Scaling up the Offline Business Model

by Warren Tibbotts

Posted: 16 years ago 11 replies

OFFLINE MARKETING

When I look at the offline business model, I see a great opportunity to make a job replacement income, but the thing is, it appears you're really only ever replacing one job for another, and your new offline consulting business becomes another 9-5 job albeit one you are in control of, but in reality it isnt a lot different to a plumber, dentist, lawyer, or someone else trading time for money.

My question which I'd like to get some discussion going on, or at least some feedback from other warriors, is what suggestions do you have that can enable this business to be scaled up into a sizable business that helps the owner of that business not be so reliant on trading their time for dollars?

My initial thoughts on this for what its worth is

Outsource the actual offline work to an SEO Consultant
Make your services available anywhere (but stay focussed on a specific niche, or physical locality)
Reward Referrals handsomely for any new business referred (Referrals are your silent salesperson)
Recruit commission based salespeople

That's just my two cents worth, but would welcome feedback from other Warriors about different strategies that are used to help leverage the earnings capabilities of the Offline Marketing Consultancy niche

#business #leverage #model #offline #scaling

InHwan Park 16 years ago

i have recently looked into outsourcing my SEO work i am trying out a few companies. as soon as i found one i like i will be outsourcing 100% of the SEO. the social marketing and mobile marketing part is being done by the project managers.

i did all this to focus mostly on sales. but all of my clients are referrals from past clients that were satisfied with our work, so i only spend about 5 hours a week in meeting and in lunches to meet people. i have hired a few commission based sales reps and have assigned them to the project managers. so far, not much luck...but it is part time and commission only...so we'll have to wait and see...
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Fernando Veloso 16 years ago

Just posted a similar answer but, what the heck, here it goes

I am trying to turn my Offline business model into something I REALLY love. I really can't expose it here, but it's completely outside the box, it's a personall twist to get me WHERE I want, doing WHAT I LOVE till I am really old.

This is something I don't see explored by all the WSO's and models in here.

But yeah, the usual offline model of working, the one I did all these years is not in my plans. I dropped a really good job as a radio dj to be free - not be a prisoner of another work.

Later this year, if everything goes fine, I'll disclose what I've been doing.
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JJOrana 16 years ago

I'll add... Recurring Business.

One of the common mistake I see for offline business model is they're all after the "one-time-big-time" deal. Though, that's nice, residual income is much better.

What I offer as my back-end services is the SEO and PPC maintenance which are "outsourceable"(is that even a word?), anyways, you know what I mean.
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- myob 16 years ago
  
  Virtually everything is outsourced except the core products and marketing. I've hired sales reps in nearly every US metro area, and got a fully staffed call center. All I do now is give a few speeches and play golf.
  
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Quentin 16 years ago

The secret to your business is to create systems and develop residual income. Here are some things we do.

1. Always get their hosting

We never create or upgrade sites without getting their hosting.

2. Create modules for all your services

Break your business up into modules so like have a basic package then add on google places, mobile, posting packages etc

3. Set up systems

Remember the old sales funnel. Start off small and develop your customer in stages.

Also remember that a customer has a lifetime worth so develop your system to address this. It is not a one time sale but an ongoing process.

Quentin
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mr2monster 16 years ago

If you're looking to replace your 9-5, you have to be a business OWNER, not "work for yourself".

That means you've got to systematize, outsource, and manage (and then outsource management).

Almost everything can be "outsourced"... the problem is that most people don't relate the fact that "outsourcing" in the offline world generally means "hiring employees"...

Do you think Bill Gates does ANY practical tasks in his business? I'm willing to bet he's not even responsible for most of the product ideas... he's got people for that. He's got people to implement those ideas, turn those ideas into products, sell those products, support those products, etc..

The difference is that he's a "Business OWNER".. He doesn't "work for himself".
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Jay Rhome 16 years ago

Looking for real consulting deals instead of commodity work is one thing that can quickly lead to high paying recurrent income. In 2-3 years, if you have 20 clients paying an average of $1500/m, that's 30K per month of recurring income, for about 15 hr/week of work. You have to sweat to get there, but it's still attainable so much easier and faster than with his most business models.

And to make it a real business model, hiring commission reps and outsourcing all the commodity work - videos, websites, SEO, autoresponders, PR, and whatnot - is a never ending source of income. If you pay 25% to a rep and even 50% for the work, that still leaves 25% to you for doing... well almost nothing after the initial setup and management system are done.

And you can get new recurring consulting clients from these... Seriously, it's exciting to see how we can basically grow as much as we desire in only a few years, while being able to make "replacement income" right away.
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CarmaGordonyrtg 16 years ago

i have recently looked into outsourcing my SEO work i am trying out a few companies
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- Warren Tibbotts 16 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by CarmaGordonyrtg
  
  i have recently looked into outsourcing my SEO work i am trying out a few companies
  
  Has anyone had any success locating some good value outsourcing options to fulfill the offline optimization work, ie Google Places, Fanpage setups, etc?
  
  Thanks
  
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  David Gold 16 years ago
  
  I don't think I've ever looked at the offline business model as a 9-5 gig. When you're first starting out you pretty much have to do whatever it takes if you want to succeed. That may involve working 7-7 or longer for some, especially if you're bad at time management.
  
  I can't imagine doing SEO, Google Places, Facebook, etc., for local businesses even if it's all outsourced. I think too many offliners start off with that shotgun mentality of being all things to all business owners. Too much responsibility IMO. I certainly don't envy SEO webmasters every time Google change it's algorithms.
  
  What works for me is specialization. One facet of the offline business model that I am currently involved in is email marketing for SMB's. Email marketing is still the most effective way to consistently get the message out and it's not subject to Google's whims. The secret to email marketing is to find a small business niche that's highly responsive to email marketing and then becoming an expert. How do you become an expert? Google your chosen niche and research until your eyes bleed! I had my entire business model in place before I made one sales call.
  
  I currently have over 20 small business owners in one niche who pay me $800 mo. to blast bi-monthly emails for them to their customer base. I outsource all of the work to a local guy who does everything including email design and scheduling to the email blasts themselves. It took me about three weeks of prospecting to set this up but now it just about runs on auto pilot. I spend about two hours a week reviewing all email campaigns prior to send out and my only contact with the owners is to pop in once in a while to say hi. Most times I get service free as a show of appreciation.
  
  essere ricchi,
  
  David
  
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GCooper 16 years ago

Good idea Warren.

-G
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