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The Real Deal Offline Series: Are Business Owners Really Paying Big Fees For Google Places Listings?

by Chris Rivers
9 replies
Hey Offliners,

Is anyone else finding that business owners will NOT crawl over broken glass (like the guru's say) to pay huge consulting fees to simply to set up their google places listing?

When I was trying to offer the Google Places listing as my foot-in-the-door service, many business would simply opt to do it themselves and although it's not optimized or ranking highly, most of business owners don't see the value in paying a expert another $1,500 to do this.

So, I'm sure that somewhere offliners are making a killing by signing up the few business owners who truly know the value of having multiple google places listings and will happily pay for expert help, but the vast majority of business owners in my target area aren't paying for it.

However, I've found that if I focus on the types of marketing services that business owners value more than others, then I believe we'll all have a better chance for success in our offline businesses.

Here are just a sample of a few of the services that I've found that business owners really value:

- Website design
- Video creation & distribution
- Comprehensive online marketing campaigns
- Tradtional ad design services
- Branding/Lead Generation Campaigns

So, if you're having problems closing clients after you've met with them, then it might be because you're charging high fees for services that they don't view as being valuable to them.

Any thoughts?

Chris
#big #business #deal #fees #google #listings #offline #owners #paying #places #real #series
  • Profile picture of the author Michael Clough
    Chris....the "gurus" are full of crap! *Unless, your selling to large companies.
    My local clients pay $350 - $750 and I do a package which is SEO, Mobile Text
    Marketing, and professional Facebook Fan Pages (I also shoot some of the photos
    for them)

    I live in a pretty "upscale" community, north of Boston, and the fact is that we are still in a Recession, and folks around here are in no way gonna' pay $1500 a month.

    Michael Clough
    Signature
    www.OptimisationSeo.com
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    • Profile picture of the author RRG
      What a novel concept: finding out what the prospect WANTS, then demonstrating you are the best option to fulfill that want.
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    • Profile picture of the author KabirC
      Originally Posted by Rowdy Yates View Post

      Chris....the "gurus" are full of crap! *Unless, your selling to large companies.
      My local clients pay $350 - $750 and I do a package which is SEO, Mobile Text
      Marketing, and professional Facebook Fan Pages (I also shoot some of the photos
      for them)

      I live in a pretty "upscale" community, north of Boston, and the fact is that we are still in a Recession, and folks around here are in no way gonna' pay $1500 a month.

      Michael Clough
      Then you are clueless, EACH of my SEO clients pays $2,250 a MONTH PLUS a $5,000 set up fee!
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      • Profile picture of the author mrbueno
        Originally Posted by KabirC View Post

        Then you are clueless, EACH of my SEO clients pays $2,250 a MONTH PLUS a $5,000 set up fee!
        Then maybe your clients are clueless. :p Just kidding. (Really don't get upset. I mean nothing by it, I just can't pass up an easy jab.) This is a great thing to hear and it is very possible to do, it's just not for everyone.

        Look guys and gals, we can go back and forth on this all day, every day. The bottom line is there is a buyer for nearly every product at nearly every price.

        At the end of the day you should be positioning yourself as a loyal ally aligning your interests with those of your client not the other way around. Hopefully everyone reading this is working on finding out what the client really needs and not just what you want to sell or even what they initially want to buy.

        Here is an example. I had a client come to my retail store the other day looking for a USB cable. Now, most people would have simply sold the cable and been happy with that. One of my technicians got the cable for the lady, but stopped to ask what the cable would be used for. The lady told him that she had purchased a new printer and it had not come with a cable. As they talked, she explained her previous printer was a wireless printer but it had stopped working. After a little bit of Q & A the technician discovered that not only had her printer stopped working, but other computers in her home had mysteriously lost the ability to access the Internet. My technician determined that she may have an issue with her wireless network and suggested a service call adding that if he was wrong we wouldn't charge for the call. She agreed and sure enough my tech was right.

        Bottom line she returned the new printer she did not need and instead of getting a $20 sale we made $200 and earned a potential upsell of Internet agreement (an additional lifetime value of $1200) as she is not happy with her current provider (the technician determined the provider was not providing the proper speeds for the client).

        Thank goodness that my team is trained to find out what our clients ACTUAL need is.

        The same should be true for you or your team. If you are not positioning yourself as a consultant looking out for the best interest of your client, then you aren't doing either one of you any good. Sure, you might get one or two sales, but I prefer having a client for 10 years a speaking well of me vs 10 months and tearing my reputation up for ever.

        Discover your clients actual goals, find the right solution to meet their goals, then show the client the full value of the solution. People want help. Just give it to them.
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        • Profile picture of the author KabirC
          Haha, no problem. Not clueless, just spending their money well. Like I said earlier, a lot of them are making 10x their money back. You need to develop a relationship with your clients, only then will you get their trust and their money.
          Originally Posted by mrbueno View Post

          Then maybe your clients are clueless. :p Just kidding. (Really don't get upset. I mean nothing by it, I just can't pass up an easy jab.) This is a great thing to hear and it is very possible to do, it's just not for everyone.

          Look guys and gals, we can go back and forth on this all day, every day. The bottom line is there is a buyer for nearly every product at nearly every price.

          At the end of the day you should be positioning yourself as a loyal ally aligning your interests with those of your client not the other way around. Hopefully everyone reading this is working on finding out what the client really needs and not just what you want to sell or even what they initially want to buy.

          Here is an example. I had a client come to my retail store the other day looking for a USB cable. Now, most people would have simply sold the cable and been happy with that. One of my technicians got the cable for the lady, but stopped to ask what the cable would be used for. The lady told him that she had purchased a new printer and it had not come with a cable. As they talked, she explained her previous printer was a wireless printer but it had stopped working. After a little bit of Q & A the technician discovered that not only had her printer stopped working, but other computers in her home had mysteriously lost the ability to access the Internet. My technician determined that she may have an issue with her wireless network and suggested a service call adding that if he was wrong we wouldn't charge for the call. She agreed and sure enough my tech was right.

          Bottom line she returned the new printer she did not need and instead of getting a $20 sale we made $200 and earned a potential upsell of Internet agreement (an additional lifetime value of $1200) as she is not happy with her current provider (the technician determined the provider was not providing the proper speeds for the client).

          Thank goodness that my team is trained to find out what our clients ACTUAL need is.

          The same should be true for you or your team. If you are not positioning yourself as a consultant looking out for the best interest of your client, then you aren't doing either one of you any good. Sure, you might get one or two sales, but I prefer having a client for 10 years a speaking well of me vs 10 months and tearing my reputation up for ever.

          Discover your clients actual goals, find the right solution to meet their goals, then show the client the full value of the solution. People want help. Just give it to them.
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      • Profile picture of the author IdeaFool
        Originally Posted by KabirC View Post

        Then you are clueless, EACH of my SEO clients pays $2,250 a MONTH PLUS a $5,000 set up fee!
        I don't think ad hominem comments are appropriate here. I give you kudos for being able to get clients to pay those kinds of fees in today's economy. Good job on that.

        However, as was stated above, this may not be for everyone. I'm not sure what your SEO service entails, but I constantly hear of SEO packages that have money-back guarantees and go for a price point of about 1/5th what you're charging. I would hope for your sake that your clients don't discover these other guys.

        I'm just glad that I'm not into SEO! :p
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        • Profile picture of the author KabirC
          Originally Posted by IdeaFool View Post

          I don't think ad hominem comments are appropriate here. I give you kudos for being able to get clients to pay those kinds of fees in today's economy. Good job on that.

          However, as was stated above, this may not be for everyone. I'm not sure what your SEO service entails, but I constantly hear of SEO packages that have money-back guarantees and go for a price point of about 1/5th what you're charging. I would hope for your sake that your clients don't discover these other guys.

          I'm just glad that I'm not into SEO! :p
          I don't care if they find out of those people lol, we have developed a relationship since the first contact. I am trusted in their circle now, it took a while to gain that trust. No money back gaurantees, what I am doing for them is successful, they are making well over 10 times what they are paying me.
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  • Profile picture of the author imback
    Yep I find more value you teaching them HOW to do it than actually doing it for them


    CHAD
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  • Profile picture of the author Internet_Corporation
    I would add that mobile creation and fanpage set up is a good service/product to get your foot in the door, as its easy to target business that don't have either or both of these and the facts regarding both of these items make a very compelling reason to buy into these.
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