This Is How We Are Selling Mobile Websites.

I recently contacted the local business networking team and asked if I could do a talk on 'the benefits of mobile websites for local businesses'. The organizer found a slot for me to do a 30 minute talk the following meeting.

I turned up with a QR code, a mobile and an iPad, I went through then benefits telling these local business owners how they can make their own mobile website for free! Then I offered the last 10 minutes to Q&As, I walked off stage and the next thing I knew I had people asking me other questions relevant to their business (that they did not want to air publicly.)

I handed out around 30 business cards during this time and over the next 3 days I had 15 calls from these business owners, asking how much it was for us to create a mobile website and host it. Then I arranged to go to their offices to discuss it further.

Having booked 2 full days of appointments, I met them all and did a mock up of each site, so they could have a play around with it. I priced some sites (depending on page numbers) between £199 and £299 (not a lot I know but wait...) The reason for the low price was that on completion and receipt of payment (cheque) I asked them to write down at least 3 contacts they knew who would benefit from a mobile website. Some give a lot more, some just gave 3.

Out of the 30 who took my card, I sold 13 mobile sites, but more importantly I had a pocket full of leads - around 45 warm leads!

I called them the rest of the week and made appointments to go and see them, 'as their friend had recommended me'. It was cool to show them the friends site as a testimonial, 2 actually called their friends up and asked what they thought of the service!

Now the thing was I took a 50/50 deposit, with 50% on completion, what I did was tell them as I did the first bunch, that the low price was only for the local business area and I pointed them to competitors who are charging £1500 for the same product. And I said on completion I would like 50% and at least 3 leads.

This time though, the price went up £299 to £399 (tier 2).

Out of the 45 leads - over 3 weeks I got 39 sales, now these 39 gave me the leads and I thought, there is no way I can get round all these people - 127 in total! So we took on a couple of salesmen who we trained, this is the first full week for them and 1 has seen 35 clients and sold 28 sites, the second has seen 30 clients and sold 30 sites. The price for these sites is £399 to £499.

We have decide to cap the prices at £499 and £599 from now on, but this works and now with the amount of warm leads being generated, we have to take on 2 more sales people - otherwise these warm leads will be wasted.

The plan is to have 6 sales people in total, who will be out everyday, then as soon as they have a yes, they text or email us after the appointment and we start building the mobile sites - they will even carry mobile merchant terminals to take the 50% deposit, this is cheaper than Paypal as we only pay 1% of the value in fees and the money is in the account within 72 hours.

Anyone can do this, start off small and build until you can not do any more yourself, then hire some people, scale it that is when you see real money.

Hope it helps.