Offline Marketers : I Need Your Help

7 replies
Hey Warriors,

I don't post much, but I'm reading on here daily to learn everything I can about various subjects one including offline marketing.

Last night I wrote down all the reasons why I felt I'm not having the success I feel that I should be having in this area. Then I also made another list that consisted of everything I needed in order to fix those problems. I called it my solutions list. I know that some of these things I need help with and I probably cant complete the task on my own, or without the knowledge of another marketer that's more established in his business, so I decided to make a post here to receive some help/ advice.

Below is some bullet points of things that need to be addressed in my business. Please feel free to post whatever thoughts/suggestions you may have or even pm me.

  • I don't have any official contract or proposal that I use.
  • I need to have a better invoicing system.
  • Need to get more organized and come up with a system for keeping up with conversations, contacts made through direct mail, or a cold call.
  • How to effectively follow up, without being a pest.
  • How to spend my day more effectively, if I don't have a client what can I be doing that's beneficial to the business besides reading on here.
  • I feel I'm kind of free-styling, I need to have more structure.
Those are a few issues I'm dealing with, while some of you may read this and say "thats what you're having a problem with, thats a piece of cake". There has been a problem with me addressing those issues for a while now.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance for any information on these issues.

--L James
#marketers #offline
  • Profile picture of the author ArticlePrince
    1. List all of the services you will offer, and how much you will charge. It should be no problem to turn this into a proposal template/contract
    2. Dozens of good program for invoicing, just pick one
    3. A simple excel sheet, update weekly can calculate all of your rates.
    4. To follow up, I give free information up to 5 times through direct mail and tell them to call me with questions
    5. Finding clients is something you'll only get better at by doing it. The main thing is, start right now. Open the yellow pages and just start calling people in a business you know. If you call 30 a day, you'll get a client in a week. Make sure you are clear on what you are going to offer (explain how for a little more that the yellow pages add you'll expand their presence and sales). Hope that helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author Home Easy Earn
    A simple data base is all thats needed to keep tabs on your customers and what contact you have had with them. Instead of spending time on here when you have not got clients why not try some of the free accounts packages. If you are just starting up just a simple expenses out and expenses in including costs for materials is all you need. You could spens a morning or afternoon setting that up ans spend an hour each day inputing your records.

    When you have no clients get on the phone if you call 10 businesses each day you woudl have contacted 50 potential clients by Friday. Why not research local companies and try to find the name of the actual person you need to get your offer to. Just take action rather than just surfing the internet, you can not learn to ride a bike by reading about it.
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    • Profile picture of the author L.James
      Originally Posted by gaz59 View Post

      A simple data base is all thats needed to keep tabs on your customers and what contact you have had with them. Instead of spending time on here when you have not got clients why not try some of the free accounts packages. If you are just starting up just a simple expenses out and expenses in including costs for materials is all you need. You could spens a morning or afternoon setting that up ans spend an hour each day inputing your records.

      When you have no clients get on the phone if you call 10 businesses each day you woudl have contacted 50 potential clients by Friday. Why not research local companies and try to find the name of the actual person you need to get your offer to. Just take action rather than just surfing the internet, you can not learn to ride a bike by reading about it.
      How would I go about creating this database?
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  • Profile picture of the author duncanb
    I dont have time to post a long answer today, but basically what you need is to sit down for the week, go through every aspect of your business and write up a plan and strategic model for the yr 2010.

    HAVE YOU ACCOUNTANT AND ANYONE ELSE WHOM YOU BELIEVE HAS A GOOD BUSINESS HEAD GO THROUGH THIS WITH YOU. (sorry bout the capitals - unintentional)
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  • Profile picture of the author freudianslip27
    I've been using freshbooks to handle invoicing. I did it myself at first, what a HUGE hassle. It is so nice setting up recurring profiles for my clients, it is all taken care of by them. They even send my invoice out with a SASE.

    The initial push is the hardest part to all of this. Once you get a base of even just a few clients, you can start landing referrals, which convert WAY better

    Matt
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  • Profile picture of the author L.James
    Thank you everyone who has contributed to this thread.
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