Offliners - I need your help! (and my secret to getting them to listen)

Hey Nick,

The best method that works for me after a "cold call" is to get their email and send them a freebie ebook that gives them some very valuable online tips and tricks for businesses that need a better online presence that gets them more customers. Every call I made gave me permission to send them that email. Then just follow up after that and you will get a better conversion rate for the face to face appointment.

In other words, don't just make contact, everyone does that, and they get the brush off. Set yourself apart by sending them something and guide them to the face to face appointment.

Another method that works great, is a free website critque. Of course, you have to get to a business that already has a website or blog.

Giving something free first has been the marketing mantra this year.

Nick,

How much are these leads worth to you?

If you're converting them so well it might be worth sending a box of chocolates, a promotional mug, small bunch of flowers etc, with your postcard attached.

Promo Finder - Have you trouble to find your exact promotional items what your want!!!

The gatekeepers are less likely to block a physical present.

Martin

What type of businesses are you targeting? Your approach will differ depending on the type of business you are targeting.

You are right though in never writing 'business owner' or something similar. That just screams mass mailing spam.

Depending on where you are there are different ways of getting the actual name of the business owner / decision maker.

In the US i think there is a site called daplus.com. Unfortunately there is no such site here in the UK so we use a slightly different approach :-)


Riz

If I was you, I'd head over to Amazon and get some of Dan Kennedy's books on the topic...solid and proven info that'll get you results fast!

Also check out his Magnetic Marketing course (for attracting leads to you)

Cheers,

~Dexx

Hey Nick,

Here's a tip I haven't shared with anyone before that you might consider. I was about to put it in an email for my offline product customers but since you asked and I want to help - I'll share it here too.

I give special business cards to local business networking group members - these have 2 sides, one has a my details and links to a relevant website/page - the other side has a special offer for people who use the reference code on that business card. This reference let's me give a special offer to the buyer and also a commission to the referrer.

I print different codes on every persons cards (so I give 50 cards to each person and they all have that persons special code on so when they give them away we know who responded) and make a note of each person I give a card to and what the ref: code was.

This works really well because they're incentivised to tell others and use the special cards I give them because everyone's a winner.

Regards,

Andy

Thanks Andy, I can see that working in some markets. My crowd aren't the business networking types. They are mainly trade and services companies. Very basic practises with a "do the work and go home" mentality.

A great tip for the group though!

Hey Nick,

It sounds like you have a specific target audience then - if you can share a little more about how to see your ability to access them (i.e can you buy email lists, get physical addresses, are they listed in trade magazines, are you able to specifically target them, are they in a particular niche or across many) - I could give you some ideas.

Perhaps you want a skype chat rather than say too much on the forum? just buzz me and we can work out a time.

Andy

Hey Nick,

First of all congrats on closing so many sales. It's really inspiring reading these offline business threads and I have been spurred into action to set up my own local business consultancy. I'm not sure if I can offer any help as I've just started myself but here's what I've done in the last few days:

Set up a Zoho CRM database and started adding local businesses close to me with all the usual contact details, website address, phone number for followup and also hunting around each of their sites for the business owners names. I'm hoping this will help with the open rate.

Here comes the ugly part. I didn't have any windowed envelopes so I hand wrote each address on 100 of my mail-merged letters. This is really time consuming so I'm hoping the extra effort of doing this will at least get them to 'hear me out' in the letter. I also hand-signed each letter. I am targeting small businesses though like restaurants, bars, B & B's and hotels so I'm quite confident the letters will be opened mostly by the owners.

My deal-clincher is to offer a free video for the business (they pay for 3 months promotion to get this) so I'm hoping they either straight-up want the video or are intrigued enough to ring and find out more. This might help with gatekeepers too when you can clearly show them what you're offering is valuable as opposed to just asking them to call.

I don't think there's any sure-fire way of forcing the letter/postcard through. This is why I will be sending out my offer (from a slightly different angle) by email to all the people I sent a letter to a few days after the letter will have arrived. Also, if I don't hear a response to either of these communications I will just call them and won't stop til I get a yes, no or maybe.

I used to run my own mail-order company and for me what worked best is just using 2 or 3 different forms of contact for each lead and following up repeatedly. Some businesses are just more responsive to certain things and until you actually speak to the business owner or get an email from them, you never know if your message got through.

So to summarise:

1) Hand-written addresses on envelopes
2) Hand-signed letters
3) Find business owner name if at all possible (you could even make a quick call for this)
4) Offer a free service/product (no-brainer offer) (maybe for first 5 to reply and commit to a small upsell). You could also make the offer time-limited to increase the sense of urgency.
5) Multiple contact methods

Other than the above I guess it would also depend on your budget as to how fancy you could get with sending the business owner free gifts.

Not sure if any of that help but that's my 2c. Can't wait to see how my basic methods of doing this work out this week.

Best of luck.

I think the key here is to not give up and keep on being persistent. I've found that its helped to be in situations where multiple contacts were occuring. For example, I sent a letter out to all appropriate businesses in my chamber of commerce. Then at the mixers, I would talk to people and THEY would bring it up, "hey, you sent me a letter didn't you, I've been meaning to get back to you".

Matt

I found I could spend my days chasing these busy prospects, as I know they have the need and the money but you know ...life is to short and I think it's possible to make more money finding those customers who are actually ready and want to talk to you and are interested in what you do and what you have to say.
I put more effort into prospecting and following up with those that WILL talk to me. It's just timing sometimes too I suppose, but when they are ready I find they will talk, without barriers.

I find These customers are ready and motivated to actually do something as far as getting a new site developed. If you have a good portfolio, as you know the rest becomes much easier to get the sale.

It's not necessarily something I "do" to get clients, rather what I don't do anymore and it surprisingly had the same effect.

I agree with Dexx...as usual.....create such a online presence for yourself using Social Media, Blogging and Article/Video Marketing that your client attracts to you. In the offline/retail clients mind, if you aren't strong with your own marketing of your business, how will you be able to help them?
I have been doing this for over 2 years now and I pretty much cherry pick who I want to work with at what ever price I want to charge.

I spoke with Nick last night about what he's doing and he's got his ducks lined up and his plan is good.

He's focused very tightly on a specific group of businesses and has a great offer formulated for them, so much of the great advice in this thread doesn't actually apply to him right now.

I think we'll hear good things back about his progress soon.

From our chat I think he'll have his target baseline income created probably by the end of today or tomorrow.

He'll also be able to rinse and repeat his system easily so although he's here asking for help, I think he's probably doing better than people realise.

Andy

Hi Nick,

I am looking to do this myself and i am in the process of getting my book pusblished, (about 70% done) so if you have written one, why not send it to them?

If not then you could create a short informational video on what you can do, get a few pictures of their business from a website and then post a dvd to them with their business on the front.

I haven't done this myself yet and i have no clients as of yet but I am guessing as they get so many marketing calsl every week and so little time to deal with them, being a bit different will increase chances "they" get in touch.

Let us know how you get on mate as i'm in the same boat pretty much.

Steve

I agree with Andrew Cavanaugh and have seen it work with my own postcard campaigns I mailed out.



A little bit of personalization can go a long way to making an IMPACT.

JIM

I don't have offline experience, not yet, but I did some studying on how to approach offline businesses. Basically to make them get to approach you you should get rid of the 'trying to convince them' part. Never convince them if you have nothing to show them. Get results first, so they can see for themselves that you know what you are talking about. For example. If you want to offer SEO services to small businesses, show them that you can actually get a site ranked (if it's a site in their niche, the more they will be convinced of your abilities). Show them proof and explain the benefits that they will get from your service. Makes sense.

Lots off great tips there...but to get back to the original question of how to get them to call you back, the following "technicality " may make all the difference

USE A FREEPHONE NUMBER


I have used freephone and freepost in the past in non IM offline related ventures with great success

Find below some data as to why:



"Consumers see an 0800 freephone number as a sign that a company wants their business and is willing to remove the hassle and cost of contact."
(source: Henley Centre Telebusiness Survey)

Teleculture 2000 say that 63% of consumers prefer doing business with companies offering an 0800 freephone number.

The Henley Research Centre says that 68% of people feel that companies who offer 0800 numbers care more about their customers.

No need to ever change your phone number again - your 0800 freephone number is yours for life - no reprinting of stationary when BT say they have "run out of numbers" again and introduce new dialing codes. Simply redivert your 0800 number if you move business premises.

Give yourself a national presence - don't give the impression you are only interested in customers in your immediate area or generate the feeling that you only operate on a small, local basis.

Keep track of your advertising response rates. By using separate 0800 numbers on each of your advertisements, you can monitor the effectiveness simply by looking at your call statistics sent to you each month. Thus, you can save money by choosing the adverts that produce effective results based on your call statistics.

Save money - in almost all cases it is cheaper to have a customer to call you on your 0800 number than it is for you to call them on their number (especially if they give you a mobile phone contact number). It is also far more likely to result in a sale if they call you when they want rather than you cold calling them.

Inspire Confidence - the most important thing you can do for a prospective customer is inspire confidence in them enough to contact you - nothing does that better than 0800 numbers.

Source for the above : Freephone telephone numbers, 0800 numbers

Good thread.....could go dextrose......