Offline Sales...Real or Fad? What Frank Kern Said.

Well I believe that regardless of where you find your clients being online or offline, you are trying to get them traffic and business from online.

So in my mind, the competition is still those 10 spots on the front page of Google. (I know that there are others but there is no denying that getting on the front of Google is where everyone wants to be)

There was a time when I started out that you could find plenty of profitable niches and dominate the search engines with little to no competition. That is no longer the case.

While there are now hundreds of thousands of more competitors (marketers trying to get on the front page), there are still only 10 spots.

So back to your question about offline local chiropractors, sooner or later, even the small city searches for local chiropractors will become dominated by the big new (Frank?) SEO service providers.

IMHO I think sticking with list building, product creation, and niche affiliate marketing gives more opportunities for success than competing with the new SEO service companies that are going to be emerging soon.

Matt

So true.

And, I think a big problem could be that more and more people who have no business telling offline customers that they can get them to #1 in google are going to be out peddling their services.

I think we've all seen threads right here where someone is all excited because someone else paid them to do SEO for their brick and mortar business and then in the thread they are asking us all to tell them how to do that because they have no idea.

But never mind that, I got into this online stuff so that I could sit around in my PJ's and not have to talk to clients,coworkers or bosses all day. Because once you start taking them on, they kind of become like bosses ... or maybe even worse than bosses. If I wanted that I'd just go back to my cushy job.

Maybe I am leaving a lot of money on the table, but for me it's not all about the money.

Lee

Ok,

i will give you an example.
I sell my products online.
Price is between $7 and $97 per product.
It takes time and effort to make a good monthly income from that.

I can do the same thing with offline clients but I can charge much more.
In my country it is still easy to get sites in the top 10 and businesses here have NO clue what they are doing.

having said that, I just signed a MEGA deal with a huge company and I can guarantee them #1 rankings for all the biggest places in my country and I can do it fast and easy,

So take the $7 - $$97 per product or the $120,000 deal I just made for one year.
The first takes me hours and hours and the second I can do within 3-4 hours per week.

That is the power of offline clients.
It can be done in any country in the World and it is easy.
The offline business is here to stay and I have seen some new changes in the Search Engines that confirm that idea.

More and more they are letting local search get on top.
It won't be long before everything above the fold will be local search.

Regards,

Mike

That is true Daniel.

just one little thing.
You don't need "Guru's" to get into that market.
It is easy

Regards,

Mike

People who can't make money for their own business online then go and sell their services offline to supposedly make money for other people.

Does not compute.

Frank Kern says that all the money is in selling services to offline clients and for this reason he is quitting IM. He is currently selling a product about this to the IM crowd, instead of just quitting and doing what he claims is more profitable.

Does not compute.

Most people want to make money online so they no longer have to have a "job" and worry about clients, deadlines and keeping management happy. They then want to go sell offline services and will again be a slave to clients, deadlines, and keeping these people happy.

Does not compute.

For years the gurus have been saying all the money is in products and not services. Now they want to sell you a product that is going to teach you how to offer services.

Does not compute.

The whole offline gold rush is probably one of the most disappointing things I've seen happen in this market.

It's even more disgusting when I see gurus pushing these tactics as a great solution "for people who are still struggling to make money online". If you're still struggling, I don't want you anywhere near my offline business.

It's a little insane.

The paradox is: As the offline clients are not online, you have to go offline to get them, and believe me it is hard work to get them. So now you are going offline to sell your online services.

You are now using offline method's: i.e cold calling, trying to get past gatekeepers, direct mail, direct selling, etc: And so you end up doing all the things you came online to get away from in the first place!

Hi,

First of all, there seems to be some misconception that the only thing you sell off liners is SEO. This can't be any further from the truth.

Second, way back when a few of us (besides some yellow page type sites) saw an opportunity for "local directories" we quickly learned that there was more money in selling "how to" about offline than the actual offline income itself.

I'm not talking about a few real business men/women who are on this forum and really have the set up to service the off liners (Like Michael H) I'm talking about those of us who as mentioned above are one man/women operations.

Back in the day many a Guru or at least well known marketer, some of them Warriors jumped on the offline thing in theory, however, what they were really selling was how they did it and how we could use their systems and already in place directories, sites etc. to sell to our local customers.

Now, I predict that the latest stampede of gurus going offline are doing it for one reason and one reason only; So that they can come back and sell their systems, "how tos" and seminars to us. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with that.

What is the above all about? Develop a system, a directory, a SEO proven technique or any other thing that you can sell offline and write a 'How To.' Believe me, that what the big guys are doing.

IMHO

George Wright, P.S. I dare you to bookmark this post and prove me wrong a year from now. just give me a little Tabasco for the Crow I'll eat.

Awesome post Barbara, I have been marketing offline for 2 years now. It is still an untapped market in my opinion. It's the new PR for retail business, the thing is that the PR firms don't understand Internet Marketing.
Here is what I did, I branded myself heavily with Social Media, established myself as a leader in my community. I now cherry pick clients that pay $1,500 to $4,500 per month and I outsource most of the data entry. I also have an Internet Based Training course with a membership site attached for residual income.
I will be at the Frank Kern event this weekend in San Diego, will report back.

I've been dealing with offline businesses since 2001/2002 and it has only increased each year. I got my real education doing work for offline businesses, bringing them online.

I've watched web design/SEO businesses that started in a bedroom become national leaders with hundreds of staff (at least in one case) and then go bust because 'everyone has a website', all through selling to the offline market.

You can still make a killing in it, but I honestly think Frank Kern is a little bit late in the game, but he will still probably do ok out of it, and so can anybody else if they have the right expectations.

It's not a fast track to a million dollar business, but it will give you a great lifestyle.

This really depends on local market saturation.

In my area, I have contact information for 10,000+ competitors. There are plenty of areas that have zero people like me.

It can be quite exhausting dealing with clients. Unless you have processes in place to standardize everything, it can be a high stress proposition.

The secret is to own your zip code. Whenever someone in your zip code thinks of someone doing what you do, they must be thinking of you.

I've converted high end consulting for which I bill triple digit hourly rates (and get them) into a very cheap product (not by IM standards, but by my industry standards it's priced at below "too-good-to-be-true" level). I'd rather have some offliners market my product to their clients while I enjoy life. 50 subscribers will give me a lovely recurring $100K/year.

To summarize - reduce your time commitment and maximize client value. If you can accomplish that, you will enjoy this. If not, you just bought yourself a job.

Offline is always going to be hot. There is 1000x as many offline businesses as online. The exodus is because the lead fountain has turned into a trickle for many of the big players. What's so revolutionary about selling to offline business? Isn't that how we used to do it back in the day?

2 cents deposited

Marketing consulting existed before the internet. Marketing consulting will exist after the web evolves into some other virtual, alternate, augmented reality that you can only see when you're brainchip is connected to the backbone.

The problem with this offline "fad" is that more and more people are starting to think there is money in it - and think they can charge big bucks without knowing what they are doing.

There are an increasing number of scammers, or borderline scammers, cold calling local businesses and trying to sell them seo or other services using scare tactics - one of my clients was recently given the impression that if she didn't sign up to a particular service her website "would disappear from Google".

This proliferation of bullying and scaring has been good for my business. Anyone that knows me immediately phones me for confirmation/reassurance.

I recently did a 3 page website for a client who found me on the internet. He supplied all the content. A company in a nearby city quoted him £1500. I knocked off a vital 0 and got the job!

Yea, I can picture this. Frank shaves his beard, cuts his hair, and starts knocking on doors making cold calls to sell a service. This I would like to see. Now he could easily hire someone, use emails, do the IM thing on that market. But not all possible clients are fat cats nor do they need a $20,000 monthly service.

He'll be back in February with his next big IM launch.

LB hit the nail right on the head. The biggest reason most of us are in this business is to avoid the all the requirments of selling face to face, having deadlines, and dealing with clients.

Guys this very thing happened in the late 1990s when everybody and their brother discovered this new fangled thing called the "dubyah dubyah dawt web world thingie".

There were bonafide pros, very technical people who were mostly from very traditional software and network environments - legitimate technical professionals - who were the service providers. The web exists because of these people, who worked on it in college, and then went out into the world as entrepreneurs to get the entire ball rolling (circa 1991-1994).

Then, as WYSIWYG tool sets became more accessible... things like Frontpage, Dreamweaver, etc... more and more business opportunity players got involved.

I remember things like "Web Designer In A Box", for $999, you could get an HTML design IDE, and some forms... voila! You're in business as a "webmaster"!!!

The market kept spiraling into the toilet at the lower end of the spectrum. All the goofball players who dreamed of web design glory ended up thrashing the low end of the market with very small businesses (sole proprietor types, low-end services & retail,etc...) They undercut each other to get deals, and ended up cannibalizing their entire market right out of existence.

Guess what?

It's 1998 all over again.

This time it's SEO, marketing etc...


But the thing that separates the amateur hacks from the pros is the ability to crack into businesses past the low end, almost flea market level - AND DELIVER A SUSTAINABLE SOLUTION.

Any seasoned businessperson is going to smell a Herb Tarlek with his SENuke and Avery micro-perf color inkjet business card a hundred miles away.

Forget it. It ain't happenin'

Sorry. Hate to burst your bubble, but it's simply the market coming full circle again. We've been down this road and if you don't know how to actually do more than play with some tech tools you're not going to create a REAL business. SEO... making video ads... whatever... none of this is what makes a marketing consultant at the SMB and mid-market level.

Understanding marketing, knowing the function inside of a business, being able to troubleshoot and create process-driven and outcome-based solutions, THESE are the things that make a marketing consulting business.

Not some expensive software toolsets and slick packaging designed by people who are selling the gold miners the shovels.

You simply cannot expect to stay in this business for more than a few months without understanding, and being able to play this game at a much higher level.

Why have I been a marketing solutions consultant since the early 80s, and can go sell a $200,000 deal in a few days without hardly lifting a finger?

Because I don't need toolsets to do what I do.

I sell CEOs based on a pencil sketch on the back of a placemat at Bob Evans, and I don't even discuss the internet while I am doing it. I don't even talk about SEO, websites, code, servers, email... none of it.

The CEO hires me because I speak their language. I demonstrate that I understand business process. I understand how an ORGANIZATION operates. I understand finance... things like cost of customer acquisition... lifetime value of a customer...

No, it's not a pushbutton, instyprints for hundred dollar bills.

Yes, I have to actually go and meet people, talk to other humans.

GUESS WHAT!??!???!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?

BUSINESS IS PEOPLE BUYING FROM PEOPLE.

If you're income is based on anything other than this... SEO, Clickbank, affiliate sales of e-books, etc...

YOUR INCOME WILL COME TO AN END.

No sustainable business will ever be based on fads.

I can cite you umpteen examples of tech companies, Dot Coms, etc... who emphasize this point.

There is no magic bullet, lazy man's solution.

Get over that right now or else go get a freaking job. You might make a little money for a while, but there's an end to the ride that comes quickly, with little warning, and usually leaves a lot of people stranded in a boat without a paddle.

A business is an ASSET. That means it's sustainable beyond your immediate efforts. If that's not what you're doing, you're not in "business". You're hawking stuff at a flea market.

Great thread, here's my 2 cents:

The knowledge WE have of IM can do wonders for offline businesses. Period. I know this for a fact.

Now, you have 2 options:

1 - Deliver your IM knowledge in form of a service to offline businesses.

OR

2 - Use your IM knowledge to create your own (local/regional) offline business.

Example: Just this week I saw a good (offline/online) market with NO competition at all. I could have shown this to a offline company, sell my IM skills and they cash in.

But what I did was create my own offline small business using my IM skills and profiting 100%. It will take some time till real money comes in BUT when it starts to come, it will be non-stop.

Why I did this?

Cause I really tried to help offline businesses last 24 months BUT vast majority of them are broke, don' want any help or simply believe their cousin can do what we do for less money.

There are numerous ways to hit offline markets and make good money out of it - people just need to open their eyes and forget about providing IM services.

Go deeper.

Like anything it can be real or fad. If you're going at it as a business then it can be real. If you're doing it because you bought a 2K "course" and believe it's finally the key to instant riches and you sorta go out there and try to do it then it's a fad.

And that applies to any business strategy or "system" not just offline.

I recently blogged about the fact that I have so many local offline clients
that I'm turning new business away... because I want to control growth.

It's been pointed out to me that it's actually somewhat cyclical in
that many of the Internet marketing old-timer actually consulted to
offline businesses 10 or so years ago, then shifted their attention to
almost totally online, and are now shifting back in the other direction.

It's so lucrative that I have considered dropping everything else,
except for a few projects that I can over-see but have others
run for me.

The business is really no harder than pointing out to local businesses
that spending money with you... using the internet to promote their
businesses, offers a better ROI than alternatives such as expensive
yellow page display ads (where they often don't even measure
response).

Willie

Actually, I cut my teeth in pets, hobby and home and garden niches for 4 years while I learned the ropes in how to get traffic to my sites.

It wasn't until this past year that I started trying to show other people how they could do that .... and I give this information away for free on my blog and in my ebook.

So I had several years of experience with different methods before I ever even tried to tell someone how they could do it.

I don't really care where you have your degree from - if it didn't show you how to get websites a #1 ranking then I don't think you have any business telling someone you can do that for him.

If it did, then of course you are well qualified to offer this to people.

Lee

In life there is diversifications, don't be confused by a few group of people going offline from online. I bet you there are more people coming online from offline. If i were to judge by your own perspective (the number of few moving to something else), the internet is still the best place to earn a living.

I have lost the number of times i have seen Google ads on the offline, that does not mean the internet is not working for them.

Nevertheless, a lot of people are profiting from the online world.

Lots of good points made by all above.
Frank Kern appears to be trying to market a new product to all those people on his list, eg Offilne Marketing and it's Not for Free
I am certain he won't give up IM that's what made him rich
But there are some REAL disadvantages to offline... YOU HAVE MANY BOSSES!!

I think at the true core of all this there's two groups of people:

Group A: Understanding of marketing theory and concepts and know that they need to show how their solutions relate to the underlying needs of the business.

Group B: Bought flashy tools (and services) then told to go out there and sell the tools to business owners for a price (perhaps even time for money)


The difference?

Group A will identify how tools will work with their EXISTING business strategies (and client needs) and will change them/replace them as new/more efficient ones are identified.

Group B will try to compete on price and will eventually find that their usefulness to a business with either be located at a cheaper price (i.e. India outsourcing) or just no longer as useful as it once was (charging thousands of dollars for Twitter account creation-message posting comes to mind)

Group B's are fads...they will eventually be replaced...Group As are assets to a business and will keep the business owner informed on new strategies/techniques as well as PROVEN/tested strategies that have worked for decades (client retention, follow-up processes, lead generation methods etc.)

So I guess the real answer to whether it is "real or a fad" is whether your business is easily replaceable by "some new guy that comes along."

I think most experienced consultants (if they have built their businesses correctly) will tell you that they aren't worried when "Johnny New Tools" shows up to cold call the business owner promising untold riches...because they know that business owner will come to them first and get their opinion on whether that would be of use to the business' needs.

Become a trusted advisor not a generic tool for hire.

Just my thoughts!

Cheers,

~Dexx

These guys are selling "shovels to the goldrush". They have to come up with something to sell you. If it were so easy they would get out of the shovel selling business and do it themselves. That's just Business Reality.

IF you're not doing any sort of automated direct mail campaign to your list of buyer or prospects offering them one of your higher price products $97 or greater, or an affiliate product...

you're leaving LOTS on the table.

You test it out.

I didn't get a chance to read the replies to this thread, but you have to think about the offline market right now as a gold rush.

There is always something that hasn't been tapped into. Sometimes they are with great rewards. The internet is a pretty new thing in society and it has just recently been showing what it can do for local businesses. This is the time to jump on the local markets because they are going to be way saturated in a couple years.

It's like when the internet first came out and the smart guys bought the great domains. Some people made millions off this simple little thing. The offline market is where the easy money is right now. There is more fish then there are hooks right now.

But but but but but WILLIE!!! They want to make $50K by pusing a button and never talking to anyone!!

You're scaring them with all this "year to warm up" talk.


{rofl}

Hey Barbara,

This is simple marketing, nothing more.

The IM masses are now showing enough interest that their gurus have decided it's worth making stuff to sell them.

Louis, Michael and Willie have said it all.

This is nothing new. Some of us have happily been helping businesses for over a decade. It's been discussed in cycles over the years in this forum too.

The difference now is that there's enough interest and money (waiting in newbies pockets and credit cards) that the big names have decided it's worth having.

They're actually very late to the party as far as the actual opportunity is concerned and most business owners have been blasted to death with promises about internet marketing and search engines getting them new clients. I rarely come across a business that hasn't had phone calls promising them Google results.

The big difference in the current phase is that because the IM gurus have joined in, the usual message of 'this is easy money leveraging an untapped (secret) strategy that anyone can do and make money right away'.

This is them targeting the entire IM newbie niche to sell their answers/solutions to.

It's nothing more than sales hype and will seriously mislead a lot of people - but that's not their concern. You've seen it I'm sure "it's not my responsibility what they do with my information". They're not creating these products to make you rich - they're created to sell to you.

Of course there are still businesses who could benefit from some IM help. There are also businesses who could benefit from simple business advice too - there are ALWAYS businesses who could do better.

That doesn't mean there's suddenly a new opportunity. There are always opportunities for people who have relevant skills and knowledge to help others.

The issue here is that people understand what's going on and don't get confused by sales letters into thinking they've finally found that secret easy way to get rich that the other info-products they bought never delivered on.

I'm sure Frank will make a ton of money selling his stuff to IMers, but then again, he could wipe his beard in paint and people would line up to buy the art he made while wiping it off.

The 'offline' niche is not new, is not a fad and is not some new opportunity - it's an existing (much longer than IM) group of people who are not as stupid as people are now making out and are generally not throwing their money around for dubious promises of Google results.

Should you take seriously the opportunity to make money selling IM services? - If you can understand the real needs of the businesses you help and make them more money - Yes.

If you just want to sell services and hope they never actually expect anything more than 'traffic' - No.

It's a personal choice and you can jump onboard the hype train or not, but at the end of the day your future is in your hands not the hands of the gurus.

You won't make or break your business based on any of the tools or services other people are offering you.

The only thing unique about your business is YOU.

I too am one of the survivors from the dot com boom bust.

The "Offline Prices" are just now beginning to be what they were in the mid 90's

It used to be that 5K for a website that you created in note pad and was about as ugly as it gets was all that was needed.

People were hungry for websites, any business that had one was seen as a leader in their field.

Today, websites are not something exciting that only "real businesses have".

The slowness of business owners to jump in on the trend is partially because there are so many main stream sites that promote "questionable products".

Willie and others have commented that business consulting is going to be around for as long as there are businesses.

The moment your mindset focuses on SEO and WEB DESIGN you have just turned your business into a commodity.

Businesses hire professional business consultants for their knowledge and abilities.

They don't really care if you have a new tool, or some whiz bang program that is supposed to get them to page one on google.

What business owners DO want is for you to increase their profits. (increasing income doesn't always mean increasing profits).

They don't care if you increase their business because of a website, or by changing their business work flow.

Much of the bandwagon is about page one on google, as any experienced marketer knows, page one on search doesn't automatically translate to money in the bank.

Get to know business owners, and their needs, and you will be successful.

Mark Riddle

If you know what you're doing as an online marketer, why wouldn't you want to sell your wares to an offline biz?

There's so many angles to attack the offline market... It all depends what area of expertise you're good in. SEO, Google maps. And it helps to be good face-to-face with people.

That's where most people will just stay online. But yeah, offline bussiness need the help of an experienced online marketer.

~ JIM

No disrespect to Frank Kern, but I take what "gurus" say with a grain of salt. John Reese had an interview with Brad Fallon in 2006 and said that he was going to focus all his attention on selling physical products that were imported from China.

I don't know, anyone that is a good consultant can make good money doing stuff offline. But just going out and pitching some template-based website isn't really going to do the trick. I think people were doing that about 10 years ago when nobody had a website.

The reason i have moved into the online business world [I have three existing offline businesses that turnover more than $30 million per annum] is because of the sales process.

All things being equal this is the only difference i think is of great importance:

Offline businesses have to sell to the mass and convince them to buy [that's how i generated $140 million in 18 months in another business]. In its simplest form [there's much more involved] just walk down the street equipped with some good selling skills and build a team along the way. This is not easy to do unless you are a top sales person with top sales people working with you.

Online businesses seek the products that buyers are already screaming out for. You can fill this void by yourself with no personal selling skills. There are different skills needed but are all available with the click of a mouse.

This is what the offline business world is not or can't access. People like Frank Kern and Main Street Marketing's Mike Koeenig will make a killing in this world. However a word for the unwary, if you want to venture into this type of marketing to the offline business world you had better be able to deliver the goods because you will ruin your reputation if you can't deliver. Thanks just my thoughts

Dan

Keep advice Nathan, and yes that all made sense!