Do they want to capture leads? Is it worth another $50 to them? Of course. They don't even need to pay a monthly fee: Download the FREE Autoresponder Plugin for Wordpress.

Your time for the free plugin? 10 minutes.

Of course, you can also have them sign up at Aweber using your affiliate link, generate a form, and paste it into a text widget on the blog.

From here, there is the whole world of "offline marketing", but if you're looking for a simple, fast, and easy way to start making some decent money, that can also become the foundation for a much larger, long-term business, think about this:

How hard is to to walk down the main street of your local business district, walk into every business, and say:

"Hi - I'm branching out my Internet business into helping small businesses get online. I'd like to offer you a free, professional Website. No strings attached, and you don't have to pay me a dime. You're only cost is less than $10 per month - that's the fee to have a website hosted by a reputable service provider."

From direct personal experience, I can tell you that once you get a few, they will be referring other businesses to you.

If you pick a different business district main street each day, and spend not even a few hours walking into each business and saying just that, I can virtually assure you that you'll get at least one "yes" each day. That's $500/week, before you've upsold anything, and without even a single referral!

Want to polish it up a bit? Go to Vistaprint (http://www.vistaprint.com/) and have some nice, polished, and FREE business cards printed.

Create your own WP blog, create a simple post, download a few themes, switch them out and do a screen-grab of each. Go to Kinko's and for $10-$20, you can now hand out really nice looking color print "samples" plus business cards at each stop.

As you can imagine, you can take this in a thousand directions, and build on the basic premise in a thousand ways.

But the basic idea that opens this all up to you, while putting real, decent money in your pocket, is hard to resist:

You offer free, no-strings-attached websites. Every "Yes" puts $100 in your pocket.

Good luck!

Mark

[Brian W. Wang]

I've actually done a variation of this and it works quite well. I also try to upsell into backend services like SEO and PPC management, e-mail autoseponder, and offline marketing consultation.

It's really a good way to get leads for your offline gold efforts.

[internetmarketer99]

Hi Brian,

Yup, I wrote this post after 'experimenting' with someone, a friend's daughter who's husband had lost his job.

We were talking about their situation, and I had suggested that they could do some variation of the 'offline marketing' thing. He spoke with them and it became apparent that they were stumbling on the 'marketing' or 'selling' idea.

I started thinking about what someone could do that didn't really involve any 'selling', that would generate revenue, and would be compelling enough that people would simply say "yes".

What I came up with has worked like a charm:

"Let me help you get online, I won't charge you anything, it'll only cost you $8/month, you pay the service provider directly, no strings attached, no long-term committments, etc..."

If you're a local business that isn't online, that's a hard proposition to refuse.

They got about a dozen sales the first week, and sound like they've won the lottery!

Mark

[andrewpeacock]

Mark,
Great idea, thanks for sharing!

Andy

[charlesburke]

Mark, that's a great, simple variation on the offline gold idea. And now I wonder how many people who are floundering financially will read your suggestion and dismiss it because "I'm not very good at the sales thing."

Just a little guts - just a little trying, and most of them would discover that you don't have to be some kind of slick super salesman to do something like this. Just going out and offering an honest value is more than good enough.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

[Marketingmoore]

Thanks for the info.

[internetmarketer99]

Thanks all~

@charles - that's exactly it. What we ended up with was essentially how to offer high value without being "salesy", without worrying about "rejection", etc. I mean, "Can I give you something good and valuable, not charge you anything to do it, nothing hidden, total investment less than a decent hamburger at a diner once a month, PLEASE...?"

Well, it seems to work pretty well. And these two are now absolutely *consumed* thinking about the upsell possibilities. And they didn't even want to hear the word "sell" before...!

Mark

[gb4biz]

Mark, Very well done!

[LMC]

Great Post...

And....

Just realized I missed out on $20,000 because I did not KNOW about this affiliate program.

F$Ck lol

[internetmarketer99]

@LMC - I remember the first time I got a commission on hosting, I felt exactly the same way! But, I don't make that mistake anymore... isn't internet marketing wonderful?

Mark

[dwt]

I just had a "d'oh" moment. Why didn't I think of that? Thanks for the post!

David

[ExtraB]

Excellent explanation. And for someone with Web Design, Graphic Design, Programming, and or Marketing Skills this could turn into a goldmine.

[batchos]

Thanks, Mark

Your idea is superb!

batchos

[Mike Tompson]

This is a very nice way to go. Thanks for the great idea.

[xlfutur1]

I've been with CJ for years, use Hostgator and this one still didn't even occur to me! Just signed up with their affiliate program to start making $100 bills. thanks for posting, this one was obvious but alot of us just missed it.

[InfoAcademy]

By the way, I checked the Hostgator affiliate page and they pay $100 for 11-20 referrals a month... shouldn't be too hard with how simple this model is!

[Eric Stanley]

This is something that I have done with success:

Free Website Design Service - Free Website Pro

[jjpmarketing]

There is such a huge market for this kind of work. There are dozens upon dozens of verticals that this could be applied to. Something as simple as a blog, a theme, and some plugins and people think you walk on water...

[Al Andrews]

Great post Mark... Thanks for the info.

Al

[internetmarketer99]

@InfoAcademy, you don't have to wait that long. If you sign up with CJ, you get that $100 from the first sale.

@JJP, ExtraB - that's exactly what I saw here, a super-easy, almost-impossible-to-get-rejected "backdoor" into a whole range of markets and upsell opportunities.

Mark

[Anomaly1974]

I am copying this post for my swipe file! Some really great information there and I think I can actually use that to provide enough income to buy the software I need to get another site up off the ground.

Thanks

[Bennette]

Mark,

I can't thank you enough for your post. I am a newbie to IM and am stuck in the "death spiral". This will help me as a great starting point because I current have an offline line business and have previous sales experience working with businesses and this will be a win win for both.

Alot of times we have enough tools to get started but then we over complicate and analize things by thinking we need to know more and don't give ourself enough value for the things we do know.

An important thing to remember is, if you know more than the person your offering a service to, and you can provide a solution that can help them...then you know enough to get started and you can grow as go.
(KISS)

P.S. This is my first post and I'm truly glad I found this forum!

[Gooddeal86]

i just read the wso from michael silvester. sort of the same with this. really is inspiring

[internetmarketer99]

@Bennette - sounds like you're off on the right track, and I'd say there's no better place to help you succeed than Warrior forum!

Mark

[IM Biz System]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the great sharing. This is wonderful tips to kick start a IM Biz.

Cheers!

[Lloyd Buchinski]

That's a good idea, nice twist.

Just a word of caution though. There have been 3 different threads I've read in this forum in the last couple of months about problems getting credit for the sale with the HG CJ combination. This one goes into a lot of detail.
HostGator AND CJ You Don't Always Get What's Coming...

[tommygadget]

Originally Posted by Lloyd Buchinski

That's a good idea, nice twist.

Just a word of caution though. There have been 3 different threads I've read in this forum in the last couple of months about problems getting credit for the sale with the HG CJ combination. This one goes into a lot of detail.
HostGator AND CJ You Don't Always Get What's Coming...

Yep, I started that thread. I have to say that the last two warriors I referred were NOT credited by hostgator. They basically told me to piss off. The real interesting and (conspiracy theorists, go wild here, fine with me) weird thing is they had no problem paying me half ($50) for all the referrals I previously sent through their own, not CJ affiliate program links. Take that for what it's worth.

TomG.

PS - My improvement on all your ideas is this: Create a one-page site that looks nice and "sells" hosting packages to offline businesses for $9/month. Have a PayPal subscription buy now button on the bottom. Let them pay and you set them up through your hostgator reseller program. Make sure you have two extra buttons for 6 month payments and 12 month payments at nice discounts. Now the cash goes directly into your own pocket, the customer gets their own cPanel and you can tell hostgator to piss off and not wait for their affiliate check.

[mike116]

For someone that's looking to start making revenue relatively quickly this is a great idea.

[internetmarketer99]

@Tommy - that's been a problem with every affiliate ISP I've joined. Still, for me at least, it's been very few and far between.

Mark

[blalock61]

Great info. Common sense and practical, but effective. Thanks.

[AndrewCavanagh]

The real money is in selling back end services as someone else suggested.

Even if you're charging a business $1,500 to $5,000 to set anything up for them if you help that business make real sales and profits they'll be willing to hire you over and over again to implement other ideas you come up with.

Many businesses will already have a website so you'll want a back up plan when you talk to business owners...

In other words you want to make the most of the fact that you've actually got out there...walked into a business and talked to the owner.

Whether he has a website or not you CAN help him with the internet marketing knowledge you have.

I'd also say that anyone willing to just go talk to business owners doesn't necessarily need to set up websites at all.

You can use ANY internet marketing skill you have to help a brick and mortar business make money.

And most will be happy to pay you a whole lot more than $100 or even $1,000.

It all starts with being willing to talk to business owners.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[praveenforwpi]

Looks good will try out

[internetmarketer99]

@Andrew -

You're certainly right that there is plenty more than $100 to be made in offline sales.

However, some people have a very difficult time doing "sales", even dressed as "let me help your business".

The real 'idea' here was to remove all of the selling and replace it with a low-impact, easy-to-say, nearly-impossible-to-refuse proposition.

The stumbling block seemed to be the aversion to "selling", and this seems to be safe and comfortable enough for that type of person.

Mark