Kern Goes "Offline"

Thank you for the discussion everyone. I am about to scale an idea and I am checking myself based on some of the experiences in this thread. It sure is easy to think something will work, go whole hog, and lose a lot of money. I've done that a time or two. I'm hoping the "time or two" help me with "three."

Hey Tim

Well put.

Plus he is likely to "target" the BIG end of town so that he pulls in the $1Million dollar paydays.

And then sell a mass course to the uninitiated for 1000's.

Let's just keep on doing what we do best - creating relationships and actually HELPING people.

Regards

Bronwyn and Keith

Frank is looking to sell his product for thousands of dollars to a very small percentage of plumbers on that list.

It won't be a Google Places listing for 500 to set up and a monthly promotion fee in the hundreds of dollars. I suspect he's going to offer the whole "whale" and charge lots for it.

Right Frank?

PS: Google alerts for the win, aye Frank?

And there are still traditional agencies to contend with as well!

They aren't rolling over and playing dead. In fact, many of them are quite internet marketing and direct marketing savvy.

I am a big fan of Gapingvoid | "Hugh MacLeod" Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards

Then there's the web dev companies that have been in business since the 90s. They're not necessarily idiots either.

One surefire way to get your behind handed to you in the market is to underestimate who is out there doing what.

There IS a TON of opportunity. But people have to get out there and hustle... including Frank Kern.

Selling to a plumber, where the big daddy in a market MIGHT be what? $2 million a year in sales? That's a heck of a lot different than selling to a bigger company. At that level, the sale is really not much different than selling to individuals, because even at $2 million, the company is probably pretty horizontal staffwise. You're dealing direct with the owner. That's an emotional sale a la "mom & pop". Not to far afield from where Frank has been selling already.

Now if he were going to all of a sudden try to apply the direct sales letter approach with hard sales copy stuff in a more complex sales setting, I'd suggest that he's going to learn an expensive lesson and should start spending time with folks like Jill Konrath and Neil Rackham.

Here is the mailer that he sent out, it's a newpaper insert with stocks on the back and the classic "kern" post it note from "J". Everyone knows a "J" right?

It stresses the need and offers a solution. Starts with a free report and a call to a website.

Under the postit it says "to Kill 7,164. 2010 But Free Report
....................................How Some Plumbers are Having the Best Year Ever"

There is a particular demographic with in the construction industry that does convert "VERY" well for services like you mentioned.

Obviously the key is finding and talking to that sub niche within the industry.

It is a great feeling to help a company make small changes and see outstanding results, being a retired brick and mortar business owner I would have killed for that myself!

Thanks Frank for clarifying, and if you read this, good luck with your offline stuff.

I'm pretty sure everyone here knows the "wandering" syndrome most entrepreneurs have. Always thinking of new ideas and wanting to do something different.

"Retiring" so suddenly rose a lot more questions than it should have though.

Good to hear it from the source as opposed to all of these speculative guesses on here. I remember being in an offline seminar and the speaker mentioned Frank Kearn, a majority of the people started clapping so he's got a good reputation online as well as off.

True DAT! The B2B market is cosmic its so huge!

Isn't some one else promoting a Marketing Consultant franchise? Just recently I think.

Dang! There goes my theory....shot down already :-)

Oh well...good luck Frank with your offline ventures. The B2B world will never be the same (and that's a good thing)

Hey Frank

Who let you in here...LOL

By the way - agree totally with your comment that we highlighted below.

Tons of room for everyone - especially given that less than 10% of people take [REAL] action.

Regards

Bronwyn and Keith

Curious....why? Too much work?

Also, you can take your tearsheet and turn it into an FSI (free standing insert). You probably know what that is, but just in case, your tearsheet gets printed on either a glossy type of paper (think magazine style) or goldenrod stock instead of newsprint.

This then gets inserted into a newspaper or magazine so it "falls out" when a person is going through it.

I'm sure there is some type of plumbing trade magazine/newsletter that you can test this in. I know that you know how to find them.

Just a thought.

True, it is all about taking action. I have been doing IM for awhile and made some change here and there. The most money I have made has been providing seo services for offline companies.

I just did one for a hvac company and it went well. Offline is huge and I think Frank is doing it right. I just got a cool secret report from Jay Styles aka Jose Rivera it was really decent most of the offline strategies are very similiar and powerful. You have to get the clients who can afford to pay you. If not you will be in the hole.

Roofers,Dentist,Chiropractors,Massage therapists and anyone that can afford 350 to 1500 a month for marketing is what you want to target and build off of.

Talking to folks face-to-face will get you more business fast , than ANYTHING I can think of. It's the relationship you are building.

One of my students is going to town talking to local business owners, right and left... and making good progress.

When it is all said and done, a person will buy because they believe in YOU and what they believe YOU can do. You can close wrong, dress wrong, talk wrong, and do a lot of things wrong.... BUT, if a person likes you and trusts you... they'll buy!

Just get out and talk to some folks.

Cheers,

Millard

WOW, yourself. I just read every post you made here and they're nothing more than filler along with cute little ":p" things and a couple of points that have been regurgitated over and over again for decades.

I'm sorry if I hit your sensitive button but you weren't one of them I was talking about because you didn't say a whole lot that had much meaning in all of those posts you made.

However, THIS is nonsensical: "We are selling ourselves and once this is accomplished it won't matter what it is your offering." Do you think those are words of wisdom or something? Oh, I know the point you're TRYING to make but it DOES matter what you're offering. It matters a whole lot.

You see, I'm not here to push WSO's as is your intention.

It's amusing to watch how some of you play the game of building up your post count with meaningless drivel and idle chit-chat that doesn't amount to a hill of beans, all in an attempt to draw attention to your very own, brand new, super exciting WSO.

Carry on there, "guru"...

Hey guys,

I came across this blog post the other day Locella - Frank Kern, Jordan Belfort - What Happened Here? | Brad Slavin and I had to comment here to hopefully help some of those starting or deciding to start out in what we call offline marketing.

1- You shouldn't be afraid of big names entering an enormous market. Their entry lays credence to what you want to do, if it wasn't a good $ thing why would these guys making millions waste any time in it?

2- Just because a big name enters a market doesn't mean they will dominate and take over as shown. Did Frank fail at Locella or was it just that he picked the wrong model of offline marketing or the wrong approach to his model of offline marketing? There are so many different facets of offline marketing from SEO services, client reactivation, website, Local on(off)line marketing, PPC management, Video, Mobile, full business coaching, etc.

Businesses come and go all the time. We each have our own criteria of client selection, so one marketer's throwaway (not enough monthly $) might be another marketer's client entry point to freedom. That combined with the different facets, makes me believe, and as others have also stated, an opportunity like offline marketing will unlikely ever be fully saturated. Sure sometimes you might bump into a competitor, but then so what, you just expand your circle or criteria a little bit or offering expansion and no more bumping heads.

3- Test, test, test, regardless of which guru's advice you are following. What can work for 99 marketers just might have the opposite effect for you, you never know unless you test and don't put forth into action blindly. The basic marketing and sales principles the gurus teach are always solid and time proven, but the specific actions of those principles are what I am referring to.

4- Everything is an education and you should learn from. Try to look for mistakes and successes from any other marketer's ventures and how you can apply those items to your own marketing. For example if we stay with Locella, (this is what seems to be a good guess at what was provided) if PPC management was the main item after a website, which was then outsourced to another company with markup as profit, what could the problems have been?

Not charging enough? The clients being selected wouldn't find it valuable enough in relation to their customer's value? The pool of prospective clients that would find it valuable wasn't large enough to make it enticing?

Maybe they could have done the stuff internally, or offered other service on top of that which could have increased their profit margin? But the biggest item I think we need to breakdown here is relativity, meaning maybe they were seeing a potential of 20K a month profit, which for them is not appealing at all, one email will give them more than that, but for a lot of us that is a nice paycheck.

5- Other than using it as a learning experience, don't get too absorbed into what someone else is doing in your market, don't let it get you discouraged when you see more people move into it. You cannot control what someone else does; you can only control what you yourself can do. Keep your focus, adapt, and most importantly keep on providing value to your clients.

If you are showing value to your clients, it doesn't matter who comes into your market, your client has no reason to even entertain any other offers. I have seen it over the years in my computer consulting business. From all the Rescuecom, geek squad, vendor expansion (like Dell, HP), and countless competition coming into the market, I have yet to lose one client, in over 10 years. I even tried unsuccessfully to let two of my clients go a few years ago. Actually I get more service from these guys entering the markets. Why? I provide my clients value in what I do, treat them with respect, am not afraid to present something with a lower or no profit margin for me if it is better for the client, work on their systems as if they were my own, and everything I tell them is with complete conviction and honesty. Meanwhile these other guys only care about the bottom line, get in get out, get paid, and sacrificing tomorrow's paycheck for money today.


Anyway, hope the above helps some of us out there. To me business growth marketing is and will be an opportunity for many to make money, and money that is honest. It is money that is being paid helping others make more money which helps the cycle of economics. Helping a business grow can possibly give them the ability to hire an individual, that's one less person on unemployment and one less person worrying about how to feed their family. You grow to the point where you need help and decide to hire some individuals yourself, again helping those who need work.

Can you really feel bad about taking 1K a month from a client if you are showing him how to make 10x that more, and even if he hires someone for his growing business he is still ahead from where he was before you had helped him.

OK, have to stop as the economics gets off topic from the main post.

- Chris

"Boiler Room" is a great movie though haha