The 7 Most Valuable Bits of Advice I Could Give Anyone Wanting To Sell & Deal With Offline Clients..

So you're thinking of starting an offline business because the idea of buying numerous courses on how to make money online by selling people how to make money online doesn't really appeal to you.

You're also not keen on whacking "Master eBook Salesman" on your business card but you're quite happy to help local businesses grow their customer bases while you do the work from a Starbucks that's happy to let you abuse their wifi as long as you take in a life threatening amount of caffeine over the course of the day.

Good. Better than good in fact.

It will probably be the best decision you ever make.

And if you follow these "golden rules" (they're not really "golden", they're just principles that I personally like to follow to enjoy an easy life) you could be sitting in a Starbucks spitting coffee around your "new office" sooner than you think...

Here's the 7 steps you can start taking as soon as today to get your barely-work-from-home-or-anywhere-else career in full swing...

Step #1 - Get A Clean Looking Website

If you're going to start trying to win business owners over, you need credibility and nothing says credibility like a website that doesn't look like it's been thrown together by an 11 year old experimenting with Dreamweaver for the first time.

A nice clean black and white WordPress theme will do nicely. Do an "About Us" page, a couple of pages of information about your services, what they do and how to get them.

Add a few blog posts to make yourself look like the kind of authority these people want to deal with and call that nearly job done.

Get a disgustingly cheap logo that's simple with your tagline underneath and stick that wherever it feels "right" on your website.

Don't overthink your logo and tagline. You're not Nike, you don't need to "inspire" a generation with a "Just Do It" type tagline. You won't be sponsoring major athletes so cut to the chase and move onto step #2.

Step #2 - Offer No More Than Two Services

Ultimately, as an offline consultant you should be a "specialist" in something. That means uploading the entire contents of what you could outsource to Fiverr onto your website isn't necessary.

You'll also find that business owners don't want to hear about how a combination of Twitter marketing, Facebook marketing, video creation and SEO could help them capture 2 new customers a month.

They don't have bags of time to cycle through their various online marketing options and the science behind them so hit them with a very straight forward offer.

Step #3 - Make Sure That's "Getting More Customers"

Trying to explain how an SEO campaign might benefit a business owner in raw detail is about as useful as Anne Frank's drumkit.

In fact, talk about anything other than getting more customers and you'll likely be met with a response that can only really be demonstrated by this clever use of keyboar symbols ---> ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

I know of one business that owner already resents the fact anyone uses his services and therefore would shoot me if I was to bring him more customers, the rest are always happy to at least talk about how I might be able to increase their marketshare and put their competition out of business.

Step #4 - Understand Business Owners Before You Talk With Them

The "average" business owner is up early and leaving late. They're busy dealing with trivial issues like who's going to cover for Margaret while she travels to Nigeria to collect her lottery winnings and whether Tom is "really" as sick as he says he is after someone else in the office has pointed out they saw him downing Jaiger at 4am the night before.

They don't have the time or the desire to become a Hogwarts-like wizard in internet marketing BUT these guys aren't stupid, they know it's important.

They've probably been burned before though. The last guy that sold them SEO services in 2005 at $297/month promised them 1st page rankings and a free Bentley.

Not only would they not have got the Bentley, they would probably would have seen their business appear on the first page for a keyword nobody has ever searched for in the history of the world.

All you need to do is win their trust to make the sale. Easier said than done but there are ways to do that pretty easily if you're prepared to show them results before money changes hands.

Step #5 - Target "High End" Businesses

Whatever you do, you're going to have to market yourself & your service and then deliver that service so you may as well attack gung-ho and shoot for businesses that will really be worth your while.

I'm not saying you need to get on the phone with Apple and Microsoft the second you finish reading this as they look to be doing okay without you.

What I'm saying is look for businesses with either high price points or high lifetime customer value.

The plastic surgeon in your area who charges $5,000 so that people will no longer be repulsed with themselves when they look in the mirror isn't going to have to remortage his house and give you his first born to use your services.

The guy who gives all the local kids the same terrible haircut for $7 a throw probably would.

All jokes aside, your life is just much easier if your client phones you absolutely ecstatic because you've landed him 2 new clients at $5,000 each.

Give the demon barber two new clients for your fee and he'll probably be at your door kicking and screaming.

Step #6 - Only Market Monthly Services

If there's anything nice about having a 9-5 job, it's the security of knowing that your money lands in your account on a certain day every month.

With rent to pay, car payments that need taking care of and your kids pockey money needin' paying, you want that same security as an offline consultant and the easiest way to do that is to lock people into paying monthly.

You don't want to be telling your other half that rent won't be being paid this month and you're downsizing to a cardboard box because you've failed to sell a $3,000 "package".

Getting business owners to pay monthly may seem like a "big ask" but it isn't if you're getting them a return on investment (in this case, more customers).

And you will be because I guarantee anything remotely sensible you do will be more effective than their expensive magazine and newspaper ads that haven't produced a new customer since 1972.

Step #7 - Know That You Already Have The Knowledge To Get Started TODAY

I'm going to assume that when it comes to offline marketing you were pretty much born yesterday and you don't really know your left from your right.

Don't sweat it.

Despite whatever obstacle you may invent in that imagination of yours, you already have what it takes to market successfully to offline businesses.

Even if it's something as simple as knowing that effective copy can significantly increase sales.

Business owners often don't think what their website says means anything.

Maybe you could explain to them that a website rewrite will deliver more customers and then outsource the work to one of the many affordable and talented freelance copywriters out there (at a serious mark up of course).

Maybe you know that explainer videos are great for attracting new business but local business owners in your area don't.

You could then outsource that to one of the many afforable and talented video creators out there (at a serious mark up of course).

You might even know that email is a pretty damn effective way to market to prospects and collecting these leads is vital but business owners in your area think that Aweber is a slang term for Spiderman.

Maybe you could set them up with a simple squeeze page and bill them for monthly newsletters (at a serious mark up of course).

Whatever you decide, make it happen.

Best Wishes,

Jake