How I got my first real Offline client - Mass Control style!

Hey guys

wanted to share my first little success in getting offline clients - and the lessons I learned...
Okay, here's the story: I live in Munich, Germany and was looking for traditional german clothes, you know the kind of clothes germans wear all day long every day of the year while they are yodeling ;-) okay, and I checked ebay and found a store that sells shoes for the lowest price. Soon I realized that they don't have a webshop, only a shop on ebay!

I went there and the sales lady, which was the shop owner, showed me some shoes.
okay here it comes: I said: "I liked your ebay shop but I couldn't find your regular web shop, you don't have one, do you?"

lesson #1: I, as a customer, told her that I was missing her web shop. So she might was thinking: "Oh, a customer is missing my web shop, maybe I should do something about it..."

She said "no" and told me that she has tried to set one up with one of those shop-solutions of a big hosting company but she had given up because it didn't look like she expected and actually she hadn't the time to focus on setting it up.

then I said: "yeah, I know, it's a heck lot of work, I know because I set one up for my wife. You really need time to focus and figuring it out."
lesson #2: I related to her problem, creating a common base ("I understand your problem"). And: I woke her interest because now she was thinking: "Oh, he sets up web shops. Does he do it professionally or what?"

And now, very important! And that is why I called it Mass Control style:
I changed topic!!! And was talking about the shoes and so on. A couple of minutes she couldn't stand it any longer and asked ME: "do you set up web shops professionally?"
so I made HER to ask ME about a web shop, I made it kind of her decision to start a conversation about me making her web shop!

I told her "yes, as a part time job blablabla", then I said that I could show her my wife's web shop and she led me into her office
and at her computer I showed her the web shop (she loved it), I showed her the Google Keyword Tool (which I had checked before I came to her shop) with some really nice keywords with very low competition and how it would benefit her to target those and that her competition had obviously no idea. I also showed her a blog of mine ranking pretty high for a nice keyword in another niche, and how a autoresponder form looks like.

she was really impressed and the funny thing is: we almost spoke like old friends, there was literally NO salesman-customer-wall between us. She kind of saw me as an ally, fighting for "our" success.

okay, long story short: she wants me to set up her web shop, but as she opened her store only a couple of months ago she doesn't have money for it and wants to pay me with leather trousers... ;-)
lesson #3 don't target low-budget one-man-shops when looking for offline customers...

resume: appear as a customer and tell the shop owner that you were missing his web shop, or if he has one, that you were missing some specific details (like auto responder...)
compliment the shop owner for his efforts so far ("nice ebay shop" etc.) and relate to their problems ("lot of work" "need time to focus") and mention that you know because you set up websites yourself.
Change topic and wait until the shop owner asks about your job! ;-)

really, I've always been stressed when thinking about talking to shop owners, but if you start as a customer it's really much like a conversation and there is no stress at all, on both sides.

if you like, try it out and let me know your experiences!

good luck,
Konja