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Need Money? Want to try offline selling? Don't Promise Them The Moon. Find their other Hot Buttons.

by George Wright
6 replies
Hi All,

As some of you know I used to post a lot about "walking down any street with empty pockets and coming home with $$$."

Usually my posts on the subject were in threads where forum members were asking how to make some money to get them out of one type of jam or another.

My heart goes out to the members who have posted recently. Times really are bad for some. I hope this will be of some help to those who are thinking of doing some offline selling.

Granted, the sites I'm talking about below might not bring in the 4 or 5 figures for you that many talk about, but they will put some money in your pocket.

Many think there is only one reason a business should have a Website.

Here are other angles on Offline marketing I thought some might find helpful.

There seems to be a lot of anxiety on the subject of promising a client that they will get a ton of new business and make a lot of money from the website you will build for them. The solution is simple. Don't sell that until you have a track record of being able to deliver. Instead, sell this....

There are several other reasons, (ones that YOU CAN deliver) for your local neighborhood business customers to have a website besides bringing in new business or getting a flood of traffic coming to their Website and business.

These other reasons are ones that they will gladly pay you for. Here is my short list. There are more reasons. Maybe some other Warriors will list a few of their favorites.
  • Ego
  • Customer service
  • Information
  • Credibility/Peace of mind

EGO.

Some people just like to see their name "up in lights." If you fill this ego need for a client he will pay you.

CUSTOMER SERVICE.

I'll never forget approaching a man in his auto repair shop. He was under a car and rolled out on his creeper long enough to listen to my pitch. Mainly, I told him a site would get him some more customers.

He told me. "I don't want any more customers." "I have more work than I can handle right now." "Between answering the phone to give prices and answering other questions I can't get all my work done on time."

Now, I wish I could tell you that I immediately said to him, "Oh then you need a site that lists your prices and a FAQ page." But, I didn't. I just walked away.

However, the next time this objection came up I told my soon to be customer that he could publish his domain name and people could go to his site for basic information. SOLD!

INFORMATION

This is a little more about customer service. However, I list it again because this feature is based on one thought. You say to your prospect "Your business cards are one of the most if not the most valuable marketing tools you have." "However you can only get so much information on a business card." "Your Domain Name printed on your business card makes it as large as you need it to be." SOLD!

CREDIBILITY AND PEACE OF MIND ALL AT ONCE

Of course in the age of the Internet, having a website lends credibility to a business, however, the following experience really drove this point home to me.

It had been a long time, a couple of years, in fact, since I actively pursued offline business. I got a phone call from a contractor friend of mine who never saw a need for a website although I had tried to sell him one many times.

I answered the phone and my friend said, "George, I have an appointment at my bank. I'm trying to get a business loan and among other things they want to see my website." "George, I don't have a website!" "I need it YESTERDAY!"

I quickly did a check to see if his business name was taken. It was, so I added LA on the end of it (for Los Angeles) and that was available.

I told him to put in www. HisBusinessNameLA.com on the application. I went to Istock and bought pictures of houses in various stages of construction, wrote some copy and put up a very simple 5 page site with a PHP "contact us" page and another page with his address and email. Yes, fluff

He got the loan.

Did having a website get him the loan? I don't really know but I doubt it. Did being able to fill in the blank on the application with his domain name give him peace of mind? Yep, it did. Maybe it even gave him a little more credibility, if not to the banker at least to my friend in his own eyes.

Yes, as I and many others have said over and over, "You can walk down any street in your business area, broke, and come home with $$$ in your pocket."

George Wright
#buttons #find #hot #money #moon #offline #promise #selling
  • Profile picture of the author ronblade
    While walking down the street many money making activities are seen. Fact is which one to choose? In this recession people are under huge pressure of loan repayment same time they are out of job, so I think what you have told will help those who are in great trouble. Thanks to you.
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  • Profile picture of the author j hogan
    this is excellent advice!

    I have on offline busines and I certainly don't need any more customers.! But I use my website for exactly what you have described above. The other valuable point that a well designed website does. which I believe is key selling point, is that it gives me more of my IDEAL customer!

    It's a great selling point because small business owners generally can't afford to write out ad copy to attract the ideal customer and keep paying to place those ads in publications. But with a website, you build it once and it just pulls them in.
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    • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
      Using the internet, websites, online reports, email follow up etc etc to improve client follow up can be a huge boon for many local businesses.

      # First it can eliminate a lot of tedious work while actually increasing the quality of customer service.

      # Second many businesses can charge more if they implement a good powerful client follow up system. The value of their service increases.

      # Third clients are more likely to buy from them over and over.

      # Fourth clients are far more likely to give them high quality referrals. In fact you can build referral systems right into the internet based follow up system.


      Some great tips.

      I would be careful about going down the ego road. You certainly do want to be aware of it and use it as PART of the value you deliver (for example saying nice things about the business owner on the website is a huge ego stroke for them).

      But you also need to have enough integrity to be sure you're providing real dollar value for the service you provide...not just puffing up someone's ego.

      It does work though. This is the key to the big charges that many web designers make.

      I would just like to think that on an internet MARKETING forum we might try a little harder to make sure our clients do have a chance of making some money out of the service they're paying us for.

      Remember that it really isn't hard to provide good value.

      If you help a business make an extra $20 in profits a week that's over $1,000 extra profits a year.

      At $50 extra profits a week that comes to over $2,500 extra profits a year.

      Most of the people on this forum can achieve that for a business quite easily using skills they learned here.

      Kindest regards,
      Andrew Cavanagh
      Signature
      Old School Copy Like This Is BACK & Converting Like Crazy!
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  • Profile picture of the author George Wright
    Hi Andrew,

    I'll be the first to admit that your grasp of the offline market and the service that can be provided to them is light years ahead of mine.

    Yours builds a business. Mine puts a little cash in my pocket. If I were interested in building an offline business I would study you and your methods like you were Internet University. As a matter of fact I may do that someday.

    Thanks for adding a lot of class to my thread.

    My best to you,
    George Wright
    Signature
    "The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book." Mickey Spillane
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  • Profile picture of the author Waterways2k8
    Hi George

    Thank you for the information. Very helpful, as I also run an offline business.

    Best wishes
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  • Profile picture of the author Preben Frenning
    Great post!
    Now I would like to add something.
    Like Andrew said, simply stroking their ego in these financial times won't do the trick.

    BUT why not use the "financial crisis" to our advantage?
    For example for me, I'm selling marketing services to offline businesses who already have a website.

    This is because MANY brick and mortar business owners think a website itself can give them many new customers by itself. - Which is plain wrong, if they don't focus on marketing it at all.

    So I can easily see if their website brings them new customers or not. And by knowing that they originally thought it would, I can use it in my pitch.

    "I see you have a nice-looking website,and I can also see that it doesn't bring you the customers you hoped for. Right?"

    Of course it doesn't! They might not even have a follow-up system, basic SEO, or even a single call to action.

    So during the financial crisis, people tend to look for new ways to find customers. MANY think about the internet, but don't know how to go about to increase their online success.

    That's when you show them solid proof that 80% of the population uses google to find solutions or things to buy, online.

    Take a few semi-relevant keywords, and tell them which spot they're at in google.
    Now tell them that they are missing out on those keywords/customers, because people rarely click further in google to find something that is already on the first page.

    Business owners will understand. Now, to finally close the sale, give them a guarantee.

    You know you are able to give them 500+ new visits to their site. Tell them they won't have to pay a DIME if they get any less than 100. "100! That's a lot of new potential customers! - And you will pay nothing if you get 99!" Then you'll easily get way over 100 new visits. Even 500 - Which makes them extremely satisfied, and spread the word ;o)

    Important! - Make sure you say "100" in an appealing way, and make it sound like A LOT. (Basic seller knowledge, but not everyone's a seller =P)

    - Preben
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