The Offline Magic Bullet - Near instant success and butt loads of money

I agree Chris, being a full consultant and offering a lot of services is great and should be the end desired goal, even if you outsource the work. Having one specific service that you offer to start with that you are comfortable with and can manage, is a smart option to begin with.

BrashImpact,

Your the FIRST person I've seen here who has talked about the value of being able to read a financial statement!

Being a consultant means you've got to wear a lot of hats.

That means rolling up your sleeves to do whatever is necessary to get results for the client. 'Nuff said!

It does take work.... mostly in in the beginning. You've got to build momentum -- and referrals.

Like someone above stated, start off with what you feel comfortable at doing. Once the client see's ONE thing postive, they'll open their wallet easier.

I spend time educating them on online marketing and they like the learning process.

It's unusual to slam dunk every first appointment with offline business owners. Frankly, this is true about almost any sales. The gold is in the followup.

Want to know a simple method to not let any opportunities fall by the wayside due to poor followup? Don't have any "naked contacts".

What are "naked contacts"? A viable prospect for which you have no scheduled followup. You may get 4 "No's" before you get a "Yes". What's that statistic? You've heard it already. Most sales are closed on the sixth call, something like that. It makes sense to take this to heart (your wallet will thank you!)

Always schedule a followup call immediately after getting an initial "No". Typically I'll schedule a followup call 2 months in the future. Sometimes even sooner.

Between calls, I'll typically send a couple of emails to keep me on their radar. It's smart to ask the prospect if it's okay if you can stay in touch from time to time. A great time to ask is right after they've declined your offer.

Bottom line, it's much easier to be productive when you at your day calendar and you've got 5 followup calls already scheduled vs. having a blank slate!

Keeping things simple helps you stay in focus.

I have been watching the WSOs and discussions here for the past several months that have made the sales process to local businesses sound like a piece of cake, and wondered what all of us have been doing wrong all these years!

My husband and I have more than 60 years of 'road warrior' experience behind us - his oldest son is a VP of a major gift wholesale company - 15 yrs 'on the road' - his youngest, just turned 26, and is in his 4th yr of outside sales (just landed an awesome new position in medical spine sales) - and when we get together, the discussion is always about new ways to get the appt, close the deal, get past the gatekeeper etc.

I haven't chimed in, because frankly, I did not want to discourage anyone - but the bottom line is that outside sales is a TOUGH way to make a living. I have one contract that came in last month - and is still bouncing back and forth between attorneys - but it represents TWO YEARS of work!

The company is a name that everyone would recognize - but the bottom line is that it took two years of presentations and followup to get to this point.

I applaud all of you that have taken the plunge - but as Bronwyn and Keith stated above - I strongly suspect that many of the people selling the WSOs on how easy it is to close these deals - haven't done it themselves. Your average local business owner sees almost as many sales reps during the week as customers - so you aren't exactly a welcome site to begin with.....and that's just the first hurdle you have to overcome!

I've made a great income offline for years - but these days, I do as much as I can online. It's so much easier when the snow hits ;-)

But yes, for those that persevere - the rewards are great - just don't start out thinking it is going to be a short trip to filling that bank account.....

Melody

I think many people on here are not aware that they can quickly create another 9-5 job/major headache when they go all out tring to gain every client under the sun.

If I could back to the very beginning, I would have calculated exactly how much money I need monthly to be comfortable. I would then choose 10 "higher-end" businesses near me (lawyers, surgeons, chiropractors, etc) and focus ALL OF MY SALES EFFORTS on these types of businesses.

It is utlimately A LOT less work dealing with 5-10 higher-end clients (that will understand your value more anyways), than going after every bakery, pizza shop, or dry cleaner in town.

Sure, you might be able to get 30 "lower-end clients" fairly quickly paying you $200 a month giving you $6,000 monthly (before expenses, etc!), but you will soon realize that you just created a whole lot of "administrative/csr" responsibilities, and if you are primarily a "one man show", even with "outsourcing", you've created several extra hours of work a day, and will probably be working 50-hour weeks to keep up with all of your customers "demands".

Now, with just FIVE "high-end" business paying you $1,500 a month, you are making $7,500 a month (before expenses, etc). No matter how you slice it, 5 clients is a realistic beginner's goal for anyone out there considering offline consulting. 30-40 clients?....good luck folks.

Now, I understand that some people here have/plan on hiring employees and want to scale their business exponentially, but I just thought I'd shout a fair warning that this type of thing is NOT easy to do, and you will be working MUCH MORE and likely loads more stressed out than you would be from a "normal" job. A job that I'd imagine many on here are looking for a way OUT OF.

So my advice, consider what you want/need financially out of this whole deal before you even start. Find out how many long-term clients you need a month to reach that goal (go higher end, WAY less clients needed), and put all of your efforts into securing these bigger fish initially. They are harder to catch in the community, but they feed a family of four better than the minnows swimming all-around the pond.

- Jim

If you are working in one specific industry...lets say..HVAC and you see that you have generated lots of leads from a Opt-in/Autoresponder series...you now have a system that is a proven winner...can show a prospect it is a winner...and now get it out to the rest of the HVAC industry...a proven system = more clients

T.R.

TR,

That is huge point that I missed in my post too. I would imagine it would be MUCH EASIER to have 30 hvac companies as clients (from different areas obviously), than 30 clients from every type of industry out there. Developing a "system" for every niche under the sun is nearly impossible from a consulting perspective I believe.

- Jim