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

[AlexKaplo]

Hope everyone is doing alright and is prospering in their businesses...

It's been a few months now since I have posted here and I'm starting to feel like I'm not part of the great community since I'm not contributing anything anymore !... I really mean that because this forum has been so good to me, it's where I got my start in the world of "Internet Marketing". It's also where I've met several of my JV partners which have launched me to online success and where I've meet several of my "marketing buddies" which has been instrumental for me!

I truly want to make it up to you guy's (and be part of the community again), and I figured the best way I can do this is by sharing some of the things I've been up to lately that has been generating a lot of money for me and that can make you a lot of money as well! Now I don't claim to be an expert by any means, I'm actually the complete opposite of an expert, (I'm only 18 years old), so bare with me !

Here's goes, I'm sure you've already heard all the fuss about how much money people are making marketing to offline businesses... and from personal experience, this is no joke you can seriously make a freakn KILLING! Here's my story... A few months ago, I received a phone call from one of by my best friends father, he had just opened a brand new restaurant in the downtown area of my city and had happened to know I was doing some stuff on the internet to make money, so he figure I had the knowledge to build him a website for a good price.

(Insider note: apparently he had called up an agency before he called me (many local restaurants and local businesses call up these guy's to build their websites in my area) and they told him that they would happily build him a custom made website for approximately $15,000+ ).

So we setup a rendezvous, and we met in hes restaurant, we talked about what he wanted the website to look like. It was super easy to get ideas, we basically went through all the competitors websites and took notes on all the things we liked. Overall, we simply copied our best competitors websites and put better content and made better looking pages . After spending a few hours figuring out all that boring stuff we had clear blueprint of what the entire website would look and feel and what all the pages would have as far as content goes!

After wrapping up the conversation about what the websites would look like, we started talking about how he was marketing hes business, my favorite subject haha... (Insider note: this guy has spending close to $13,000+ per month on local advertisements such as billboards ads, full page newspaper ads, radio ads, flyers, etc. Now if you think about it, $15k to build a website is absolutely logical for a offline business owner that barely knows how to use a computer and that struggles to get to Google's website).

Here's the worst part, he was spending all this money to advertise hes restaurant and all he ever mentioned was the name of the restaurant and the address ! So, I started hammering him about how we can tweak all the advertisements by mentioning the website. In which case, all the traffic or a percentage of the traffic that responds to the ads would land on the website and there we would have a auto responder setup to capture emails. After a few weeks, (even days), we would build up a list of a few hundred people and would send out an email about special events the restaurant was having, (Ex. Hockey Night, Beer Night, etc), this would easily fill up the entire restaurant with customers and make him well over $10k from that one email! - INTERNET MARKETING 101!

(Note, he purchased the auto responder and the website hosting service I recommended to him under my affiliate link, which made enough money to buy that eBook I wanted on ClickBank . Believe me I didn't even have to cloak the link, it was that easy!)

Now, I can't explain the look on hes face after I gave him that piece of information, I think I saw some dollar symbols in hes eyes. So I didn't stop there, I started bombarding him about SEO stuff, PPC, CPA Networks. After a few minutes into the conversation I think he got he got a serious case of information overload! (I was talking really fast and very technical as if all this was very hard and demanded some serious time consumption, (on purpose), see I didn't want him to do this all by himself or hire some other guy, I wanted to be that "important" guy that does it all for him for a nice amount of money/PER MONTH !).

It gets even better, he was so excited that he also mentioned that he didn't have a website for hes garage, (another business he owns, I've found that many offline businesses owners run and operate several completely different businesses which is great for me & you in terms of $!). So I gave him a good deal and told him I would build both websites for $7000. $4k for the restaurant website and $3k for the garage website, (he basically got a -$1000 discount). AND every 30 days he would pay me an additional $1500 to handle hes entire PPC, and SEO campaign for both the restaurant website and the garage website. Remember this is one of my best friends father, I would of charged much more if I didn't know him).

Wait there's more! After a few weeks both websites were completed, and the "SNOWBALL EFFECT" started! I got 2 new customers by word of mouth and another from a business owner that liked one of the websites and did a domain whois search and got my contact info. (Here's a good tip, buy the domain for them, or somehow change the info to yours after asking for permission, that way you can get customers contacting you!).

I've currently made well over $15k doing this and I'm getting heavily paid every month from all these customers. Overall, I can honestly say it has been a lot of fun. You learn so many new things while chatting with other business owners! Now, I admit I was pretty lucky do get my first client, but all it really takes is for you to grab your local yellow pages book and start calling up local businesses and setting up a rendezvous! See, once you get that first client things seem to accelerate pretty quickly!

Also, times are pretty tough now so believe me you are the SOLUTION to many business owners that are currently struggling keeping their business doors open! Remember they are saving money if they invest in you, agencies are extremely expensive and completely rip-off business owners! You have no EXCUSES if you have a little bit of knowledge of internet marketing you are already a EXPERT (YES! Call yourself a "GURU")
I'm only 18 years old and I'm doing this, you have no excuses go out and make some of that money!

See you guy's back in the forums ,

Alex Kaplo

P.S - I know I'd be pretty curious to see what these websites look like, so I'll give out one - WEBSITE REMOVED (EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS OF EXPOSURE, SORRY GUY'S!). By the way, if if you think for one second I actually built that website, you are completely wrong, I have no idea how to code in Flash, I outsource 99% of the work to my team in India where they do everything for unbelievably low prices, so I get to keep most of that money in pocket !

[runfast]

Way to go! That what I was doing before I got into IM.
Find someone that wants a Website
Hire someone to build the site. (Use Guru.com)
Dump all the HtML codes into my Hosting account.
Presto! I now collect $25 to $50 per month forever from the customers.
Unfortunately I was only charging $500 to $1,000 to build 1 to 5 page websites.
I'm thinking about making an Ebook that says:
"How to become a Web Designer WITHOUT ever building a Website"
Would it sell?

[Razvan Rovinaru]

Great job, truly an inspiration, I've never tried this personally, I actually built some websites for some friends but didn't charge them a dime 'cause I felt bad about it(stupid maybe :P).

Thanks for the share!

[Chris Lagarde]

Alex - It's great to see you didn't under price your valuable services. For others who think Alex charged too much I suggest you read every post by Andrew Cavenaugh.

When you can show the value you bring to the table, a client is willing to write a large check. I recently brought on board a 23K (1st year gross billings) client.

What helped me land the sale was using my own variation of Maria Gudelis' mindmap (I own the Mindmanager software). I was able to demonstrate a command of internet marketing, yet I also didn't overwhelm her with too much information.

Prior to using the mindmap, I HAD gotten the deer-in-headlights look because I gave prospects information overload. Too much information means the prospect gets fearful and as a consequence the prospect says "No" to your offer. Congratulations Alex and thank you for the testimonial.

[JakeDaly]

Being only 20 years of age myself, that post was damn inspirational. Thank you. I have to master my basic IM skills before I intend to enter the offline market, but I plan on doing so within the next year.

Jake Daly

[AlexKaplo]

I'm glad you guy's enjoyed it !

I honestly believe this is one of the easiest ways to make money if you are currently struggling in the IM world.

Originally Posted by runfast

Way to go! That what I was doing before I got into IM.
Find someone that wants a Website
Hire someone to build the site. (Use Guru.com)
Dump all the HtML codes into my Hosting account.
Presto! I now collect $25 to $50 per month forever from the customers.
Unfortunately I was only charging $500 to $1,000 to build 1 to 5 page websites.
I'm thinking about making an Ebook that says:
"How to become a Web Designer WITHOUT ever building a Website"
Would it sell?

I think an eBook on this topic would sell easily... but I don't think that title is suitable simply because you are not only a web designer. Yes, you are initially selling your services to built them a website but the money is truly made on the backend, (on the marketing side). So you need to have some knowledge about Internet Marketing, (PPC and SEO).

[AlexKaplo]

Originally Posted by Chris Lagarde

Prior to using the mindmap, I HAD gotten the deer-in-headlights look because I gave prospects information overload. Too much information means the prospect gets fearful and as a consequence the prospect says "No" to your offer. Congratulations Alex and thank you for the testimonial.

I'm very familiar with the deer-in-headlights look !...

On a serious note, you definitely have to watch out. I live & breath Internet Marketing and most Internet Marketers are the same, so we take it for granted that everyone knows this stuff. And when talking to a business owner that has a limited budget about all these "Hard technical things" they WILL get scared of you! Simply because it will seem as if it will cost WAYYY to much!

...In my case, I had the gut feeling after seeing the look on hes face that he wanted to hear more concepts of how he can make more money in hes business. (Plus I knew the guy and hes love for money!), so I started talking 90/mph about all these "hardcore" marketing models he can use... and it just got better and better! Gut feeling is key !

[FXDaddy]

That's awesome, thanks for the advice. I have also found a couple of other passive cash flow products that are useful to these companies. For example, a cheap 800 number service for companies that only receive the occasional long distance call, stuff like that. I don't try to sell them a ton of stuff, but when it makes sense, I suggest it.

[chrisnegro]

Congrats Alex.....nice job !

Chris Negro

[CBSnooper]

I've built a website for my neighbours gearbox repair company. It's now around 5th for a few gearbox repair type phrases. I'm building one for the servicing and repair part of the business.

I never even thought about building a list for his sites, even though I'm building lists for the websites that I've created for my IM. You have given me plenty of ideas about how to take the new site to the next level. Thanks!

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by AlexKaplo

And when talking to a business owner that has a limited budget about all these "Hard technical things" they WILL get scared of you! Simply because it will seem as if it will cost WAYYY to much!

Alex, fear of cost is part of what causes that deer-in-the-headlights look, but only part.

A lot of it comes from fear of loss of control. You are rattling off these terms and concepts that they don't understand, after giving them a taste of what might be possible. Yet they fear that if they give you free rein, they might lose some control of their own business.

"I give you a ton of control over my online marketing, and influence over my offline marketing...

What happens if we have a falling out? Or you step in front of a bus? Now what? Maybe I should just back off and think about this..."

One of the underlying emotional pulls that draw many business owners into being business owners in the first place is a desire for independence and control. By leading him into places he isn't comfortable, you might be threatening those feelings. 'Cost too much' is a convenient way to regain control.

[Don Schenk]

Hi Alex,

Bravo. Nice job.

I went to the website, got into the food menu page (yummmm), but the webpage menus at the top don't work, and I could not get back out of that page.

How are you capturing names and email? I didn't see any place to opt in?

Someone elses name is listed at whois as the technical contact!

Now I'm confused.

:-Don

[melanied]

I think the point about business owners owning multiple businesses, many of which are completely separate and distinct from one another, is a good one.

One of my clients is the part-owner of two businesses - the second of which hired me because of they knew me from the first.

You're always auditioning!

[Saint117]

Wow thats an amazing story my friend. I really will take a look around and jump on a oppertunity like that if I see one. Now I dont have much website design skill either. So your saying you just outsourced for the code then put it on your host and did all the IM to get the traffic and such and got paid that much to do it?

Your living the dream my friend.

cheers

[Phalanx]

Thanks a ton for posting this Alex!

There are two reasons:

1. I seriously thought about this "offering IM to offline businesses", even grabbed a copy of yellow pages and started listing through it... but then abandoned the idea for some reason. You got me motivated to get started again.

2. You're 18. You have no idea how motivating that is

Why? Because I'm 19. So if I read about a 21-year old successful marketer, I go "yeah, cool, I still have time to achieve that." But here you are, younger than me, finally motivating me to get off my butt and get working!

So, thanks a bunch!

[AlexKaplo]

Originally Posted by Don Schenk

Hi Alex,

Bravo. Nice job.

I went to the website, got into the food menu page (yummmm), but the webpage menus at the top don't work, and I could not get back out of that page.

How are you capturing names and email? I didn't see any place to opt in?

Someone elses name is listed at whois as the technical contact!

Now I'm confused.

:-Don

- Sam, is actually the manager of the restaurant he needed the domain back because he changed the hosting server due to the exceed of bandwidth usage, so he needed to transfer the DNS and he probably put hes info back on there.

- We capture name and email on the home page (right side), also in the specials & events section, (people checking out the specials & events are highly targeted leads to be on our newsletter so have the option to optin again on that page!).

- Please specify what exactly is not working in the "menu page"? I've actually got a few people emailing me about that issue... are you using Firefox or IE?

Originally Posted by melanied

I think the point about business owners owning multiple businesses, many of which are completely separate and distinct from one another, is a good one.

One of my clients is the part-owner of two businesses - the second of which hired me because of they knew me from the first.

You're always auditioning!

Thank you melanied, I completely agree with you your always auditioning so you always have to present yourself the best you can !

Originally Posted by Saint117

Wow thats an amazing story my friend. I really will take a look around and jump on a oppertunity like that if I see one. Now I dont have much website design skill either. So your saying you just outsourced for the code then put it on your host and did all the IM to get the traffic and such and got paid that much to do it?

Your living the dream my friend.

cheers

Here's what you really need to get started,

1- Basic knowledge of SEO & PPC. (It's not hard to find the keywords, all you need is to target is the city your in followed by the keyword. So it goes something like this: City keyword #1, City Keyword #2, City Keyword #3, etc. It's super easy, see your not competing for the keyword "make money online" here. See using these local keywords, you'll barely find any competitors and it take you a few days of actual "work" and you'll be at the top of the search engines !)

2- Basic knowledge in website "code terms", I mean you have to know the difference between HTML and FLASH... and what is possible and what is not with certain types of codes ... (Download some 30-Day Free trial of some HTML editor out there and have fun with it, you'll learn a bunch of new things about coding terms and building websites).

3 - Get outsources from freelance websites, (TIP: Do not go to the top outsourcing websites. If you want ridiculously low prices, you have to post your project on lower 2nd or even 3rd tier outsourcing websites... Why? For some unknown reason you will find much more people willing to do the job whom are just as qualified for a much lower price!)

4 - Be the project manager or what I like to call the "Middleman", and make sure the designer is building the website the way your customer wants it done....

5 - Collect your $1k at the end of the month !

Originally Posted by Phalanx

Thanks a ton for posting this Alex!

There are two reasons:

1. I seriously thought about this "offering IM to offline businesses", even grabbed a copy of yellow pages and started listing through it... but then abandoned the idea for some reason. You got me motivated to get started again.

2. You're 18. You have no idea how motivating that is

Why? Because I'm 19. So if I read about a 21-year old successful marketer, I go "yeah, cool, I still have time to achieve that." But here you are, younger than me, finally motivating me to get off my butt and get working!

So, thanks a bunch!

Dude, if it makes you feel better, or worse, (depending on you ), there's a 15 year old out in California I think, (forgot hes name), and hes a super affiliate making MILLIONS! He proved it by showing off hes "American Express Black Card", (if you own this cards it means 2 things, #1 your rich, #2 your important). He also did a interview with the famous Jeremy shoemaker.

Also, here's a list of bloggers under 21 making millions online. Top 30 Young Bloggers Under 21 ...

Hope this inspires you even more !

Originally Posted by Imran Naseem

Fantastic post.

I just love the "Offline" Gold threads. If I had a chance I would save all of these in a folder and read them all.

Hey, Imran, nice to see you again man, believe it or not you are one of the very first guy's I've ever bough a WSO here on the warrior forum from, (the $1 launch in forums product), about a year and a half ago !

It's nice to be back in the community and see you guy's again! Hope all is well man!

[Saint117]

Wow thanks for that info! Wow that is truely inspiring. Man do i love the warrior forums. And I hope you make that list too! I turn 21 in a couple months so I have lost hope. But I would truely love to see you up there.

[Vikuna2009+]

LOVE all this offline stuff ! Is there any way that you could post a link to your outsoursers? Yeah, I know, that is a lot to ask.

One thing though, it loaded way too slow! But, it all looked DELICIOUS!

[AlexKaplo]

Originally Posted by Vikuna2009+

LOVE all this offline stuff ! Is there any way that you could post a link to your outsoursers? Yeah, I know, that is a lot to ask.

One thing though, it loaded way too slow! But, it all looked DELICIOUS!

Ouch that would be like giving you a $500/day CPA campaign. I will give you this piece of info tho, I found them here !

Hope this helps you out!

Alex

[WarriorNY]

That's a really nice website design (the one you linked to). I'm sure that cost some $$ to get designed.

[greenovni]

Great posts, some ideas come to mind.

[Don Schenk]

Alex I'm using IE7. I went into the menu page, looked at the .pdf, then opened the flash menu. OOOOooooo that food looks good, but then it's supposed too.

After looking at each (.pdf and flash) none of the menus at the top, under the header would work. Nothing. They didn't seem to go anywhere.

I was out for a couple hours, came back, tried it again and all was fine.

Problably a glitch on my end.

Great job.

:-Don

[epik-marketing]

GREAT JOB!! You are a perfect example of just go take action..

[AlexKaplo]

Originally Posted by Don Schenk

Alex I'm using IE7. I went into the menu page, looked at the .pdf, then opened the flash menu. OOOOooooo that food looks good, but then it's supposed too.

After looking at each (.pdf and flash) none of the menus at the top, under the header would work. Nothing. They didn't seem to go anywhere.

I was out for a couple hours, came back, tried it again and all was fine.

Problably a glitch on my end.

Great job.

:-Don

I'm glad to hear it works fine now .

Originally Posted by epik-marketing

GREAT JOB!! You are a perfect example of just go take action..

Thanks for the nice comment! Really appreciate it, but you should take action on this opportunity as well! Remember you have no excuses!

"Your biggest road block is yourself!"

Alex

[sofia12]

Hi Alex -- Very inspiring, I'm just getting started with offline.

I have a couple of questions... Where do you meet with you clients?

And, aside from your friend's Dad, how are you approaching business owners? If it mostly referrals now or are you walking in and introducing yourself and doing advertising?

[Spark]

Hi Alex,

Really Inspiring. Love the way you do.

But just curious, how much does these whole thing cost? [$$ for you?]
Do you sign any agreement or any paper work need to do before doing these stuffs?

I mean these are businessman..i don't really believe they will be happy to just give you a cheque and wait for the result. There's some sort of paper works for all your clients right?

[Fox30]

Offline $$$ for internet marketing is a HUGE UNTAPPED gold mine. I just made a quick $500 by helping a friend get a couple of domains, hosting, and installing a WP theme and adding content.

[Star Riley]

Originally Posted by runfast

Way to go! That what I was doing before I got into IM.
Find someone that wants a Website
Hire someone to build the site. (Use Guru.com)
Dump all the HtML codes into my Hosting account.
Presto! I now collect $25 to $50 per month forever from the customers.
Unfortunately I was only charging $500 to $1,000 to build 1 to 5 page websites.
I'm thinking about making an Ebook that says:
"How to become a Web Designer WITHOUT ever building a Website"
Would it sell?

Only in America.

Al jokes a side congratulations on charging a fair price the way the economy looks to many offline business owners you could return with a vengeance .

Let me know when you finish the ebook and God Bless :-)

[Oscar D]

Excellent,

The website looks amazing, you get paid and the business makes money and gets exposure. Its a win win situation for all.

I love it

[Dexx]

Wow Alex great post!

As an Offline Marketer myself I have some quick questions for you:

1) You mentioned using 2nd / 3rd tier outsourcing websites (so I'm assuming you avoid rentacoder, scriptlance, etc.) can you mention what those site would be and your experience finding quality work vs using the main sites?

2) Since you decided to outsource the cost of the website completely, did you have the business owner provide the content for the website, and you just forwarded that content on to the website designer to add to the site?

3) What happens when you/the business owner want to update the menu/prices on the website? Will you have to charge him again and outsource to make the changes? Do you then own the source files for the website?

4) Can you give an approx cost to outsource your example site in USD? (i.e. under $500, under $1000, under $2,000 etc.)

5) How long did it take for your outsourcer to build/complete the site for going live online?

Once again congrats Alex, I think the Warrior Forum is better than a college education for training IMers to do Offline Marketing instead of competing with each other online!

~Dexx

[zr1007]

wow. and here I am building websites from scratch for 2 local restaurants for 200 bucks lol

thanks I've opened my eyes!!

[AndrewCavanagh]

I think the most important part of the conversation is where you started talking about marketing his business to help him make more sales and profits.

It's vital to remember that if you're just the alternative to an expensive web design firm then you're not really giving business owners much of a genuine service.

With the internet marketing skills you learn on a forum like this you can help brick and mortar businesses make some serious profits with your help and that should really be your focus.

That's how you get paid over and over for more projects or on some kind of monthly fee or both.

Put another way you charged $7,000 but you also began charging $1,500 a month for add on services to help this business generate more leads etc etc.

That's another $18,000 a year...significantly more than what you charged upfront.

A lot of that work can be outsourced and if it's bringing in real sales for the business it will be worth many times what they're paying.

Everyone wins.

But it starts with you thinking through how you can genuinely help a business make more sales and profits.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

[Spark]

Care to share your site with us? Same here..i am not sure how do we normally charge for all offline business...

Is there any guide / price list that we can look at it so at least we know how do we normally charge clients?

[Black Hat Cat]

I've currently made well over $15k doing this and I'm getting heavily paid every month from all these customers.

How much are they making each month because of your efforts? Anybody can sell a dream to people....are you actually delivering the goods?

AND every 30 days he would pay me an additional $1500 to handle hes entire PPC, and SEO campaign for both the restaurant website and the garage website.

He's getting ripped off then. The restaurant domain was registered in February 2008, and it still isn't indexed in Google.

[Diver's]

i like this post..

Offline, i've been working on two website already...business was spreading by word of mouth..

GREAT INSPIRING POST!

[dejoliet31]

Fantastic post. Thanks for sharing. I picked up several ideas for growing my own business.

[Shakul]

Thats why, I am thinking to settle in USA. People in India (business owners), hardly spent $xx on website ...

Shakul

[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.

[Peter Ramos]

Very inspiring words,but I need to stand tall in the
IM world before going offline.

This is a weird question but...

Do you have the name of the song or the author?
I really liked it and kept listening it the loop for
a very long time. I'd like to get it for my iTunes.

Well, if you know the information please shout at
at me, I'd really appreciate it!



Peter

[Spark]

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

Great post Alex.

And that's only small businesses, imagine the potential of doing this for corporations. They spend millions in publicity.

When you tell them tha you can rank them #1 for any keyword whatsoever bringing in hundreds of thousand of potential customers, they think it's only logical to spend $75,000 USD for it.

Believe it or not, thanks to my "business consulting" and similar keyword rankings, over 60 corporations have contacted me for my Corporate Consulting Services, only 2 have paid, but that's the easiest $150,000 USD I have ever made.

- Dan

Dan,

Are you serious on this?! How did you really did it? However did you write some contract regarding this? Any tips will be great.

[Black Hat Cat]

After a few weeks, (even days), we would build up a list of a few hundred people and would send out an email about special events the restaurant was having, (Ex. Hockey Night, Beer Night, etc), this would easily fill up the entire restaurant with customers and make him well over $10k from that one email!

So, you lied to him? This is what bothers me about too many offline marketers....people who don't know what they're doing selling BS to people who know even less. Let's say you have 300(which is a few hundred..your words) subscribers, and you send an email advertising hockey night, and let's say half of them( a very generous estimate) open and read the email, and then another 50%(again, very generous) actually attend because of the email....that's 75 people. To reach $10 grand, every one of those 75 people would have to spend, what, $130? Ain't gonna happen. And since the percentages I quoted above are most likely going to be lower, that means the per person spend would have to be even higher.

And what's even worse, you have to be a detective to find the subscribe box, and when you do find it, folks have no idea what they're signing up for.

But wait, it gets even worse.....the sign-up box doesn't work, so I'm assuming the guy has canceled his aweber account, lol. Can't send out very many $10,000 emails that way. He probably figured out that wasn't going to happen anyway with 1-2 monthly subscribers he was likely getting.

Yeah, Ima have to call shenanigans on this whole story, at least I hope it is for the restaurant owners sake. If not, he got ripped off big time.

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by Spark

Dan,

Are you serious on this?! How did you really did it? However did you write some contract regarding this? Any tips will be great.

I can't say much due to the elaborate NDAs they make you sign, but in short, I didn't even do any cold selling.

I just put myself out there with an appealing sales pitch and keyword rankings with hundreds of thousands of monthly searches, perfectly targeted towards that type of audience, they found me.

With the right exposure, anything can be done, high ticket or not.

[Spark]

Wow,

So one of the main ideal for this work is to really show them the proof on working this eh? Like targeting a keyword that search by 3000+ monthly, with millions of website and still manage to rank top 10.

Does doing this more than enough to earn their trust? Did you give them a report - like which are the better keywords, then from there let them choose abt it?

[Wyteria Jacobo]

Congratulations, Alex. That's what Andrew Cavanagh preaches all day long in the offline biz forum. Good on you for not undervaluing your services. Being paid what you're worth is the only way to go!

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by Spark

Wow,

So one of the main ideal for this work is to really show them the proof on working this eh? Like targeting a keyword that search by 3000+ monthly, with millions of website and still manage to rank top 10.

Does doing this more than enough to earn their trust? Did you give them a report - like which are the better keywords, then from there let them choose abt it?

Yes, it's all in the proof.

Business consulting, has over 40,000,000 competing sites (over 5,000,000 under quotes) and 300,000 monthly searches worldwide according to the Google Keyword Tool.

Not to mention the competition is voracious, we're talking IBM, Wikipedia, Entrepreneur and the like.

I pulled it off in under 2 months, with a 4 month old domain. I'm right there in the Top 5 Google.

If you have a model like mine, ranking for such a keyword means I can rank for anything. So I just showed them that and told them something like:

"How would you like to rank top 5 in Google for [insert best competitive and most searched niche keyword].

Look, according to the Google Keyword tool, over [insert monthly searches] people are looking for that exact term every month.

That's right, that means [insert monthly searches] potential customers per month."

And that's pretty much it. These guys spend millions in TV ads and the like, why not pay $75,000 USD for the same exposure, or even better exposure because it's targeted. That's just spare change for them.

[AlexKaplo]

Wow, I'm blown away from the number of people that have been contacting me for more information and that have been posting in this thread. I never imagined so many people would be so interested in this offline marketing stuff! Glad you guy's are and guy's don't hesitate to let me know if you need anything at all! It's my complete pleasure to help you out!

Remember I learned a lot here, so if your just started out suck as much information and ask as many questions as you can, you won't regret it believe me!

Originally Posted by sofia12

Hi Alex -- Very inspiring, I'm just getting started with offline.

I have a couple of questions... Where do you meet with you clients?

And, aside from your friend's Dad, how are you approaching business owners? If it mostly referrals now or are you walking in and introducing yourself and doing advertising?

- I meet most of my clients wherever they are comfortable, but mostly I go to their office/restaurant.

- Well, I'm actually already overloaded with all the work simply by all the referrals I'm getting, but if I ever wanted to put myself out there and advertise my services, I would simply open the yellow pages book or go on their website, and call up customers up 1 by 1...

You can also a get access to the special "Local City Black Book", (which I still haven't figure out how), but if you get this book you will have all the info about every post of every worker in each company, so would basically call up the guy that you want to talk to specifically. In this case it would be the marketing guy or the manager... I know cooperate and private company sales representatives use this ALLL the time!

Originally Posted by Spark

Hi Alex,

Really Inspiring. Love the way you do.

But just curious, how much does these whole thing cost? [$$ for you?]
Do you sign any agreement or any paper work need to do before doing these stuffs?

I mean these are businessman..i don't really believe they will be happy to just give you a cheque and wait for the result. There's some sort of paper works for all your clients right?

- Here's it goes... I pay $200 to create for each website and an additional +$100 bonus, (which is basically an ethical bribe, because I only give him this bonus if he agrees to manage the website (updates, etc) for a minimum of 1 year time ).

- I used to just do everything "under the table", but now since I've gotten a little bit bigger I've got some help from a few lawyers to write some official papers. (Just like any business first you need that cash flow, then you can move on and get more legitimate and professional things going for you).

Originally Posted by Fox30

Offline $$$ for internet marketing is a HUGE UNTAPPED gold mine. I just made a quick $500 by helping a friend get a couple of domains, hosting, and installing a WP theme and adding content.

Dude, people that are online are actually people that are out there in real life, (offline), I truly believe in the IM niche we are not thinking big enough! You guy's really need to take some stuff old school, grab the telephone and have some conversations which other people instead of being in front of that computer... I mean this is how the biggest deals get done, even the biggest JV partners meet offline...

I recommend you guy's learn from the old school "guru" marketers Jay Abraham and Dan Kennedy and you will truly learn what marketing is all about!

Originally Posted by Dexx

Wow Alex great post!

As an Offline Marketer myself I have some quick questions for you:

1) You mentioned using 2nd / 3rd tier outsourcing websites (so I'm assuming you avoid rentacoder, scriptlance, etc.) can you mention what those site would be and your experience finding quality work vs using the main sites?

2) Since you decided to outsource the cost of the website completely, did you have the business owner provide the content for the website, and you just forwarded that content on to the website designer to add to the site?

3) What happens when you/the business owner want to update the menu/prices on the website? Will you have to charge him again and outsource to make the changes? Do you then own the source files for the website?

4) Can you give an approx cost to outsource your example site in USD? (i.e. under $500, under $1000, under $2,000 etc.)

5) How long did it take for your outsourcer to build/complete the site for going live online?

Once again congrats Alex, I think the Warrior Forum is better than a college education for training IMers to do Offline Marketing instead of competing with each other online!

~Dexx

Great questions!

1) I'll tell you that the one I always use is GetAFreelancer.com, I would consider that to be a 2nd tier, 3rd tier would be a freelancing website with foreign language... that's where you get stuff made for ridicolously cheap and where you profit margins are off the charts (WalMart style )... You'll definitly need sommeon to translate what you need to post in the listing but that could be done VERY easily. Also you can find these sites very easily... Google is your best and most helphul friend!

2) It really depends, many business owners want to do everything, (very possesif)... so that's always great, less work for me, I basically tell my outsource to copy & paste the apprioriate info in specific each speicifc page.

There are other times I have to do everything, because they don't have the time or they simply do not want to do it. If I do have the time I'll do it, but in most cases I don't and I'm also pretty lazy... so I hire another cheap outsourcers to do it for me... and I still make a killing in terms of profit and sleep great at night !

3) Already answered this in the first question asked. (It's by using my little ethical bribe trick).

4) Answered above.

5) Fastest project took us 10 days to completly finish, the longuest one took us 3 months! (This is not the outsourcers fault, it's because some business owners are complet perfectionist and are never satisfied!)... (ALSO, this is why you should NEVER pay by the hour!!!)

I completly agree, also seminars & workshops are crucial if you plan to make a name for urself in this industry!

Originally Posted by AndrewCavanagh

I think the most important part of the conversation is where you started talking about marketing his business to help him make more sales and profits.

It's vital to remember that if you're just the alternative to an expensive web design firm then you're not really giving business owners much of a genuine service.

With the internet marketing skills you learn on a forum like this you can help brick and mortar businesses make some serious profits with your help and that should really be your focus.

That's how you get paid over and over for more projects or on some kind of monthly fee or both.

Put another way you charged $7,000 but you also began charging $1,500 a month for add on services to help this business generate more leads etc etc.

That's another $18,000 a year...significantly more than what you charged upfront.

A lot of that work can be outsourced and if it's bringing in real sales for the business it will be worth many times what they're paying.

Everyone wins.

But it starts with you thinking through how you can genuinely help a business make more sales and profits.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Yup, I did this on complet purpose to, see it's just like internet marketing...

Selling your initinal product: Website
Upsell the customer: Marketing campaign

... I guess my 2 OTO's are my affiliate recommendations to a hosting service and the autoresponder...

Originally Posted by blackhatcat

How much are they making each month because of your efforts? Anybody can sell a dream to people....are you actually delivering the goods?

Well, in the restaurents case, I'll "expose" to you this...

In the first 2 months, we built a list of over 2k, by simply "tweaking" many of the existing advertisements that were already out there. And by simply emailing that list a few times about news on the events that were happening in the restaurent, and another few emails about "hey, ya were a great restaurent and you should definitly brings your friends and check us out"... the restaurent managed to get their best month, which I think tallied up to an extra $10k to $15k in sales.

Also, I'm only giving you a brief overview of the contracts I have with
these businsses owners, not the exact details. So if you wondering why the website is still not ranked it's because by the time I get to the SEO stuff I'll probably be in the 4th, 5th, even 6th month in! There's just so much tweaking we can do internaly in buinssesses to improve sales that the "Internet Marketing", side of things is cherry on the ice cream. In other words, I'm basically their private "marketing consultate".

And here's the bottom line, most "big fish" business owners don't give even care what you are doing... they truly don't. All they care about is the amount of money left over after they pay there rent, staff, and products. If they hired you and see an increase in the money left over month after month they will love you and keep paying you! ... that's it!

Originally Posted by Peter Ramos

Very inspiring words,but I need to stand tall in the
IM world before going offline.

This is a weird question but...

Do you have the name of the song or the author?
I really liked it and kept listening it the loop for
a very long time. I'd like to get it for my iTunes.

Well, if you know the information please shout at
at me, I'd really appreciate it!



Peter

Nice, glad you enjoyed it man, it took me hours to find that song ! It's called Alive from Mads Arp feat Julie Harrington!

[AlexKaplo]

Originally Posted by blackhatcat

So, you lied to him? This is what bothers me about too many offline marketers....people who don't know what they're doing selling BS to people who know even less. Let's say you have 300(which is a few hundred..your words) subscribers, and you send an email advertising hockey night, and let's say half of them( a very generous estimate) open and read the email, and then another 50%(again, very generous) actually attend because of the email....that's 75 people. To reach $10 grand, every one of those 75 people would have to spend, what, $130? Ain't gonna happen. And since the percentages I quoted above are most likely going to be lower, that means the per person spend would have to be even higher.

And what's even worse, you have to be a detective to find the subscribe box, and when you do find it, folks have no idea what they're signing up for.

But wait, it gets even worse.....the sign-up box doesn't work, so I'm assuming the guy has canceled his aweber account, lol. Can't send out very many $10,000 emails that way. He probably figured out that wasn't going to happen anyway with 1-2 monthly subscribers he was likely getting.

Yeah, Ima have to call shenanigans on this whole story, at least I hope it is for the restaurant owners sake. If not, he got ripped off big time.

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

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

Yes, it's all in the proof.

Business consulting, has over 40,000,000 competing sites (over 5,000,000 under quotes) and 300,000 monthly searches worldwide according to the Google Keyword Tool.

Great info! Nice to see you again Daniel what have you been up to lately man?

[Spark]

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

Yes, it's all in the proof.

Business consulting, has over 40,000,000 competing sites (over 5,000,000 under quotes) and 300,000 monthly searches worldwide according to the Google Keyword Tool.

Not to mention the competition is voracious, we're talking IBM, Wikipedia, Entrepreneur and the like.

I pulled it off in under 2 months, with a 4 month old domain. I'm right there in the Top 5 Google.

If you have a model like mine, ranking for such a keyword means I can rank for anything. So I just showed them that and told them something like:

"How would you like to rank top 5 in Google for [insert best competitive and most searched niche keyword].

Look, according to the Google Keyword tool, over [insert monthly searches] people are looking for that exact term every month.

That's right, that means [insert monthly searches] potential customers per month."

And that's pretty much it. These guys spend millions in TV ads and the like, why not pay $75,000 USD for the same exposure, or even better exposure because it's targeted. That's just spare change for them.

Wow, nice idea there. Perhaps will have to find some challenging keywords to rank first. Then from there and start giving proof / result to those clients. Thanks for this!

[Peter Ramos]

Originally Posted by AlexKaplo

Nice, glad you enjoyed it man, it took me hours to find that song ! It's called Alive from Mads Arp feat Julie Harrington!

Thanks so much for the info on that song, I already
have it in my iTunes.

Well, keep it going and cheers on your success.


Peter

[Sissy76]

Good on you!
Well done on creating such great success for yourself and for sharing it with us here.
You're really going to leave a great mark on this world with such enthusiasm and fearlessness. Honestly, for someone so young, you're truly remarkable and an inspiration to all of us.

Make sure you keep in touch with us and let us know how your success continues.

Much more success to you!

Sissy