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What service is valuable to a business, easy to justify the investment and is simple to fulfill?

by krzysiek
23 replies
Hi guys,

Looking to see if we can get a valuable discussion going.

Right now I have worked with James Farren (on this forum) and he has showed me how to attract and sell lead generation services to businesses.

That is working quite well and I've built it up to over $10K/month in management fees and within the next 48 hours that is more than likely going to be above $20+K/month in management fees as I have a couple of deals that are quite likely to go through.

While I previously would have found it hard to believe, making the sales is quite easy - and if I am honest, quite effortless. I am about to close a deal for about $10K a month and with the way James has taught me to structure it, the prospect has not even asked for a testimonial or anything like that.

So I've come to the realisation that making the sales is the easy part. With the right type of marketing and sales process, it's really not that difficult. I used to think otherwise.

My new problem is fulfillment. Now I have the deals and fulfilling them means that I have to do a whole lot of work. I've thought about outsourcing but I feel like it is too complicated to efficiently outsource.

So the point of the post here is really to see if anyone else out there has any ideas on what services are valuable, easy to justify the investment and easy to fulfill. And by "easy to fulfill" I mean that they are easy to outsource.

I'm not looking to outsource everything. But I would like to hand off the core part of the work to someone else.

Ideally, I want to focus on the marketing and sales and not have to worry about fulfilling. That's the ideal scenario.

So my options are, as I feel right now:

1. Find people, or another agency, to do the work for me (not sure how to approach this).

2. Look into selling another service that fits my criteria and is relatively easy to outsource, or to find someone to fulfill.

To be honest, I am not expecting this to blow up - but any discussion or input would be appreciated.

So, what are your ideas?

PS: Before anyone PM's me about James or the course that I took from him that got me to where I am, please know that I am not sure if he is still offering this. If you would like more info on it then you can PM me and I'll have a chat to him to see if he is still offering it.

Thanks!
#business #easy #fulfill #investment #justify #service #simple #valuable
  • Profile picture of the author Synnuh
    Why not talk to James about what he does? Seems the most logical thing to do, and doesn't smell as funny.

    If you're serious, you need to list out some of your activities.

    I could tell you to outsource the print campaigns, but if you're not doing them, it doesn't matter.

    This just smells like you're trying to sell your dear friend's program.

    Again, if you're serious, there's discussion to be had.

    Consider hiring a manager or a virtual assistant that is semi-capable, and teach them to train and manage your contractors. Make them multiply themselves while you're making sales.
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    • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
      Originally Posted by Synnuh View Post

      Why not talk to James about what he does? Seems the most logical thing to do, and doesn't smell as funny.

      If you're serious, you need to list out some of your activities.

      I could tell you to outsource the print campaigns, but if you're not doing them, it doesn't matter.

      This just smells like you're trying to sell your dear friend's program.

      Again, if you're serious, there's discussion to be had.

      Consider hiring a manager or a virtual assistant, and teach them to train. Make them multiply themselves while you're making sales.
      I am speaking to James in the next day or two - and I have a bunch of questions that I am going to ask him.

      But I am not naive to think that I should only look for help or advice from one source, or one person. I think most people have some valuable nuggets to share.

      You're right, I should have provided a little more on what I do to get the job done. I guess I figured the discussion wouldn't be focused on this so I left it out.

      Here is typically what is involved.

      To get the client some high quality leads, we'll put together a basic sales funnel that consists of a report and a sales page.

      Before any of that begins, we do an in depth targeting exercise with the client to really understand what they offer and who it is they are going after.

      Based on that, we come up with some topics for the report that might work well. Once a topic for the report is confirmed to be good (ie: people are opting in from it from ads) then we actually go and make the content and put it together.

      The sales page is based on the targeting exercise and written to attract the right types of client.

      Ads are usually on Facebook or Google adwords, hitting the report download page. There is some basic email marketing going on (but could be improved with more resources to add more email follow ups).

      Obviously the ads need to be managed and optimised as well.

      So in essence it's not too difficult, but it all ads up. The hard part is coming up with the angle and offer. The rest isn't too crazy to do.

      I really liked this sentence from your post:

      "Consider hiring a manager or a virtual assistant, and teach them to train. Make them multiply themselves while you're making sales."

      I have thought about hiring a manager / VA - but they wouldn't be specialised in any skillset. They'd just be a VA. I assume you mean to do this and then teach them everything, so that they can also later teach other people.

      Is that right?

      Would you not just try to find someone who already has the skillset? ie: a copy writer, marketing strategist, Facebook ad expert, etc?

      That seems more natural to me, but then the costs are probably significantly more.

      Can you share your experience?
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  • Profile picture of the author Synnuh
    Ahh, glad you're serious.

    I would be most inclined to go with the dude that taught me how to get where I'm at.

    As for hiring a VA, you're going to be hard pressed to find one that can do your job. Hiring a manager and training them to find qualified people to do those jobs is what you should think about.

    Where do you spend most of your time, outside of communicating with the clients?

    Outsource the sales page design, copywriting, and reports for sure. It seems simple, but the hours add up quickly when you're dealing with finding and keeping outsourced workers. And you'll go through a LOT of them.

    When you get good ones, pay them what they're worth and then give them bonuses. Your business depends on them.

    A solid VA will take care of it. They only need to understand IM and how to hire people / hold them accountable.

    The fun part is closing the deal, coming up with the angle, and executing the plan, in my opinion. Most of that time, from the looks of your model, is spent up front getting the client and putting together their plan.

    Time is money. Pay a book keeper $500 a month to do your books. Finances are a time and soul sucking endeavor, and something I don't recommend doing on your own.

    My experience? I built a lil empire during the sniper site boom, and had 450 of them over the course of 3 years. At one time I had 22 writers and 2 VAs on board. It was a sweet operation.

    I started over last year, running it a lot more lean. Backpack business. Managing the PPC campaigns and communicating with clients can be done via a laptop, in your backpack, so you're able to move around the world freely. I don't want to be tied down to an office, so I'm using the lessons learned to keep that from happening again.

    It took 80-100 hours a week of my own time, along with who knows how many outsourced hours to make that happen. I understand where you're at and coming from.
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    • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
      Originally Posted by Synnuh View Post

      Ahh, glad you're serious.

      I would be most inclined to go with the dude that taught me how to get where I'm at.

      As for hiring a VA, you're going to be hard pressed to find one that can do your job. Hiring a manager and training them to find qualified people to do those jobs is what you should think about.

      Where do you spend most of your time, outside of communicating with the clients?

      Outsource the sales page design, copywriting, and reports for sure. It seems simple, but the hours add up quickly when you're dealing with finding and keeping outsourced workers. A solid VA will take care of it. They only need to understand IM and how to hire people / hold them accountable.

      The fun part is closing the deal, coming up with the angle, and executing the plan, in my opinion. Most of that time, from the looks of your model, is spent up front getting the client and putting together their plan.

      Time is money.

      My experience? I built a lil empire during the sniper site boom, and had 450 of them over the course of 3 years. At one time I had 22 writers and 2 VAs on board. It was a sweet operation.

      I started over last year, running it a lot more lean. Backpack business. Managing the PPC campaigns and communicating with clients can be done via a laptop, in your backpack, so you're able to move around the world freely. I don't want to be tied down to an office, so I'm using the lessons learned to keep that from happening again.

      It took 80-100 hours a week of my own time, along with who knows how many outsourced hours to make that happen. I understand where you're at and coming from.
      Thanks again for stopping by.

      Yep, definitely going to speak to James because like you said, it's the most obvious thing to do.

      I had an aha moment when you said to get a manager to do the hiring. I wasn't thinking of it that way. I know from some experience that hiring can take up a lot of time and energy and it's not something I want to be stuck doing.

      One issue is that if I am stuck "doing" the work then I get too attached to the project. Which is another reason why I don't want to be doing it. Not only because it takes up time from selling, but because then I sit there and really put in way too much time.

      So I think I'll pay more thought to your suggestion of finding a VA to help manage and hire the right types of people. That is a good starting ground.

      What are your thoughts on approaching an agency, who already does something like this, and reselling or white labeling through them? This way I skip all the VA's and management of that. What's your take?
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  • Profile picture of the author Synnuh
    I'm leery of using an agency just because you earned the clients. I dealt with a guy on a blackhat forum that did the "white label" stuff and he ended up nabbing $4k a month worth of clients.

    It was a racket he ran to scale his own business to $200k per month. It worked.

    It's a lot safer, in my opinion, to find someone who doesn't know that much about this business. For the future of yours, I mean.

    If they're capable of doing the work, and only deal with hiring people, you're keeping your replacements at bay. Or at least keeping them from being able to take a bunch of clients from you.

    I'd handle all the client work myself, and leave the labor to the laborers. They're a dime a dozen on Fiverr, eLance, and oDesk, so if you just hired a VA to scour those sites looking for quality workers, you'd be further ahead than you are now. And they work for dirt cheap up front. That's where the pay them their worth thing comes in, don't be greedy.
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  • Profile picture of the author zoro
    Yes, all businesses want Leads, Leads and more Leads. Getting them good quality leads is the tricky part. Just getting a name and email is not enough, you need to also at least get a Phone number. In my experience handing out a Free report does not work like it used to in offline marketing. I currently provide leads for two businesses using Adwords and Video, and am finding it harder and harder to get optins.

    So I, like you, would also like to know of a good way to generate offline client customer leads in 2015.?
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  • Profile picture of the author gettingricherdaily
    Hang on a minute...let me get this right. You have sold a service but you are not sure how to fulfill it?

    Is this right?

    Yes it's easy to sell anything just ask The Wolf of Wall Street. make big promises, etc and wallop.

    My new problem is fulfillment. Now I have the deals and fulfilling them means that I have to do a whole lot of work. I've thought about outsourcing but I feel like it is too complicated to efficiently outsource.
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    • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
      Originally Posted by gettingricherdaily View Post

      Hang on a minute...let me get this right. You have sold a service but you are not sure how to fulfill it?

      Is this right?

      Yes it's easy to sell anything just ask The Wolf of Wall Street. make big promises, etc and wallop.
      This is wrong. I can fulfill it but I have to do it myself. Anyone in business knows that doing the actual work yourself is not the best use of time.

      So that is my problem. And I don't know where to find someone to do the fulfillment and so I am stuck doing it!

      Will reply to other posts shortly
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      • Profile picture of the author gettingricherdaily
        Originally Posted by krzysiek View Post

        This is wrong. I can fulfill it but I have to do it myself. Anyone in business knows that doing the actual work yourself is not the best use of time.

        So that is my problem. And I don't know where to find someone to do the fulfillment and so I am stuck doing it!

        Will reply to other posts shortly
        OK...but then again maybe you should have that sported out before?
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        • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
          Originally Posted by gettingricherdaily View Post

          OK...but then again maybe you should have that sported out before?
          Are you suggesting I should have employed a team of people before having any clients? I'd have to disagree with your approach.

          Thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author bob ross
    why not look into offering direct mail services? the fulfillment is easy, you just need a mailhouse, who is likely a printer as well. Businesses routinely spend many thousands per month in direct mail and it doesn't require much education as there's no 'tech stuff' involved.
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    • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
      Originally Posted by bob ross View Post

      why not look into offering direct mail services? the fulfillment is easy, you just need a mailhouse, who is likely a printer as well. Businesses routinely spend many thousands per month in direct mail and it doesn't require much education as there's no 'tech stuff' involved.
      Have been thinking about direct mail for a while. We have a similar program to EDDM (I believe that is the acronym) here in Aus. So what you teach would be pretty applicable here, too.

      Is there a regular recurring aspect to the direct mail services you provide or are you having to mostly find new clients for every mailing?
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      • Profile picture of the author bob ross
        Originally Posted by krzysiek View Post

        Have been thinking about direct mail for a while. We have a similar program to EDDM (I believe that is the acronym) here in Aus. So what you teach would be pretty applicable here, too.

        Is there a regular recurring aspect to the direct mail services you provide or are you having to mostly find new clients for every mailing?
        Yep you have an unaddressed mail system there and I know you have private delivery services as well.

        I learned early on that relying on getting new clients all the time is a frustrating process. All you need are a few heavy mailers and you've got a nice recurring monthly income with virtually no effort. Think lawyers, retailers, dentists, chiros, cosmetic dentists, etc.
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        • Profile picture of the author sandalwood
          In answering your question, I do commercial loans. I simply take their information, input online and the lender does the rest. I pick up a piece of the fees when the loan closes.

          Businesses and people always need money. We offer over 40 different types of loans. Not many people can. This means we can fund almost every type of business. That is a good thing.

          I guess what I'm saying is that I don't need to do fulfillment or anything else because I already have a team that does all the grunt work. All I have to do is find biz/people who want money.

          As for my investment, I had to join a company ( we sell high dollar tax favored portfolio assets) and I pay $39 a month to use their website. If that is too expensive, I don't know what to say.

          On another front, my son built a lead gen site for selling tires. He rents it to one dealer for 200 a month plus 50 a lead. We don't do any fulfillment or any of the hands on work. That cost us $11 plus his time. Because he is my son, I don't value his time .

          Don't know if that is what you are looking for but that is what I am doing.
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          • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
            Originally Posted by Affiliatebuddy View Post

            Do it in reverse way. find a service oriented company which is having excellent process and delivering excellence. Make your own company on the top of it and outsource everything to them.

            I completely understand your problem. I started selling web design and outsold. And at the end there was delays and unmanaged delivery. You should find somebody who is already doing their work in excellent way and sell for them with your brand. Or you can sell for others.

            Hope it will help.

            Regards
            AB
            Hi AB,

            Thanks for your post. I've been thinking of that recently. Finding someone who is already good at what they do. I market the service, make the sale and let them handle fulfillment.

            This seems fairly simple but I'd need to find the service. I imagine this would work probably online with services rendered online, PPC, SEO, web design, etc.

            I feel like I could find someone who does SEO really well (someone to do the off page, the on page) and just outsource all of the work to them. To me it seems like this would be the easiest approach. And then I could focus purely on marketing and sales.

            I've been thinking about this.

            If you feel like it, can you share a bit more on how you have applied this yourself? I think it's a really good idea.


            Originally Posted by bob ross View Post

            Yep you have an unaddressed mail system there and I know you have private delivery services as well.

            I learned early on that relying on getting new clients all the time is a frustrating process. All you need are a few heavy mailers and you've got a nice recurring monthly income with virtually no effort. Think lawyers, retailers, dentists, chiros, cosmetic dentists, etc.
            Yep, we have private delivery services too but they are for the most part not as reliable. I would stick with the official unaddressed mail system because they will actually get it delivered every time.

            Getting new clients all of the time would definitely be frustrating. It's not all that hard but you'd just need to keep your prospecting going all of the time - just a bit more work. But if people are getting a good result then I guess they will stay on for as long as the results continue to come in.

            This is something I'm going to give some good thought to over the coming days. Will pick up one of your courses if this is right for me. Any recommendation on which one is more for me? I see you have 2 available right now.

            Thank you!

            Originally Posted by sandalwood View Post

            In answering your question, I do commercial loans. I simply take their information, input online and the lender does the rest. I pick up a piece of the fees when the loan closes.

            Businesses and people always need money. We offer over 40 different types of loans. Not many people can. This means we can fund almost every type of business. That is a good thing.

            I guess what I'm saying is that I don't need to do fulfillment or anything else because I already have a team that does all the grunt work. All I have to do is find biz/people who want money.

            As for my investment, I had to join a company ( we sell high dollar tax favored portfolio assets) and I pay $39 a month to use their website. If that is too expensive, I don't know what to say.

            On another front, my son built a lead gen site for selling tires. He rents it to one dealer for 200 a month plus 50 a lead. We don't do any fulfillment or any of the hands on work. That cost us $11 plus his time. Because he is my son, I don't value his time .

            Don't know if that is what you are looking for but that is what I am doing.
            I like the lead gen site idea, are you using PPC or SEO to drive leads? Only problem is if it's only bringing in 5-10 leads a month then you don't get much out of it. I'd be interested in working with clients who are putting down at least $2,000 a month so that there is some room to make a good margin.
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            • Profile picture of the author sandalwood
              In part you wrote:

              "I like the lead gen site idea, are you using PPC or SEO to drive leads? Only problem is if it's only bringing in 5-10 leads a month then you don't get much out of it. I'd be interested in working with clients who are putting down at least $2,000 a month so that there is some room to make a good margin."

              I totally agree with you. The 2K a month is a very good margin. Mind you, this was an experiment for a friend and it worked. What else can I say? Oh, we only used SEO.

              My son tells me he will implement some other whiz bang stuffola that will double or triple the leads. Since I don't know a whiz bang from a ding dong, it all sounds good to me. If it works, we have a nice little skillet that started out as a helping hand and turned into a money maker. We will then move into other niches.

              Good luck to you and your ideas.
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              • Profile picture of the author cruisinman
                If you in fact have $20k a month in revenue coming in - go start putting it in the bank . . .

                Why fix something that isn't broke?
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                Life - enjoy it . . .

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                • Profile picture of the author thefsboking
                  Congratulations on your success. I ran across the report by James called the $240,00 freedom formula. I am not sure if he is still selling his course/coaching. I feel the report pretty much sums things up but doesn't cover the fine details of creating Facebook ads.


                  Can you give some suggestions how to implement Facebook ads for local lead generation ? If you or anyone can recommend a good WSO on the topic that would be great also.
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                  Mike Williams

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                  • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
                    Originally Posted by thefsboking View Post

                    Congratulations on your success. I ran across the report by James called the $240,00 freedom formula. I am not sure if he is still selling his course/coaching. I feel the report pretty much sums things up but doesn't cover the fine details of creating Facebook ads.


                    Can you give some suggestions how to implement Facebook ads for local lead generation ? If you or anyone can recommend a good WSO on the topic that would be great also.
                    I really hate to break it to you, but there is no WSO that is going to come anywhere NEAR close to what was taught in James course.

                    His course from memory was around $1500 or possibly more.

                    Clearly from a price perspective on it's own, it does not compare to any WSO. This is not some cheap $7 or $17 PDF.

                    His report does contain a lot of good information and I am sure you could piece it all together and get it working. If you work hard at it, I am positive you could make it work.

                    But to say that the course only cover setting up FB ads is not correct. There is so much in there from attracting your own clients, doing the sales calls, structuring the proposals, delivering the work, scaling up, etc.

                    If you can't afford it I would recommend sticking to the report and getting some clients based on that. Then when you have a few clients on board and are making a $2500-$5000 /m I would invest in his course in a heat beat - it will cut your learning curve and time to execute in half.

                    Kind Regards,
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                • Profile picture of the author DABK
                  Did you read the original post?

                  Originally Posted by cruisinman View Post

                  If you in fact have $20k a month in revenue coming in - go start putting it in the bank . . .

                  Why fix something that isn't broke?
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  • Profile picture of the author Freebiequeen1999
    I hate to sound too logical but wouldn't this James Farren be the one to ask? I thought that was what a mentor was for??
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    • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
      Originally Posted by Freebiequeen1999 View Post

      I hate to sound too logical but wouldn't this James Farren be the one to ask? I thought that was what a mentor was for??
      Hey, thanks for your post.

      Yes I am speaking with him shortly but still open to further discussion from others.

      In either case, you're on point
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  • Profile picture of the author Affiliatebuddy
    Do it in reverse way. find a service oriented company which is having excellent process and delivering excellence. Make your own company on the top of it and outsource everything to them.

    I completely understand your problem. I started selling web design and outsold. And at the end there was delays and unmanaged delivery. You should find somebody who is already doing their work in excellent way and sell for them with your brand. Or you can sell for others.

    Hope it will help.

    Regards
    AB
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    Web Design Leads Exclusive/Daily/100+ . Free Test. PM or Skype: premiumwebdesignleads
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