Offline Courses....Send an Email and Land Clients? Is this a joke?

15 years ago

Originally Posted by billionareHuman

If you've been studying the offline courses that have been going around many claim to be able to send and email and instantly land clients.

Let's be honest here has anyone here not selling an offline course ever landed a client from sending out an email??? Wait, have you even received a reply?

I certainly have not, I would be shocked if I even got a reply which I have never got either. I've tried it with different high value offers/methods and it has never worked. I've even cold called to ask for permission to send them an email!

I've tried calling, offering them free leads as proof of what my websites can do for them, but still doing that really difficult to land a client.

So it's a bit of joke to me when people are claiming how easy it is to land offline clients from sending out an email, don't be fulled by these courses!

Business owners are busy, they have no idea what you are talking about and will not understand it from a single email. I do have offline clients by the way so it's not like I'm a complete newbie oblivious how a local business owner thinks.

This sending an email and landing a client stuff really annoys me that people are selling this crap to people who are desperate to make it.

So has anyone got a client from sending an email?

Well technically, yes, I've gotten clients from "sending an email", but not in the sense of the general broadcast.

It was a finely crafted email, specific to that person's situation.

In fact, I do it pretty regularly via LinkedIn.

Then again, my market isn't tiny proprietorship businesses with owner/operators. And I'm not hawking the typical SEO/whatever crud that most of these "offline gold" guys go out and try to sell either.

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Manuel Viloria

15 years ago

Yes. It works.

It depends, to a certain extent, on
the kind of people you send email to,
and how they view you prior to your
sending that client-landing email.

Before sending that "single" email, however,
is a fair amount of behind-the-scenes preparation.

Kind regards,
Manuel Viloria

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David Jackson 15 years ago

Originally Posted by Manuel Viloria

Before sending that "single" email, however, is a fair amount of behind-the-scenes preparation.

Then it wasn't a single e-mail that produced the results. There was preliminary contact involved.

David Jackson
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Gene Pimentel

15 years ago

Yes, and I depend on it. Don't blame your lack of results on a communication medium like "email". Getting positive response to your email depends entirely on your ability to communicate properly and providing information the recipient needs. Not what you want to sell.

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rushindo 15 years ago

Just the other day I had a dentist reply to me and ASK ME to tell him what I can do for him.

Another dentist also said, "You got me interested. What are you selling?" LOL What's funny is that I was not trying to sell anything 'yet' I simply asked him a question.

Brandon
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Preben Frenning

15 years ago

Originally Posted by billionareHuman

If you've been studying the offline courses that have been going around many claim to be able to send and email and instantly land clients.

Let's be honest here has anyone here not selling an offline course ever landed a client from sending out an email??? Wait, have you even received a reply?

I certainly have not, I would be shocked if I even got a reply which I have never got either. I've tried it with different high value offers/methods and it has never worked. I've even cold called to ask for permission to send them an email!

I've tried calling, offering them free leads as proof of what my websites can do for them, but still doing that really difficult to land a client.

So it's a bit of joke to me when people are claiming how easy it is to land offline clients from sending out an email, don't be fulled by these courses!

Business owners are busy, they have no idea what you are talking about and will not understand it from a single email. I do have offline clients by the way so it's not like I'm a complete newbie oblivious how a local business owner thinks.

This sending an email and landing a client stuff really annoys me that people are selling this crap to people who are desperate to make it.

So has anyone got a client from sending an email?

"Random emailing" is just bull****. It might work for some if they know their e-marketing, but it's still not very responsive.

If you reasearch the companies well and send them a personal letter with details about their current situation, as well as a note, stating you will call them at a certain date, it will most likely bring in a better response than both of them alone.

Also, it depends on your market. While "cold emailing" still might be very little responsive, cold calling can work. For example if you see they are spending a fortune on irrelevant adwords ads, you can start the conversation by stating that. (Don't attack ther marketing efforts, but mention that you see they are spending money advertising online, but tell them that you can see they don't get the desired results, or aks them if they are satisfied.)

I haven't tried this personally, but I'm working as a telemarketer now, and have no doubts in this method. I usually get my clients through other people anyways

- Preben

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billionareHuman

15 years ago

I don't send random emails, my emails are very targeted to the business type, I have website in the exact same niche as them and thats what I'm offering so when it comes to being specific that I am!

Yes, and I depend on it. Don't blame your lack of results on a communication medium like "email". Getting positive response to your email depends entirely on your ability to communicate properly and providing information the recipient needs. Not what you want to sell.

Exactly my emails try to address the concerns/questions they may have already, not that I know them all when you try to think of it from their point of view and with experience I do know what they want to know.

Put it this way, i'm not trying to sell them 'SEO services' I'm trying help them get their phone to ring with customers, how I or anyone does it they don't really care as long as it gets results.

Anyway my point is I just don't want people to fall for this email and land a client crap, it doesn't happen that easily

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PaulBaranowski 15 years ago

My experience with using email for getting offline clients is
it isn't something i'd focus my efforts in.
Personal contact,referrals from business friends and even banner ads on
local ezine directories are way more effective in terms of value per the time
spent.That's my experience.
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ileneg

15 years ago

The OP has good points however as you can see many people do land clients via email.

That being said, people generally buy "fish" they don't want to "learn to fish".

This sells - "How I dominate an offline niche which landed me 3 new 5 figure clients in less than a week by sending just one email...and how you can do the same thing!" Not this - "How I landed my first offline client in just 1 months time after studying, applying a system, sending out direct mail, going out and talking with people, sending them an email and following up with a phone call."

Newsflash - thankfully I don't write copy for a living but I'm sure you see my point.

Cheers,
ileneg

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Colin Theriot

15 years ago

The underlying point is that it's not as easy as the "offline gold" bandwagoners will have you believe. Yeah, you can get work sending email. But that's not really something someone off the web hitting the streets for the first time is going to be able to do.

But yeah, I hope that "offline gold" idea blows over soon because there's no end of jerks around here making people give me dirty looks when I tell em what I do for a living.

But what do you expect when you get hit up 10x a day by different people selling the exact same cookie cutter solution as the last guy, AND acting like he's Moses coming down the mountain about it.

The fact is, the business models a lot of these... "less sophisticated" B2B marketers pursue is just as predatory as the "no money down" real estate investors who target people who don't know they're getting screwed.

If you sell a service that costs more than the competition and is of lower quality, that's fine. It just seems extra dickish to be pushing it at people who weren't asking for it, and don't even understand what they're buying.

Mom & Pop are really over a barrel! Let's tell 'em that the INTERNET(TM) will SAVE their BUSINESS!

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JordanFrancis

15 years ago

You definitely can get positive responses by sending emails.

Whether you build upon that to "land clients" is down to the
individual and a whole bunch of variables...but that can and
is done, too.

From sending an email to landing a client, the process could
be challenging or quite easy depending on the individual, the
method and the teacher.

This is no black and white issue. But then, what is?!

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Imran Naseem

Banned 15 years ago

I disagree.

Sending an email to land a client is like looking for a pin in the sand.

BUSINESS owners are busy people.

YOU will have a much higher chance cold calling or mailing out something in the post.

Emails are ignored 90% of the time as 90% of consultants are already going to bombard them with the same thing.

Emails are only good to follow up on your initial offer. Like for example, if the business owner wants you to send a proposal via email then you can go ahead and send them an email.

Otherwise simply sending an email will be like standing in the middle of a busy shopping centre with a copy of a magazine, that screams "BUY ME".

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sdentrepreneur

15 years ago

I have gotten many clients from a email but I did meet them in person and got their business card. I charge between $1,500 and $2,500 per month on average. There is NO WAY a business owner will agree to pay you $30,000 for a one year contract with out meeting them first, having checked out some of your past clients and done their due diligence on your background as well.
If you are new, I suggest starting small, bar or restaurant or small retail shop. Charge very little or free. Establish yourself in your community, attend business mixers, LeTip or BNI groups and Chamber events. Good luck my friends !!!

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Carlsbadd 15 years ago

Originally Posted by sdentrepreneur

Establish yourself in your community, attend business mixers, LeTip or BNI groups and Chamber events. Good luck my friends !!!

Agree with this and the comment from online bliss above

That's the key, I tend to be very low key and spend a lot of time listening to business owners. I often get thier cards and send them a follow up card via send out cards and thank them for telling me about thier business. You find out what works for them and what doesn't.
I will start them off with a small seo package or email campaign to test the relationship , once I gain some trust I scale it up or back depending on what they need.
I favor this because it put less pressure on both parties.
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JordanFrancis

15 years ago

@Imran Naseem

Maybe I'm just gifted then

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Andyhenry

15 years ago

You know the answer to this.

It's the same as the answer for almost every question like it.

IT DEPENDS!

Yes it can work - but then spam works for some people.

And NO it doesn't work - if you have no relationship and send out random emails you'll get a worse result than cold-calling and that doesn't work well for most people either.

Every offline client I get has had hundreds of emails and calls about web marketing and they ignore them all. They only buy from people they know/trust.

If you're thinking of getting into business like this - treat it like a proper business and expect to market your business properly and not rely on emailing strangers for your sales funnel.

I'm sure you know this. It's common sense.

I don't know what all the offline products say, I've been thinking of sharing how I do things because it seems that it's not the same as most people keep saying they do - or that newbies keep saying they've been told.

I don't do email marketing to strangers, I don't do postcard marketing, I don't cold-call people.

But the beauty of IM is that you can choose your model and work it.

Andy

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vj2131

15 years ago

I just bought a WSO that claims that sending a single email got this person 25k worth of business in one single weekend, but this person had a very unique twist to sending that single email that involved a "fear of loss" marketing tactic that I have yet to see used in other "offline gold" courses.

After reading that WSO, I am convinced that it CAN work, but I do see that you really have to know what you are doing and you must be careful. Blanket emails that get sent out by a lot of marketers can be considered SPAM, and you can really ruin your reputation like that...

I once heard that you should never approach anyone with a business deal who you don't plan on developing a relationship with. I try to keep that in mind with all of my marketing tactics. I think that is why cold calling or sending a letter often works better than email. Email "feels" cold and distant and costs you nothing. Sometimes it's a little more reassuring to me as a business owner when people actually take the time to call me personally or send me a certified letter that I know cost them something to print and send.

Just a thought...

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Colin Theriot

15 years ago

Originally Posted by vj2131

I once heard that you should never approach anyone with a business deal who you don't plan on developing a relationship with. I try to keep that in mind with all of my marketing tactics.

Nice post. What you said here made think of something worth adding. It makes me really worried for some folks chasing that "offline gold" dream without realizing they are getting in over their heads.

B2B is not a joke. If you sell a $10 ebook to someone, that's a "contract" but if they're unhappy, you just refund their money. No big deal on any side.

In B2B, you contract with someone for 5 figures of services, and there's paperwork, and expectations set. If you blow it, or just flat out fail because you got offline gold fever and had no idea what you were doing...

It can get nasty - like you can get sued not just for the payment, but for damages - all kinds of stuff. If you're someone's SEO guy and Google dances and his site drops from the index, you think he will EVER believe that wasn't your fault?

You think he's not going to be pissed about it if he's expecting you to save his company?

When it comes to IM, being an info-product maker/marketer from your home is ridiculously simple. Anyone one who is literate and computer literate can do it with ease. And it's very very low risk, and a low bar to entry. The rewards can BECOME great over time do to scalability and automation. The risk never goes up.

When you're getting into the B2B world, the reward DOES go way up, but so does the expectation. The business world is NOT the IM world, and no one thinks the internet is the hottest thing since powdered toast anymore.

And every client in every business you go after might have completely different expectations and understandings...

That's not to say the rewards are not there, because they are. But if you think a course you bought and watched on your laptop over the weekend will prepare you for a career as a freelance marketing expert... at LEAST hire a lawyer and get some real contracts made up.

If you want to play big, be a real business. And if you aren't, you're the ones making the real pros look bad. That's okay though - I figured out that I can charge extra for rescue work.

But my point, for anyone looking into this - when people say "it can't be that easy" that's because at least in this case, it's not.

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MichaelHiles

15 years ago

LOL... I was trying to get that point across a long time ago Colin.

I even said, "E&O insurance" and people were like... WTF?!?!?

rofl

Yes, clients absolutely DO sue for big $. If you convince them to place their trust in you with their business strategy and direction, and you have no freaking idea what you're doing, you may as well go ahead and sell the house and the dog now.

FYI... there's a big reason why I am working to diversify my own business by being far less reliant on consulting as my primary means of income. You started to hit on those things.

Business consulting is NOT internet marketing. It's a real job, with real clients, real expectations, real money, and real... very real risk.

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Online Bliss

15 years ago

For Local offline Business,
I still recommend the old fashioned way.
Join the local Chamber of Commerce,
Join or start a local "Leads Group".
You will get to know these people and their needs
they will come to you first,
then comes a rush of leads and word of mouth referrals,
and soon your buried in work.
That's what you wanted right.

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TimCastleman 15 years ago

Lets see here.

$50,000 this year to date.

Yeah I'm going to go ahead and say it works.

Tim
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Dennis Gaskill

15 years ago

When I think of all the unsolicited offers I receive to help my business grow, not a one of them have been appealing enough to keep me reading to the end of the message.

Care to post the message you're sending for us to critique?

Point is, email is just a communications tool, the magic lies in what you are communicating.

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Money on the Side

15 years ago

Think about how much junk you get in your email box...offers for website, hosting, etc and how much of those offers you actually act on. If you're anything like me, these offers don't even get read.

I have not had much luck with email.The bit of luck I have had has been very personal in nature (like we live in the same town and I am familiar with your business)....but again, email has not worked well for me in general.

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Orator

15 years ago

Colin makes an excellent point.

To many people are used to enjoying the relative anonymity that internet marketing can offer you. If someone doesn't like your ebook, and they do a charge back on paypal then it might suck but it's hardly life threatening.

Now say you agree to contract with a local dentist, and promise him a first ranking in Google, etc. I seriously doubt he is going to want to hear terms like "sandbox" or "content penalty" for something he is shelling out thousands of dollars for.

There is a serious potential for a lot of legal wrangling, and with that comes a lot of legal fees.

I've done local work before on an informal basis, and most of the time it worked out well. There was only one incident that really worried me, and I considered it a serious wake up call.

If your going to pursue offline clients, then you need to do your due diligence and make sure your prepared for the possibility of it turning bad.

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Optimist Cam

14 years ago

Originally Posted by Orator

Colin makes an excellent point.

Now say you agree to contract with a local dentist, and promise him a first ranking in Google, etc. I seriously doubt he is going to want to hear terms like "sandbox" or "content penalty" for something he is shelling out thousands of dollars for.

There is a serious potential for a lot of legal wrangling, and with that comes a lot of legal fees.

You should never guarantee anything. Just tell them that the methods are proven and have worked well for others so there is a high chance that it will work well for them too. Then if anything goes wrong it wont be so bad.

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CharlesDenney

15 years ago

My team and I have done quite a bit of work for "offline" clients. In most cases, these leads were generated through a combination of PPC, networking and referrals. Email is generally effective as a follow-up tactic, but it's really not that effective as a means of first contact when it comes to getting new clients who have no prior knowledge of who you are and what you do.

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RichMag 15 years ago

I have a pretty good list that is starting to grow more and more. I havent come up with an email campaign yet as it grew quicker then I expected. I'm not sure how well it will go compared to selling a physical product but will probably test it next week.
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- nofearman 15 years ago
  
  IN addition to consulting, I own several of my own e-commerce businesses. I get between 2-5 online markeitng (SEO, etc) solicitations a day. Not only do I NOT read them ever, I mark them ALL as SPAM.
  
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Brenden Clerget

15 years ago

I'm going to go off the normal things people are saying here and say that yes, it is that easy.

As a matter of fact I sent out TWO emails with good research, found out they were spending money advertising, got them to agree to just listen to me and told them there would be no obligation but if they'd listen, they would be surprised.

Landed both within four days from first email to close for over $1,500 a piece up front and recurring monthly retainer fees. I'm going to be getting them all kinds of clients, setting up some PPC for them, and doing things that as business owners they don't have the time to do. Does $1,500 sound like a lot for a email? Sure. Is it a lot when you consider that two years from now the new growth to their businesses could be as much as $100,000 (or MUCH MUCH MORE)? Absolutely not.

If someone convinced you they could have you trade $1,500 tomorrow for $100,000 two years from now, what would you say?

It's about the businesses you target. What they're doing, and whether or not you can communicate to them what you REALLY can do for them and how that coincides and is congruent with what their business REALLY NEEDS.

I hope that this rambling makes some sense.

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John Durham

14 years ago

Its hard enough to get offline clients to email you even AFTER the sale. lol

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Richard Van 14 years ago

I'm not sure randomly emailing them and saying I can help you blah blah blah works but I've got three so far but not via simple emails. I did this by looking at local businesses websites and seeing how bad they were doing where they were ranked and looking at how terribly optimised their sites were. I then went and did some homework to show them keywords that got lots of searches they were not ranked for, how much more traffic they could get if they ranked for the keywords they were not targetting and the words they did rank for that got virtually no searches (ego rankings!) I then went in and asked if I could speak to someone and simply showed them with screen shots just how much money was being left on the table. I also showed them how I could do this for their competition and if they'd rather me do it for them, along with a bunch of proof of how I often do it. I even made a cd and gave it to them to watch with a bag of popcorn, not my idea, Justin Brookes told me this on the intro/sales letters to his offline course. Incredibly the free stuff he gave out before actually buying the course (which I haven't bought) has got me 3 out of 3 clients paying a good salary for me. I think you just need to show them a) look what your missing out on and b) here's how I can fix this. Heaven knows whats in his course but if the sales process works this well the course must be like dam busters.
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Dexx

14 years ago

Like Dan Kennedy says, all types of media WORK...some work better than others...but they all work at generating profits...

The problem (and focus) should not be on "do emails land clients" but more focus should be placed on whether the message is:

A) reaching the designated person and
B) giving that person a big enough incentive to take action.

Just like direct mail marketing, you can't send out 10 emails (or whatever number) and then write something off as a viable strategy.

Testing different messages, different offers in those messages, your positioning, your social proof and credibility, the time of day you are sending emails, the days you are sending the emails, the industries you are sending those emails (and tracking CTR of the call to action link in the email)

If I had to assume (since I stopped buying WSOs once I caught on they were 90% rehashed from other WSO strategies) most these offers do not actually go in-depth on what is needed to be done for success...

...It's the usual "this is easy...I made money with it...now you too can make thousands by spending $7 on this hidden secret"

I dunno, maybe I'm just crazy...

~Dexx

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Abul-Hussain

14 years ago

I've sent generic emails and landed clients and highly personalised emails and landed no clients.

It's about having a mixed strategy in place and different people are receptive to different mediums.

However, it is probably impossible to just send an email and collect payment. It's more along the lines of email -> call -> sometimes meet -> collect cash/

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LasseKohau

14 years ago

Hi,

Landing offline clients in internetmarketing is much the same, as landing offline clients in the real businessworld. Not much difference. This means - you will;

1) Do research
2) Know the customer, the customers situation, the customers challenges
3) Provide value through a discussion, either by phone or meeting
4) Be competent in your answers and relate to the customers challenges
5) Put up a solution to the client, eventually two models (advanced and discount)
6) Take control of the situation, lead the customer to the solution.

I have done it by email, net-conferences, phone or meetings. It all depends on your skill level and your personality.

By hitting clients on email, dont expect a high turnover. Its much better to take the customer for a free ride ( 1/2 hour of free consulting )

best regards, LASSE

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