Easiest $7000 I've ever made! (Offline Gold)

[Chris Endres]

Hey Alex, You should look into SMS text services for your friends father. (restaurant)

You can set it up so when he has a lunch or dinner special it sends out a text message to everybody's phone on the list,.. it's super chilly!

[batchos]

Originally Posted by AlfredKo

If you're charging that much, get yourself a VPS for $50/month and you gain full control on all your clients.
You also give yourself an added reason to charge monthly maintenance fee.

Shared hosting is not reliable.

Can you recommend a reliable VPS host?

Thanks

batchos

[Spark]

Originally Posted by RaceToAMillionDollars

I've been dabbling with offline marketing myself and have made a cool $1350 from a local restaurant. I simply upped their trashy website into a more modern version.

I even outsourced that after I got half the money upfront. Netted $1100.

Hey RTAD,

Care to share the website? would be interested to look at it. Cheers!

[p2y]

Originally Posted by Chris Endres

Hey Alex, You should look into SMS text services for your friends father. (restaurant)

You can set it up so when he has a lunch or dinner special it sends out a text message to everybody's phone on the list,.. it's super chilly!

This method also works great for clubs, realtors, and apartment agents

[Chris Endres]

Originally Posted by p2y

This method also works great for clubs, realtors, and apartment agents

I hadn't thought of that,.. sweetness! ty bud!

[redsymbol]

Originally Posted by AlexKaplo

I'm purposly just going to ignore because you have no clue what you are talking about !

blackhatcat seems to be making some good points to me.

Not saying you are lying, Alex; I do not know if you are or not. But bhc is correct that some parts of your story are not adding up, based on what you've posted so far.

[BigHef]

Originally Posted by redsymbol

blackhatcat seems to be making some good points to me.

Not saying you are lying, Alex; I do not know if you are or not. But bhc is correct that some parts of your story are not adding up, based on what you've posted so far.

I'd agree with this. Simply saying he has 'no idea what he's talking about' rather than addressing what he said in his posts kinda clouded this whole thread for me, rightly or wrongly.

[vistad]

The moral of Alex's story is that you should put away part of your money and start a successful offline business. Then you can comfortably afford to throw $7000, and of course maintain your online presence.

[fxteam]

Great Job Alex,

Look forward to hearing more from you as you progress in the offline market.

Regards,
Eric

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Nice post, Alex. The easiest (offline) money I've probably ever made was years ago I picked up $16,000 once for doing essentially nothing. I was contracted by a client to write a custom Web application and I estimated it would take me about two weeks to complete, so I priced it out at $32,000 in total. The company paid me half up front and planned for me to get started about 45-60 days later, but shortly thereafter they decided to completely abandon the project.

[AffiliateAfterHrs]

Thanks for sharing, Alex. As a newbie in internet marketing this really gives some heads up on ways I can generate some income helping somebody else.

[jaybaker]

Heres a site everyone might be interested in...
http://www.rentacoder.com

I have had logos made on there for $35

Now if you are looking for more technicall tasks to be done you may want to check out craigslist: bangalore classifieds for jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events

as well as craigslist: manila classifieds for jobs, apartments, personals, for sale, services, community, and events

Make sure that you post under computer or creative gigs though..

[AM Faisal]

nice job Alex

[bhuff85]

Originally Posted by BigHef

I'd agree with this. Simply saying he has 'no idea what he's talking about' rather than addressing what he said in his posts kinda clouded this whole thread for me, rightly or wrongly.

I just cruised by this thread and got sucked in and read a majority of it, and I'm going to have to agree with you and BHC. To me, with this being his only client, why would it take 4 to 6 months to get this persons site indexed and start SEO work when they are paying monthly for maintenance, PPC and SEO work? Not only that, but I would say that a list of 2k for just a "local restaurant" is a helluva list. If that's true, then great, but for zero SEO work, no site in the Google index and other things, I have a hard time trying to believe that a list got to that size, unless the owner has some heavy local advertising or sign-up slips in his restaurant. But then again, if he's blowing money on heavy advertising, then he's wasting $1,500 a month for 'maintenance'.

No offense Alex, but while business is business, sometimes you've got to step back and see what's ethical and what's not. Part of my personal satisfaction in doing ANY business is knowing that I'm making a difference in someone else's business, and that what I provided was a contribution and impacted that business in a positive way. I guess everyone has their own opinions and practices, though...

[StevenR]

Nice job Alex!

I've had very similar experiences myself so I can totally appreciate what you've shared here.

One thing that seems to have been overlooked in this thread is this:

He used his WARM MARKET / Circle of Influence to get the business!

Any business person who is starting a service oriented business should go with their circle of influence first... simply because it your BEST source for leads and referrals.

Most people tend to write off their warm market because they "pre-judge" them (which I think is a big mistake). Just because your buddies, family members etc. don't own businesses doesn't mean they don't know somebody that owns or manage a business. By the way, your warm market is not just your friends and family members, but also people you interact with on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

In the past I used to advertise my services using different mediums, which works ok... but it's definitely the slower way to profits (in my opinion). These days I'm getting business solely through referrals (and I rarely take on clients for this sort of thing because I'm busy with other projects).

Seriously, it's amazing how many leads you can get by just opening your mouth (and I don't even consider myself an outgoing person). I'm constantly getting into conversations with people about what I do. And people always ask me for a card (which I never carry with me... until recently) because they know somebody that needs my services.

Sorry for the rant,
Steven

[maco]

Thanks for thegerat post Alex.