I just got my first client - here's how...
Been a member of the forum for a while now, but i have to admit i've simply been lurking and not ACTING!! Its the same story you see everywhere here on the forum - people get their first clients when they take action and actually do something.
I recently decided that i needed to stop spending money on WSO's and start doing something. I built myself a wordpress website - Blue Baboon Marketing (yes, thats a shameless plug ) and then i started looking at getting customers. I knew so much about different methods to gain customers and what to do with customers to help them and make them successful from all the months i spent reading through all the threads in here and wso's (big shout out to john durham, iamnameless, willr jason kanigan and a few others for the detail and value they put into their threads/products on here! you guys make the forum what it is!) but the problem i had was i had no idea how to actually make that initial contact and start trying to sell.
For the record i mainly sell SEO/PPC and offer several other sidelines that if i think it is relevant to a business i will let them know about.
I decided i wanted to show a company how SEO could help them and how i can improve their rankings, etc. - this is what i believed would get me the sale.
The first thing i did was start targetting local businesses in my area, i found 10 (JUST 10!) that i wanted to target first. I looked at their website, their rankings, their competition, what i could do for them, EVERYTHING and then i wrote it all down on a several pages long letter and sent it out to each business - guess what happened?
Nothing.
I figured i'd follow up with some phone calls - guess what happened?
None of them wanted to speak and/or didn't bother reading the free report i sent them.
Now i realise i only did this for 10 people, but i took me ages!! i spent a load of time trying to help them for nothing. I was gutted, i was sure that if i showed them how i could help them that i would be right in there with them and it'd be easy to sign them up.
I needed to rethink my strategy. I realised that i'm trying to start a business here and i don't know any business in the world that can be started with ZERO capital (there probably is gonna be some smart arse that replies with one now... :rolleyes. I decided i needed to spend money in order to make money.
I looked at what i was doing and tried to figure out where i was going wrong. I still liked the idea of SHOWING them what i could do for them, but i needed a way to make it stand out. I wanted to rank them on google and then say "look what i did for you" - i know, sounds stupid, huh? They'd just turn around and say "thanks" then say "well i don't need you anymore then!"
But i figured if i can rank them for a keyword that gets virtually no traffic, but is easy to rank - thats my "in". I could rank them for an easy keyword, tell them i'd done it then let them know that if they want to rank for a keyword that will bring them more customers they'd need to sign up to my service....
Whilst looking for a cheap and easy way to quickly rank a website for a none existant keyword, i came across a directory site that pretty much did the entire business model i just laid out - and best thing was they were "leasing out" local cities for people to use the exact same business model for themsleves - it meant i had a 'done for me' directory site with some authority behind it. Bonus.
I signed up for it and started calling all of the businesses saying there was a new local network in town and it was free to join. Yes, i ACTUALLY got on the PHONE and did this amazing thing- TALKING! lol. It came easy as i really was offering a free listing (almost like JD's bower model, but with no immediate charge, so the conversion rate was fairly good).
Now i'm not saying i was calling 500 businesses a day - i've got a full time job to do. I was calling businesses in my lunch hour and an hour after work. Out of my initial 100 calls, i got about 23 businesses to sign up on the directory network within a week. Not brilliant, but i'm still learning sales stuff here! After the initial hundred i stopped counting as it was slowing me down (mentally that is- "only 'x' amount of calls, it feels like i've been on the phone forever..")
Anyways, that was two weeks ago. Today i checked the rankings of the business that i signed up back then and sure enough i found 15 that were ranked number 1 for a keyword that sounded good, but had little value. I phoned up the first one and told him where he was and started putting my plan into action.
Results from today:
- 2 signed up for £300 a month SEO package (thats about $450)
- 5 agreed to get sent out the same report on how i can help their business that i sent at the start of my venture to other business but got no reply
- 3 interviews set up
- 3 call backs
- 2 couldn't get hold of
I realise this is a long winded approach, and many may tear it to shreads and say "why do it that way", but it worked for me and i'm proud of myself!
I think what i'm trying to say here is TAKE ACTION and DON'T GIVE UP - if i had give up when i first faultered, i woudn't have made sales today and have a pipeline stuffed full of potential clients that i'm too excited to even contemplate!!!
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
Get Five Picture Quotes Free- Perfect for FB
Free Kindle Marketing Tips And Books
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
Get Five Picture Quotes Free- Perfect for FB
Free Kindle Marketing Tips And Books
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
check out the Pros and Cons of CPA
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
Established webmaster since 1998. Bought my first domain name for $70 and had to pay $1000 a month for hosting. It was the good life
Skype: twool9
Email me at thomasw9 ((((a)))) G mail
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
There are 2 types of people in this world....those who get it and those who don't. The ones that get it know exactly what we are talking about. The ones who don't are left scratching their heads.
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
Get Five Picture Quotes Free- Perfect for FB
Free Kindle Marketing Tips And Books
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
Wordpress, PHP,Wordpress Themes, UI/UX Designs, Landing Pages, Custom PHP/MySQL Apps, Custom WP Plugins and much more...
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
Get the Free Training You Need to Become an Offline Marketing Expert. Learn how we make getting local clients easier and how to keep them longer.
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here
How i got my first client: FULL CASE STUDY - Click here