Offline Marketing Newbie Needs Your Help

Well, if your setting up a company, I would say don't register the company until you have money coming in, or you have enough money to register a LLC. Open a bank account for the business depending on your bank it may cost nothing I know chase requires a min deposit of like $200 to open a business account. Begin to start doing free work to build up your referals unless you find somebody who wants to pay. Setup a way to get paid via the bank or paypal, authorize.net, cannybill etc. so you have a channel to get paid by, unless you want to collect checks at first from people. Setup a website for when people try and "look you up" they find something, the Homestead websites are a good thing to use and pretty cost effective. Business plan, if you are having a problem find a company that is somewhat similar to what you are trying to set up and use their business plan as a starting point for you. Then you can just go out and start getting some business via cold calling, doing free work for referals, and networking, etc. Thats just how I started mine up, its not perfect, but its good enough until I am able to redo it at a later date.

I think if you are just starting the most important thing to do is set up your systems and modularize everything.

For example set up your base product and then develop modules around that so you can continually upsell rather than have an all in one package.

Quentin

for a business plan just write out a clear idea of what you want to do. Unless you are trying to get a bank loan or investors you won't need a big formal plan. You described a lot of it in your post.

you will need a website. It could even be a blogger blog.

You will need a business bank account and maybe some different ways to get paid. Your bank could be a big pain to get a credit card merchant account with, personally I wouldn't bother. I found Google let me set up a checkout account without any hassle and zero cost. I told them I was expecting to charge a max $10K a month. Paypal is good because you can sign the client up as a subscription and they are auto billed monthly.

You can get by without an office to start but as you grow you may want to consider a separate business office address. It can make you look more like a serious business to some of your clients.

Once you have some income get an accountant. A good account will almost certainly save you more on taxes that you will pay him. It is worth it in my opinion to keep a close eye on your costs of doing business, expenses can add up and should be viewed regularly. You can price more accuratly when you know your real costs.

Outsourcing the implementation is a good idea for a one person show because it is more important for you to be developing business and getting clients. Endless Rise is one reliable company to look at.

You will need to have a good idea of what you can offer. This I would write out. What different companies will need will vary. They may need a site. The should be capturing leads. They will want search results, may not have claimed their Google Places, may want videos (Animoto works well), may be interested in a facebook page and other social presence.

If you have a good idea what it costs you to do these things then you can quote them. There are lots of business development posts here at WF and I would read many of them, taking notes, then outline a business development plan. Go with your strengths and trust your instincts.

I have been involved with offline mobile marketing services (SMS/text campaigns) and I started out offering free services as well to the first few clients. This worked great for me as I got a lot of paid referal leads from them and it has "snow balled" from there. Good luck.

One of the best things you can do for yourself in the early days of your business, while you're forced to work for free is to ask each "happy customer" for a testimonial that you can then begin to use as your resume.

Another great way is to establish early on that your business survives on referrals and that you'd be happy to do this work for them for "free" in exchange for the testimonial mentioned above PLUS a minimum of 2 referrals per year that result in work for you.

Word a contract so that if they don't make those referrals they'll be liable for the full value of the work you do for them initially. This forces them to realize the value (to them) of what they're getting for free.

Also make it v.e.r.y. clear what IS and ISN'T included in your "free" work. As long as you're clear as to where the line is even that free job can ultimately put some cash in your pocket.

Good luck with it!

~John