Building an Offline IM Business while working full-time
Short version: How to build up an offline business offering IM services while working full-time, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm.
Long version:
Hey guys,
I wonder if any of you have been in this situation or could offer some advice on how best to do this. I just got a full-time job (started last Tuesday) so I'm making some decent money but now I am really "time-poor" during the day (monday to friday 9:00am til 5:30pm) and so it's not possible for me to visit any would-be clients during the week. I am going to be contacting local business owners to get talking with them and offering whatever service they need help with. I'm approaching this on two fronts to begin with:
1) Sending out some "offline cash cow" letters offering general internet marketing services and just fishing to see who's interested. I did this a couple of weeks ago and got a client who paid $220 for me to set up an autoresponder and add some of his customers (about 60). Took about 3 hours including the long chat we had (this was before I was working so I just drove to his restaurant on a weekday).
2) Offering video marketing with a pre-made short video with pictures of their business (to restaurants and local B&B's initially).
The main hurdles for me are:
1) Only 1 hour at lunch to make phone calls on my mobile
2) No opportunity to meet the client should they be interested and want to meet up (except weekends; only Saturday I guess?)
3) I won't have a car until the end of June and I live in a rural area.
4) What do I say if they want to meet? Is it realistic to ask them to meet at the weekend when I can borrow a car?
Just a short background on me: I have quite a lot of IM experience to offer offline clients and I used to have a successful mail-order business which I sold a while ago because I didn't run fast enough while I was ahead and the competition caught up with me. Now I'm broke after 10 amazing years, currently living with my folks for 2 months, and completely back to square one but I have got my head straight again, am ready to grow and build a new business and a new life.
My question to you then is have you been in this or a similar position before, working during the day and trying to set up a business offering IM to other offline businesses, and how did you manage to juggle it?
I have some other online projects I am working on, like a membership site, but I've realised the fastest way to make some real money is to offer what I've learnt online to offline customers where I have zero competition. I want to become self-employed again asap (I was self-employed for 9 years after finishing uni and really miss it), but for now and until I have built up a nice cushion of savings, probably Jan next year, this is how my life is going to be.
I hope this doesn't sound confusing. I guess I'm asking more for you to share a similar experience you've had so I can get an idea of what to expect and how to deal with the above constraints and objections clients might raise. I don't even have a website showing what IM services I can offer! Amazingly (at least to me at the time), that restaurant owner I sold the autoresponder/newsletter to, he didn't ask for my business card, website address or portfolio info. He was more than happy to just talk about his business on the phone and in person!
Thanks in advance for any responses and to anyone in a similar position as me, good luck!
Long version:
Hey guys,
I wonder if any of you have been in this situation or could offer some advice on how best to do this. I just got a full-time job (started last Tuesday) so I'm making some decent money but now I am really "time-poor" during the day (monday to friday 9:00am til 5:30pm) and so it's not possible for me to visit any would-be clients during the week. I am going to be contacting local business owners to get talking with them and offering whatever service they need help with. I'm approaching this on two fronts to begin with:
1) Sending out some "offline cash cow" letters offering general internet marketing services and just fishing to see who's interested. I did this a couple of weeks ago and got a client who paid $220 for me to set up an autoresponder and add some of his customers (about 60). Took about 3 hours including the long chat we had (this was before I was working so I just drove to his restaurant on a weekday).
2) Offering video marketing with a pre-made short video with pictures of their business (to restaurants and local B&B's initially).
The main hurdles for me are:
1) Only 1 hour at lunch to make phone calls on my mobile
2) No opportunity to meet the client should they be interested and want to meet up (except weekends; only Saturday I guess?)
3) I won't have a car until the end of June and I live in a rural area.
4) What do I say if they want to meet? Is it realistic to ask them to meet at the weekend when I can borrow a car?
Just a short background on me: I have quite a lot of IM experience to offer offline clients and I used to have a successful mail-order business which I sold a while ago because I didn't run fast enough while I was ahead and the competition caught up with me. Now I'm broke after 10 amazing years, currently living with my folks for 2 months, and completely back to square one but I have got my head straight again, am ready to grow and build a new business and a new life.
My question to you then is have you been in this or a similar position before, working during the day and trying to set up a business offering IM to other offline businesses, and how did you manage to juggle it?
I have some other online projects I am working on, like a membership site, but I've realised the fastest way to make some real money is to offer what I've learnt online to offline customers where I have zero competition. I want to become self-employed again asap (I was self-employed for 9 years after finishing uni and really miss it), but for now and until I have built up a nice cushion of savings, probably Jan next year, this is how my life is going to be.
I hope this doesn't sound confusing. I guess I'm asking more for you to share a similar experience you've had so I can get an idea of what to expect and how to deal with the above constraints and objections clients might raise. I don't even have a website showing what IM services I can offer! Amazingly (at least to me at the time), that restaurant owner I sold the autoresponder/newsletter to, he didn't ask for my business card, website address or portfolio info. He was more than happy to just talk about his business on the phone and in person!
Thanks in advance for any responses and to anyone in a similar position as me, good luck!