How Do I "Wow" an Offline Customer so They Hire Me?

Why don't you give me their email, and I will convince them my self .
Inorder to convince them most, you should:
- Run an analysis for the top competitors, and analyze their weaknesses, and send the company a detailed plan on how you will beat those.
- Also references will always be helpful to make you get the job, but being convincing is the main part.
Good Luck!!

Agree with bizman.

Asking as many relevant questions as need be is the mark of a true professional.

asking questions....no way.....

You need proof that what your offering is going to make the client more $$$.
Give them a guarantee! Don't even bill them until you get results.....build up trust!

Personally I would not even use the words like SEO or Keywords with my clients as they are starting to get wrong associations with them. There is a lot of bad press around showing that companies are paying lots of money for SEO and yet not getting the results promised.

In a face to face situation you can see their eyes glaze over if you use these words.

What businesses understand more is lead generation, conversions and sales and the way you achieve this in the back end is through using SEO and keywords.

So I would suggest that you start using the business terminology they understand.

Also with a big company like this they work through a tiered system where any contracts etc get processed through a board or chain of command so you need to put together a presentation. It needs to be presented professionally.

After all it could represent thousands of dollars spend for them.

So I would do some homework on them and do a report showing that you understand how their business works, their competition and then what you can bring to the table.

Offer something small first to prove your worth then graduate from there.

Bigger businesses usually already have various content and you can then utilize this to do a small marketing campaign for them to show you know what you are doing.

For example earlier this year we did a small video for a large international business which ranked quite well and bought them in some nice sales. Earlier this month we were given their whole online marketing campaign.

Quite often by showing what you can achieve with a small project will bring in the big bucks later on and lets you build relationship which gets you in the door.

Its the same as the online marketing funnel.

Give something free or low cost then add more to the package to build credibility.

These companies get bombarded with offers all the time so make sure you are offering something of value that will make you stand out from the others.

Another thing we do quite often is set up a blog for the company as most have no idea of the power of blogging.

By posting relevant content and driving traffic this can be a great way to generate new leads and provide another source of traffic to their main site. Quite often these blogs outperform their main site and again you get the full contract in the end for all their online work.

Quentin

Step 1:Show them their competitor's site ranking #1 on the first page for...
their most profitable keywords and search phrases.

and

Step 2:Then ask them if they'd be interested in seeing their site there instead.

Money in the bank. (Just a quirk in human nature). After all, Don't you deserve to be #1?

Of course you do.

Getting in can be a multi-step process. You really need to
train yourself in consultative selling. The book "Socratic
Selling" is okay and fairly easy to grasp.

The more time decision makers invest in speaking with you
about their internet marketing problems, the more likely
they'll be willing to "give it a try" when you get to the point
where you understand their needs, they believe that you
understand their needs (which is more important) and it's
something they want to do something about, then you have
a very good chance of getting the job.

Get the decisionmaker in your marketing funnel and put out
a lot of good email/blog content to show the person you
are committed to knowing this stuff and implementing it.

People buy not just what you can promise, but your obvious
commitment to excellence in your field. They look for proof
of commitment - so allow them to see it. if you have to
boast you lose. Show them what you can do by the value
and lucidity of what you teach for free to your list.

Hey,

For offline marketing, there are three things you'll need for them to pick you over anyone else. They need to like you, trust you and respect you. That may sound over simplified, but hear me out.

If they don't like you (rude, mean, inconsiderate, etc.) they won't do biz with you, period. So listen to their concerns, their goals and their questions.

If they don't trust you, your offer can be the best one, but they will reluctantly decline. To build trust, be honest and give referals. Honest comments like, "I really don't know the answer to that, but I'll find out." or "If you look around you'll probably find someone that would offer my services for less, but I stand behind everything I do..." will help convey that you're an honest person.

Respect is not about being a good person, but about being an expert. This comes from giving examples of results you've achieved as*an*answer*to*their*questions. (read that again a few times).

Picture this. Client asks, 'how can you guarantee me a page one ranking?' you answer, 'that's a great question. If you go to www.yourresults... you'll see that there are X number of competing sites for X term and we're number 3 on page one.'

Now that they like, trust and respect you, you can name your price because it's not about an expense anymore, it's about an investment with results that are highly probable.

Hope that helps!

~Mike Cowles. <><

Offer to have their baby.

That should wow them.

My advice:

Do not get overwhelmed with the details and suffer analysis paralysis.

Go in confident in your abilities and knowledge and be yourself. Talk to them not as a businessman, but as a small business owner talking to another small business owner.

How about having someone interview you about SEO, record it, and send it to them either in downloadable format or a CD. It could be your audio business card or edumercial as Adam Urbanski calls it.

Hey daddyoh,
Maybe I missed this but the key question I would ask them is:
What is their ideal customer?
Age / sex / income / family / education / other question relating to that?

Now you are addressing what they want. (customers)
Now you know what areas to suggest for clients and related keywords
best of luck
articlemaddness (Mike)

I agree with willz605 above - in an entry level position like this, you need to build up trust with your potential client. Invest some time into building up your credibility and trust with the client. In cases like this I've built some pages for clients (that I host - not them) that gets their brand/keyword/etc. some great rankings and then gone to show them that with the pitch of "Here's what I just did for you to show you that I am serious about marketing for you, and I can duplicate that for you when hired". 9/10 times they want to hear more. You've just created credibility for yourself and shown them some real results instead of "just another guy that says he knows SEO".

Pick up Andrew Cavanaugh's [sp] Offline Gold ebook. VERY good and he lays it out in black and white for you to implement pretty easily if you have the fortitude.

Hello to beautiful Oregon!

Glenn