[Andrew S]

That is cool and that makes a lot of sense.

I read a quote last night that I think would go nicely with that:

"Prospects have to buy you before they buy what you offer."

Jay Abraham touches a little bit on building trust and a sense of connection by educating prospects, I was reading some of his stuff last night.

I'm thinking of setting up a drip marketing campaign through sendpepper - they fuse direct mail and an e-mail autoresponder. Direct mail only limited to postcard, though

Anywho, good stuff. I've learned more from your posts than most of the offline WSO's out there. Seriously.

[freudianslip27]

Wow,

It is amazing and encouraging seeing what some of you are making in this field. I look forward to continuing to raise my prices and targeting companies with higher profit margins

I started out charging $500 upfront and then a monthly of 200-300$ for various things. It was time consuming in the beginning but that was my fault.

In my defense, I do live in a smaller town, though I am getting clients from larger towns now, and have one at $1,000/month.

Matt

[Leads4Builders]

Fantastic information! I love the idea Andrew mentioned of doing the client's video testimonial. Social media set up training is another great service you can offer. Helping them brand and setup their social media, to ongoing training and consulting. . Most offline businesses don't have a clue how to use it.

[Profit-smart]

Hi Dexx,

My company actually places an emphasis on recurring payments. We charge a flatrate for webdesign or technical services, and offer a cheaper package that includes support for an extra fee.

Example:
Website only package-$550
Website & Live technical support (including debugging)-$350 + $20 a month for 12 months (contract, of course) as well as 50% off of upgrades to our better packages (say they decide they want to add a blog, forum, geotargeting, etc.)

While ultimately we only make an extra $110 per year from our flat rate package, because we make the only option for upgrading to a higher package without paying the complete fee we tend to bring in an extra 50% a year per client from that.

It sounds unfair, but its not; we SEO and Design the new additions to the site as well.


Just an example of how we handle it, hope you find it helpful.


Edit:

Originally Posted by AP

The less you charge, the more they complain.

I won't talk to you at all unless I'm getting at least $600 month. $1,000 month gets you 15 minutes of my time plus whatever services I'm providing.

If people want to talk to you then bill them in 15 min increments, paid upfront with a CC. I suggest a minimum of $50- $75

Unless you guys charging such high rates per hour are consultants, you should all realize that its not exceptionally expensive to hire someone to handle calls for you. We have roughly 128 clients in our recurring program, and handle about 10 calls a week-typically these last about fifteen minutes.

My "assistant" or "grunt" handles that for me. Everyone should have one; Theirs millions of technophiles out there who simply dont know how to monetize their abilitys-So they get a job.

Ultimately it depends on what your business is though.

[Dexx]

Originally Posted by Profit-smart

Unless you guys charging such high rates per hour are consultants, you should all realize that its not exceptionally expensive to hire someone to handle calls for you. We have roughly 128 clients in our recurring program, and handle about 10 calls a week-typically these last about fifteen minutes.

My "assistant" or "grunt" handles that for me. Everyone should have one; Theirs millions of technophiles out there who simply dont know how to monetize their abilitys-So they get a job.

Ultimately it depends on what your business is though.

Thanks for the reply!

Quick Q tho:

Dont you worry that your "grunt" might eventually decide to break away and start a competing business once they know the details of what you do and how to service your clients?

[Michael Silvester]

Hi Dexx,

If you want to chat privately...you are more
than welcome to do that

Take Care,

Michael Silvester

[Jagged]

Originally Posted by AP

Why would any real company charge such low fees is beyond me. I hate to build sites and my clients pay a min or 3k-5k and I still hate it.

$550 for a site is insane.

I think a definition of "real company" is needed here.

Is a real company based on your client base..one's who are higher end buisnesses who can afford to pay you $5000-$10,000 a month as you say.....

or...

Is is a real company one who caters to the likes of Mario's Pizza, Mary's Bakery or Won's Chinese Restaurant who's entire yearly marketing budget equals what your clients spend on toilet paper for the year....

There is a differnce......what's real to you?

Yes...everyone here would love to have high paying clients like yours....but you have to understand....if they all had your years of marketing experience, I'm sure they wouldn't be offering $550 website.....fact is....they don't have your experience & most are just starting out with their offline business...

$550 for a 2-3 page, template based, informational website isn't out of the realm for most who are starting out....it only takes maybe 5 hrs to create...$100 an hour isn't to bad to some...
If the website was for a national chain store or large corporation, I'm sure they know not to charge $550...

Mario's Pizza & Mary's Bakery needs marketing too....They are not the client base you choose to cater to......but one's who do cater to these small local struggling businesses seem to be chastised as "not a real company"....it's not apples to apples...

Is $550 for a site insane?
Not if your inexperienced, just starting out & trying to build experience & a client base....
Not if the clients you are targeting are small / micro local businesses who can not afford more...
Not if the client has the potential of sending a lot of referrals your way...

After they put in the years of experience that you have & gained a good portion of knowledge you have & are able to successfully manage a client base like yours....then you can compare apples to apples.

Your knowledge & input has helped many here, myself included, but try remembering when you first started & were greener than a beer on St. Patty's day.....most here at the WF in the offline sectar are in this same position.....eager to learn, craving experience...
Instead to showing them how great it is "way up there" on the corporate ladder....show them, in laymens terms....the steps needed to get there....

Ken

[Matt Bard]

Originally Posted by AP

No, their all idiots who work there. They have no clue about how to market a business.

Wouldn't they make perfect prospects?

Matt

[AP]

Originally Posted by Matt M

Wouldn't they make perfect prospects?

Matt

The people who run the Local Chambers are morons. Housewives with absolutely NO marketing skills whatsoever. They act like YOU are the lucky one to join their organization, NOT.

Clueless, mindless, idiots.

I have never met one Chamber that did any good for any of it's members, very similar to Unions.

Take your dues and nothing in return.

Every single WF member knows 10x more about marketing than those clueless %^*@!

[MichaelHiles]

Originally Posted by AP

The people who run the Local Chambers are morons. Housewives with absolutely NO marketing skills whatsoever. They act like YOU are the lucky one to join their organization, NOT.

Clueless, mindless, idiots.

I have never met one Chamber that did any good for any of it's members, very similar to Unions.

Take your dues and nothing in return.

Every single WF member knows 10x more about marketing than those clueless %^*@!

Quoted for truth.

It's a political bureaucracy that nearly rivals the government in the ratio of volume of resources consumed to net the least effect.

[lenlatimer]

Real businesses find it hard to survive on one-shot sales. Look at how other industries do it: Magazine and newsletters provide periodic content, Software companies provides on-going support, Memberships off on-going content - articles, videos, mp3's. Memberships include dating, hobbies, music, games, sex, fan clubs,stock market - etc. In fact Memberships sold $14.8 Billion this year and is growing at $1 billion a year.

Talk to your clients - ask them what they need on a recurrring basis, and then charge a premium fee.

[AP]

Originally Posted by lenlatimer

Real businesses find it hard to survive on one-shot sales. Look at how other industries do it: Magazine and newsletters provide periodic content, Software companies provides on-going support, Memberships off on-going content - articles, videos, mp3's. Memberships include dating, hobbies, music, games, sex, fan clubs,stock market - etc. In fact Memberships sold $14.8 Billion this year and is growing at $1 billion a year.

Talk to your clients - ask them what they need on a recurrring basis, and then charge a premium fee.

I was pondering this the other day.

What business can survive with a one time customer? Even prostitutes get repeat biz.

McDonalds, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Apple, Microsoft, Ford (planned obsolescence) Doctors, Plumbers, Drug dealers, etc... all get repeat biz.

Can anyone list a company that survives on never seeing the same customer twice?

[Lance K]

Originally Posted by AP

Can anyone list a company that survives on never seeing the same customer twice?

A funeral parlor.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by AP

Can anyone list a company that survives on never seeing the same customer twice?

Originally Posted by Lance K

A funeral parlor.

Lance, technically you are correct, of course. If you ask the folks that operate funeral homes, they'll tell you that referral business is extremely important to them.

In many small towns, the local funeral parlor will have buried many members of the same family, sometimes over more than one generation.

"I buried your daddy. My daddy buried his daddy. Someday my son will bury you. Why go anywhere else?"

[Lance K]

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

Lance, technically you are correct, of course. If you ask the folks that operate funeral homes, they'll tell you that referral business is extremely important to them.

In many small towns, the local funeral parlor will have buried many members of the same family, sometimes over more than one generation.

"I buried your daddy. My daddy buried his daddy. Someday my son will bury you. Why go anywhere else?"

Indeed. I was just being a technical smart a$$. :p

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by Lance K

Indeed. I was just being a technical smart a$$. :p

I know...

Would a shop selling bikes be known as a pedal pusher?

See? It takes one to know one...:p

[scottgallagher]

We get reocurring revenue from SEO, email Marketing, PPC (which is outsourced to another agency) and some social media. Within those packages, we offer different levels including upgrades for video and other web 2.0 properties.

Learn more about these services with our free "profiting from local business' by optin on our site. link is below.

[Andrew S]

Originally Posted by AP

Glad I could help. I've bought almost every Offline WSO there is. If you read my post I'll share any insight I gain.

The only huge glaring problem I see with many of the WSOs I read is that many are based around setting up yourself to offer products. For example in one WSO there's a templated proposal it comes with that breaks down each service and puts a price tag on each service - yikes.

I like it better the way you're doing it and how you advise people to go about it - better to not commoditize yourself and position yourself as an invaluable expert. I definitely know the real pain that comes with dealing with price shoppers.

I think a lot of people don't realize there is such thing as a "wrong" customer. I've fired a few from my SEO/linkbuilding business - the nice thing is they are very easy to spot right off the bat though.

By the way thanks for the answer on that niche question. I think I'm going to start out niching myself to a particular industry which I've already picked out. I think I'll have smoother sailing like this? Sounds like it's working well for you.

Originally Posted by AP

Yes, Jay is a student of Dan Kennedy, I follow Dan also. Met both of them several times. Dan says a prospect needs 7 touches before they "Buy You." I'm a firm believer in that. Perry Marshall is one of the best at touches. Perry will email you with great MP3's, Whitepapers, etc... to gain your trust. I've spent over 10k with Perry the last 2 years so I guess it works.

I'm also a big fan of Kennedy style marketing - reading ultimate marketing plan right now again.

I was wondering the other night why Jay Abraham's material looks so darn similar to Kennedy stuff.. "Is all effective marketing essentially the same ? What's going on here hmmm" lol

But I also like to dig deeper into what Kennedy students are actually doing and how they practically apply what DK teaches.

For example Ben Glasses personal injury site: vamedmal (for potential clients/cases) or his greatlegalmarketing (for lawyers)

or Ed O'Keefes dentistprofits site.

I actually opted into Ben Glasses greatlegalmarketing stuff and paid for the shipping + handling on one of his offers just so I could see what his follow up was like.

I'm familiar with the 7 touch rule and that was one of the reasons sendpepper initially appealed to me. The combination of e-mail and direct mail gives you the ability to touch your customer in multiple modalities as opposed to creaming them 100% with just e-mail or direct mail.

Originally Posted by AP

I know sendpepper well. I haven't used them but I have done my own PURLS with my mailers, works very, very well. Let's just say my response rates are thru the roof.

Man that sounds killer, can't wait to test that

Originally Posted by AP

I also use DOUBLE Your Direct Mail RESPONSE RATES with LUMPY MAIL to increase my conversions.

It's very typical for me to get a 15%+ response from a (3) mailer campaign.

I'm sure sendpepper will get you a very good response. Remember, spend 80% of your copy on the Headline and have an Offer on both sides of the card. Your response will be exponentially higher.

This is great stuff ! Any insight you can share on creating effective post card offers is appreciated since it's unexplored territory for me. You're saying in lieu of a big pretty image there should be headline/offer on each side?

[freudianslip27]

Interesting stuff being shared here,

Yes, I also cringe at the thought of building a site for $500, but that's exactly the work I took when I absolutely needed the money and experience. We've all got to start somewhere.

I totally get what you are saying though AP about establishing yourself as the authority. Make no mistake, and not to toot our own horn, but us IM'ers have our feet in the market and do know a lot more about marketing that we realize

Matt

[Fernando Veloso]

Powerful thread. Be sure I will test some of the ideas.

So far we had some issues grabbing recurring services - and that's our fault:

- We don't show customers what they are losing for not doing it
- We don't advertise it anywhere
- We're don't have a proper method to sell those services - it's just a "guess you need this" and they answer "hmmm guess not".

One thing we learned this year: don't sell cheap. Everytime we did it, we lost money and time. And time is money. Especially offline.

We had a offer to deliver some of services described above for $500/month BUT we said NO cause it's a hell of a time consuming work and the value added to that company is huge.

Finally:

We can't complaint - we had our best year so far. Solid customers, referred customers and big projects for real big events.

We're always learning, that's the truth.

[shan beach]

I must say that this thread is very insightful. I have been doing offline consulting for 7 months now - some success, but not nearly as much as expected.

My main issue right now has been discussed many times here - not charging enough and then being bogged down trying to give cheap customers what they want.

I'm overwhelmed right now! I don't have the right outsourcers on board and frankly am not charging enough to make a profit. However, I know that this is a learning curve and I cannot keep buying "products" without figuring out the "basics".

Thanks for sharing your insights!

[Dexx]

Hey AP,

Do you have your clients sign any NDAs to ensure the information and training you provide them isn't passed along to others / competition etc?

I believe you mentioned you have them sign a 12-month contract for services? Do you also charge payment upfront (or at the start of each month) or do you invoice for services rendered each month?

Do you actually provide the services, or do you provide them advice and then point them in the direction of how to get those services obtained? (like a Marketing Advisor vs Implementer)

[graphicsgenie]

Originally Posted by Dexx

Hey All,

I'm having great success with offline clients in closing sales, but all my packages I offer are more "one off" SEO stuff with no real monthly fees.

The only service I have right now that I charge a monthly fee is providing an autoresponder service to collect their leads and follow-up automatically with a pre-determined amount of follow-up emails.

I do provide a video marketing package, etc.

Does anyone have ideas (or know of a report/guide) with pratical ideas for offering continuity services such as monthly video creation/promotion etc?

Also, I know many people are charging for monthly SEO/backlinking services to get high rankings on Google...I'm trying to wrap my head around how this works long term...

I mean most of the local business terms shouldnt be THAT hard to rank for, so I'd assuming getting ranked for "[town] eye doctor" shouldnt take more than a couple month of decent backlinks...so how do you continue to charge once a 1st page ranking is reached?

Do you just begin on a new keyword? etc.?

Seems like most SEO companies would want to provide minimal search engine ranking increases each month to prolong the amount of time they can charge for backlinking services? (which would be very unethical...no?)

Thoughts?

Why not team up with someone, I am looking to get into this field in a big way in 2010? Shoot me a PM if you want to discuss

Darren

[Dexx]

Ah thanks for the fast reply AP,

In regards to your contract and pricing then a couple Qs:

1) Since your contracts are 18-24 months, and payments are pre-determined, does that mean the services you provide do not change within the year+ of working with the business?

Otherwise would you not need to increase/charge them additional amounts for new services...then requiring a new contract?

2) Do you have a "system" that you put each business' marketing through, or do you create a brand new marketing plan for every business?

i.e.
Step 1) Evaluate sales reps and receptionists on customer communication
Step 2) Evaluate marketing material and ad copy

etc.

3) Do you have a set percentage in your mind of how much you charge every business? So if you know you will increase the profits of Business A by $1,000,000 you charge a 18 month contract fee of 30% of that, and if Business B will be increased by $3.5 million you charge a 30% as well?

[Profit-smart]

Originally Posted by Dexx

Thanks for the reply!

Quick Q tho:

Dont you worry that your "grunt" might eventually decide to break away and start a competing business once they know the details of what you do and how to service your clients?

Not at all-We cater to small businesses. Honestly, if he did I'd probably help him get started! He also lacks the ability to manage people very effectively, so thats not really something I'm to worried about.

Why would any real company charge such low fees is beyond me. I hate to build sites and my clients pay a min or 3k-5k and I still hate it.

$550 for a site is insane.

I get recurring payments also.

I have 3 flips that work for me full time. It's not that I can't handle the calls, I don't want to talk to clients period. It's very hard to scale up when clients know you are available.

Plus you are Training them to call you with any brain farts.

I make my clients Fax any questions they want answered within 24 hours.

I tell them up to 5 bus days for voice-mails. Train them from day one.

Emails, forgetaboutit!

What you are describing is not a business; it is a job. A business is managed, a job is "done".

The only thing I have to do in regards to the development branch is give a site my seal of approval. I'm not building these websites-People who work for me are. So why should I care if Im only making $100 profit on a site? I'm not doing anything.


On another note, how many 5-10k contracts did you complete last year?

Our development branch likely did as much, if not more revenue than you; we have a larger customer base-and much simpler demands for what kind of sites we create. Meaning we have more customers, faster turn around, and lower demands on what we produce.

[SEOQueen]

I was just starting out in this Forum and I found this thread. I think I can make a living doing offline marketing than online.

Let me put some of the techniques listed here and i will keep everyone posted of my results

[MADULALI]

This is especially for those struggling to ask for higher prices for your services.

First off, it all starts with positioning. If you think you are worth $1,000 per hour you are...if you think you are worth $6 per hour, you are. Either way you are right.

Donald Trump once had his private label brand of water that he was selling for $500 per 20 oz bottle...where as at your local grocery store, you can get bottled water for less then $1. Does his water taste $500 times better then the $1 bottle of water.

Answer NO!

However, Donald Trump positions himself as a premium thus by commanding a premium price.

One of my offline businesses involves buying and selling real estate. And as a matter of policy, I made more money then the average investor because, I positioned myself as having the premium priced home.

Every house that I sold was usually 10-15% more expensive then anything in that neighbor. And I sold my houses in days instead of months. As a matter of fact, I actually had a waiting list of people willing to pay premium prices for my houses.

Now, when I took that "positioning mindset" to the offline consultant arena, I never postionon myself as the cheapest...only the best.

I highly encourage you to take the same approach so you can go from being an unwanted pest to an invited guest.

Because you are perhaps still not convinced...here's a simple script that you can use.

At the initial meeting tell the business owner/decision maker the following:

"Hi Mr. Jones, it is a pleasure to finally meet you. I know that if we get a chance to work together, I will be able to help you increase your business just as I have done for countless others (if you are new and have not had a client....you can say 'just as my business partners and I have done for countless others...all of us in the Warrior Forum are partners aren't we

Now, Mr. Jones, I normally charge $1,500 per hour for consultation, however as part of a Community Outreach Program my company is sponsoring which is designed to increase the profits of companies such as yours, this Strategic Planning session is free.

Even though we are meeting today and I will be able to offer you strategies that will increase your business, I can not guarantee you that we will work together. At the end of our Strategic Planning Session, I will let you know if your company is a good match for our company"

Well, this post is getting long so I will leave you with the above info and let you chew on it and digest it.

But more importantly, take Massive Action and go Make It Happen!


Expect Abundance,

Michael Adul'Ali

PS. Once last thing...hopefully you see the golden nuggets in the script that I have given you. This is positioning you as a premium provider and indicating that it is a privilege to work with you.

[Russ Reynolds]

The amount you can charge is in direct relation to how effectively you can impact the owners business.

Take a business selling $3M annually at a 40% GP margin. If you increase their sales by 33% then you have increased their sales by $1M.

How can you increase their business by 33%?

-increase their number of leads by 10%
-increase their conversion rate by 10%
-increase the lifetime value of each customer by 10%

Through the miracle of compound interest, this is a 33% increase in sales.

Do you think if you grow a business by $1M they would have any trouble
sharing $20K with you?

Of course if you are looking for recurring monthly income then you can charge $2K per month for 12 months - or whatever you want to do.

Here's the point:

The big paydays come when you can quickly and effectively impact a customers business. This is often done more easily with means other than internet marketing.

Russ

[Andrew S]

AP another Q for you if you don't mind

You mentioned somewhere during your sales process your prospects will download mp3, whitepapers, whathaveyou... Does this material work on educating the prospect, basically laying out what you do and how to do it ?

Or do you hold back some marketing "secrets" from this material so as to not give away everything?

Or is it something completely different ?

[Katie Rich]

Hmph. I built up the online side of the business for my last employer, who was clueless. Took the sites to good rankings, received no extra payment, then when they were working I got made redundant. Typical

I'm reading all these posts again ....

[jayveen]

Wow, how did you get an M.D. to give you a commission? Does he have like a referral or affiliate program or did you just get him to pay you in particular, and how does he know that it was one of your referrals. Most discussions so far on WF have nixed the idea of working with docs or dentists because they don't want to market that way.

[TimCastleman]

Wow. This thread keeps going. Great info here although I think the mindset behind some of the thoughts are flawed.

[Bayo]

Originally Posted by MADULALI

...however as part of a Community Outreach Program my company is sponsoring which is designed to increase the profits of companies such as yours, this Strategic Planning session is free.

Interesting that you mention this point because a bulk of the local consulting I performed this year came through connections with NFP and just a few community-based groups.

It probably helps that I offer tools and systems that I offer fortune 500 clients but at a greatly reduced investment. One of the points I make is that it is indeed a strategic planning session where there's no obligation.

It's a low-risk way of getting prospects to sample what's on offer and it works when implemented properly.

SideBar: I believe in a balance of service, volume and price. My main focus is on having exactly 100 recurring clients paying for a few simple and valuable business building services that we all know of. Investment to any business being between $250 - $500 a month.

Anything on top of that is extra.

[jayveen]

Originally Posted by Bayo

Interesting that you mention this point because a bulk of the local consulting I performed this year came through connections with NFP and just a few community-based groups.

It probably helps that I offer tools and systems that I offer fortune 500 clients but at a greatly reduced investment. One of the points I make is that it is indeed a strategic planning session where there's no obligation.

It's a low-risk way of getting prospects to sample what's on offer and it works when implemented properly.

SideBar: I believe in a balance of service, volume and price. My main focus is on having exactly 100 recurring clients paying for a few simple and valuable business building services that we all know of. Investment to any business being between $250 - $500 a month.

Anything on top of that is extra.

The obvious problem here is that you need to do something for your clients to justify $250 /month, and even if that something is just reading Webalizer and preparing some reports for them, that's going to be a lot of work for 100 sites every month. My own recent experiments with a couple dozen sites has shown that without constant short-term care, like digging/stumbling my sites or writing articles or building links, the google dance routinely takes them out of the to 200, then back to the first page, then back to 350, and so on.

I'm just glad that I've figured out that only about 5 or 10 of my sites are worth bothering about at all, and I can't wait for the others to expire. The thought of working 100 sites to a $250/month level of productivity really scares me, unless I can figure out a way to not need any sleep.

[Darren Tan]

Originally Posted by Russ Reynolds

The amount you can charge is in direct relation to how effectively you can impact the owners business.

Take a business selling $3M annually at a 40% GP margin. If you increase their sales by 33% then you have increased their sales by $1M.

How can you increase their business by 33%?

-increase their number of leads by 10%
-increase their conversion rate by 10%
-increase the lifetime value of each customer by 10%

Through the miracle of compound interest, this is a 33% increase in sales.

Do you think if you grow a business by $1M they would have any trouble
sharing $20K with you?

Of course if you are looking for recurring monthly income then you can charge $2K per month for 12 months - or whatever you want to do.

Here's the point:

The big paydays come when you can quickly and effectively impact a customers business. This is often done more easily with means other than internet marketing.

Russ

Yeah, I definitely agree with you Russ.

If we are really talking about the marketing consulting business, tons of stuff can be done on retainer + commissions so long the business owners can justify their profit margin.

Example:

• USP
• Lead generation systems
• Referral systems
• Risk Reversal
• Upselling systems
• Client retention systems
• JV systems
• Internet Marketing systems

And for Internet Marketing Systems break down:

• All the above 7 systems can be implemented into IM
• PPC
• SEO
• Database marketing
• Online Brand Management

Regards,
Darren

[cityofangels]

Great thread. Everyone has their own way of doing things. This just opened my eyes to new possibilities. Thanks for starting the conversation Dexx.

[reilly3000]

I do offline work now for lots of clients. Been in business for a year now. I charge way too little, I've known that from day 1. I work about 70-80 hours a week (well if spending time on IM forums is included) and pull in $5-$6/K month all from offline. I want to get to a place where I'm doing about 10-15 hours of work per week and earning about $10K. I don't want more than that- I would rather spend time with my young children or lose some weight or something than work all the time, even if I could be in 7 figure land. When I was 23 years old my w-2 was $145K (at a really good job) and I was miserable.

Right now my plan is to offer local seo packages for $1K/month and try to outsource as much as possible. I like the $500 price point but its tough to build a business with those margins to scale. Is anybody doing this model now? I would gladly pay for some help with business planning if you are and can give me some good value.

I'm new to WF - you guys are awesome.

[MADULALI]

I will mention this very quick point...

Which is when/if you charge low prices which means you are working on very small profit margins, that makes it very difficult to scale your business up.

Scale up meaning: Outsourcing to 3rd party or even hiring employees if necessary.

Food for thought!


Michael Adul'Ali

[FiberClean]

Does anyone do this? I thought it would be a way to get started.

I intend to buy domains for local small businesses, such as
[city]pestcontrol.com
[city]dogtraining.com

etc. and then shop around for companies to lease them to. Then I can get my feet wet on the seo side and market pages that have already reached the first page of search engines. After leasing a few of these, I'll have a client base and be able to seek out new clients without creating the websites first.

My main question with this is, if I create these sites, and do a 301 redirect to their current site, will a page 1 ranking pass to that site?

[AP]

Originally Posted by jockpurtle

Guys you have to change your mindset.

That is the problem, you are all used to buying $30 e-books

You have to get real.

Some of these SME offline business are getting pitched 10,20 or 30 thousand dollars website and 5,10,20 thousand dollars a month maintenance.

Go find a client that is spending a lot of money on advertising (i.e. yellow pages, print, TV)

Then give the a marketing campaign that works and they will be happy to pay you 5 or 10k per month for a 2-20 times investment.

AP is right.

Understand some real marketing and get back to basics.

You are not selling them SEO, you are selling them more customers, higher profits and less costs.

Don't ever give them a shopping list of what items to buy, you are just asking for trouble.

I can't stress enough the importance of having the right Mindset.

This is what separates Winners from Losers.

I would say Mindset is 99% of my success.

So many WF members devalue their services. Makes me sick to see what some are charging.

Change your Mindset people, YOU are YOUr worst enemy.

When I first meet with a prospect I radiate confidence. No PC crap. I tell them what works and what doesn't work. I know my metrics inside out.

5 minutes into the conversation prospects are hinging on every word, they know they have been Outmatched, Outplayed, and Outwitted. Don't even think about debating me.

They are in a different arena with me. I ain't no Yellow Page rep taking orders

[freudianslip27]

It is still a weird feeling getting checks from my clients. I provide a great service, but this seems so much easier than other things I've done. Affiliate marketing can be so hard and frustrating, and if we have ourselves in that type of mindset (where a WSO that can build you a business is sold for $7, lol) we will be undervaluing ourselves bigtime when it comes to working with businesses.

Matt

[jrod014]

Great info everyone!

One question I do have is how do you get to the decision maker!? I have been having trouble with getting hold of the actual business owner. I usually get the run around by employees.

I have built many successful whitehat affiliates sites and have them ranked on page #1 of google, bing, yahoo and I want to take my skills to the offline niche.

I have only been able to get one offline client and it was through word of mouth. After many failed attempts at getting small business offline clients, I'm beginning to think this offline stuff isn't really what it's cracked up to be.

What are some good ways to get hole of the business owners?

Any Ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jerry

[cityofangels]

Originally Posted by AP

The less you charge, the more they complain.

I won't talk to you at all unless I'm getting at least $600 month. $1,000 month gets you 15 minutes of my time plus whatever services I'm providing.

If people want to talk to you then bill them in 15 min increments, paid upfront with a CC. I suggest a minimum of $50- $75

I totally agree. You get so many prospects that are tire kickers or want something for nothing. Many times they don't value what you offer, so you just have to say 'next'. There are others out there who want your services and are willing to pay for it too. Not to mention, I don't think real business owners really respect your product/service if it's not priced right. If you don't value your own product/service, why should they?

[cityofangels]

Originally Posted by jrod014

Great info everyone!

One question I do have is how do you get to the decision maker!? I have been having trouble with getting hold of the actual business owner. I usually get the run around by employees.

I have built many successful whitehat affiliates sites and have them ranked on page #1 of google, bing, yahoo and I want to take my skills to the offline niche.

I have only been able to get one offline client and it was through word of mouth. After many failed attempts at getting small business offline clients, I'm beginning to think this offline stuff isn't really what it's cracked up to be.

What are some good ways to get hole of the business owners?

Any Ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jerry

If sales isn't your area of expertise, then hire someone to do it for you. There are many talented sales people out there who know how to do this. You can compensate them based upon a percentage of what that client pays you. For example, if they close a sale for $5,000, then pay them 20% or something like that. It works.

[sdentrepreneur]

Here are my rates, mostly for IM, very different from what you are doing but thought I would share. Here is the actual link. Consulting

Basic Consulting Package $1,497.00 (first month)

Three Modules - Google Adwords + Social Networking + Video Marketing. Modules Can Be Done Separately ($499.00 Per Module)

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* Keyword Research
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* Add 500 Keywords
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Social Networking

* Twitter Account Setup - Basic
* LinkedIn Account Setup - Basic
* Facebook Account Setup - Basic
* YouTube Account Set Up - Basic
* MySpace Account Set Up - Basic
* Training on Top 5 Social Networks
* Set Up System to get 3,000 Friends/Followers/Connections in 90 Days

Video Marketing

* Create Video or Slide Show to Promote Business
* Use Video on all your Social Neworks
* Keyword Research on Where to Place on Google/Yahoo/MSN
* Get Video on Google/Yahoo/MSN Front Page with 5 Different Keywords in 48 Hours

Please contact jmhmarketinggroup@gmail.com for more information.

Advanced Consulting Package $2,997.00 (first month)

Three Modules - Google Adwords + Social Networking + Video Marketing. Modules Can Be Done Separately ($999.00 Per Module)

Google Adwords

* Extensive Keyword Research To Pin Point Target Market
* Expert Secrets For Low Cost Conversions
* Set Up 10+ Google Adwords Campaigns or Adgroups
* Add 1,000 Keywords
* Dominate Google Front Page PPC in 24 hours
* Extensive Training on How to Optimize Google AdWords

Social Networking

* Twitter Account Setup – Pictures, Backgrounds and Bio
* LinkedIn Account Setup - Pictures and Bio
* Facebook Account Setup – Pictures and Bio
* YouTube Account Set Up - Pictures, Backgrounds and Bio
* MySpace Account Set Up - Pictures, Backgrounds and Bio
* Extensive Training on Top 5 Social Networks
* Add 1,000 Target Market Clients to Social Networks in 3 Days
* Set Up System to get 5,000 Friends/Followers/Connections in 90 Days

Video Marketing

* Create Video or Slide Show to Promote Business
* Use Video on all your Social Neworks
* Keyword Research on Where to Place Ads on Google/Yahoo/MSN
* Get Video on Google/Yahoo/MSN Front Page with 5 Different Keywords in 48 Hours

Please contact jmhmarketinggroup@gmail.com for more information.
What is My Business Marketing?

Get massive amounts of web traffic to your website with My Business Marketing. Your Business or Personal Branding will be set up on 20+ Social Media Sites, Video Marketing, Blogging, E-Mail Marketing and Google related websites. We will focus on your target market client and drive massive amounts of traffic to your web page.

My Business Marketing $2,497.00

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* Create Blog or Wordpress Page
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* Expert Secrets For Low Cost Conversions
* Set Up 10+ Google Adwords Campaigns or Adgroups
* Add 1,000 Keywords
* Dominate Google Front Page PPC in 24 hours
* Extensive Training on How to Optimize Google AdWords
* Twitter Account Setup – Pictures, Backgrounds and Bio
* LinkedIn Account Setup - Pictures and Bio
* Facebook Account Setup – Pictures and Bio
* YouTube Account Set Up - Pictures, Backgrounds and Bio
* MySpace Account Set Up - Pictures, Backgrounds and Bio
* Extensive Training on Top 5 Social Networks
* Set Up System to get 5,000 Friends/Followers/Connections in 90 Days
* Create Video or Slide Show to Promote Business
* Use Video on all your Social Neworks
* Keyword Research on Where to Place Ads on Google/Yahoo/MSN
* Get Video on Google/Yahoo/MSN Front Page with 5 Different Keywords in 48 Hours
* Custom E-Mail Marketing Campaigns
* Complete Auto Responder System Set Up
* Training on E-Mail Marketing and Social Media Training with Prestige Insight
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You can also purchase Online Business in Box for $395.00 on link below

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Please contact jmhmarketinggroup@gmail.com for more information.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by jrod014

Great info everyone!

One question I do have is how do you get to the decision maker!? I have been having trouble with getting hold of the actual business owner. I usually get the run around by employees.

I have built many successful whitehat affiliates sites and have them ranked on page #1 of google, bing, yahoo and I want to take my skills to the offline niche.

I have only been able to get one offline client and it was through word of mouth. After many failed attempts at getting small business offline clients, I'm beginning to think this offline stuff isn't really what it's cracked up to be.

What are some good ways to get hole of the business owners?

Any Ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jerry

Jerry, let me ask you this...

> Is the client you do have happy with what you are doing for him?
> Does he know any other business owners?
> Would he be willing to introduce you to those business owners?

Referrals from peers may be the single best way to reach the people you want to reach.

[jrod014]

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

Jerry, let me ask you this...

> Is the client you do have happy with what you are doing for him?
> Does he know any other business owners?
> Would he be willing to introduce you to those business owners?

Referrals from peers may be the single best way to reach the people you want to reach.

Hey John,

Yes, the business owner is happy and we have received a referral from his already.

But I'm currently stuck on getting new offline clients.

[EndGame]

Hey folks,

I think this is one of the best offline marketing threads I have seen on the forum. I hope the momentum keeps going into the early part of 2010!

I did some of this consultancy based work for the online marketing company I was a part of this year. I left that company about a month ago and have since decided to take on my own clients.

Before doing this, I went to great lengths to draw up a business plan, a profit and loss forecast, a cash flow forecast and some other stuff. I did some reasonably detailed market research for this as well, the kind of research that extends beyond keyword research.

What I did to discover my price point is not for everyone, but I thought I would share it with you here.


1. I found the names, sites and contact details of the top 10-20 biggest competitors in my market in my geographic location. Now while I am based in one geographic location predominantly, I actually had some potential projects lined up from two other areas of the country as well. So, I looked for at least 10-20 of my best competitors in those regions where I would be taking on clients.

2. Once I gathered this data, I used a spare domain I had lying around, and emailed all these companies as a business man looking to launch a website. I then asked what services they offered and what prices they would usually quote for such a project?

3. A handful of companies got back to me wanting to meet and extract more information (they were usually the bigger comapnies) but the vast majority of these companies just sent me a break-down of what they were offering and what they charged for that package.

4. I put all the details of what these guys were offering and for what price in a big list. I analyzed the information and looked for trends and avergaes in the pricing structure. This was surprisingly easy.

5. I now had a good idea of what companies offering similar services to mine were charging. I also had a general idea of what customers interested in this service were prepared to pay. I then developed my own price list and kept it within the average price ranges I had discovered. I did this, because in the market I am operating in, these prices reflected the "going-rate" and what a lot of people were prepared to pay.

6. I then looked at services my competitors were not offering (a lot of them drop the ball on email marketing) and then added these services to my portfolio and made sure the prices were within the same range as the other services.


The above six-step plan is how I determined what I should be charging people for my services. I should mention it was not the only factor. As part of my planning I looked at how many hours I could work in a year, how many of those could/should be billable, broke it down to monthly, weekly and daily amounts and worked out my costs and what mark-up I needed to make the whole thing profitable. I placed a value on my time, and decided what I was prepared to work for.


One important thing I'd like to mention is, it would seem that there are some very skilled consultants in this thread who are right in saying that this is something a lot of people can do, and it's not too difficult. However, if you're newish, have a done a few small projects, or just read a few ebooks, then I wouldn't expect to be making 10k pay cheques just yet from one client.

One of the things that AP mentioned was he knows his metrics and numbers inside out. That comes from diligent research, experience and a bit of skill as well! If you're new to the game, don't over-price yourself, but equally, don't sell yourself short either.

Charge a fair price, get some experience under your belt, and use that experience and understanding of the numbers to command higher prices for your services a little further down the line.

Well, this is how I do it anyway. I hope it was useful to some one out there.

[Leads4Builders]

Originally Posted by jockpurtle

Thanks for that honestbizpro

I know there is a lot of crap info out there and all the learning I have done has been directly from people who are making 6 and 7 figure online, not some cheesy dorm room kid that is trying to scam you for a buck.

If I was to create a product about crating a 6 figure IM consulting business what type of information would you be looking for ?

What is your biggest challenge building your offline consulting business ?

What is your biggest frustration ?

What specific processes/methods would you like to know more about?

Here are some things that I would like to see in a report:

How to sell and position yourself as an authority with no clients or little internet marketing background.

A break down of services you can offer with pricing guidelines (this thread has been helpful, but in the report a more detailed breakdown)

A guide on where to find good outsourcers and a plan for scaling your business.

Offline niches that fit in the sweet spot of 1MM-8MM in revenues, that you have had success selling your services to.

How to set up commission arrangement with clients, how to track commissions.

Examples of agreements, sales letters, client marketing plans, etc

[EndGame]

Originally Posted by Leads4Builders

Here are some things that I would like to see in a report:

I imagine such a report would be quite expensive if it were that comprehensive. All good questions though.