Selling Mobile Sites - This worked for me (and REALLY well for my client).

Hi all,

In another thread I spoke out and suggested I would post an idea that turned out to be very lucrative for a client of mine (and made me a hero).

Hopefully this will help some of you break into mobile and become a hero for some cafe / coffee shop / sandwich shop somewhere.

Down the street from where I live there is a small, privately-owned coffee shop. When chatting with the owner one day, he mentioned they're trying to get into catering for some of the companies nearby. There are about a dozen large, high-tech companies within 5 minutes of the cafe, so he had a very large market.

At the time, he was submitting a bid for one of the larger companies, so to help him out, I came up with an idea:

I created a simple mobile-friendly order form using nothing but a WordPress mobile theme and Contact Form 7.

I used WP Mobile Pro, but there are a number of less-expensive solutions out there.

wpmobilepro.com

or

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ptinforms.html

Sunnygal's stuff is good. I have no problem recommending her.

Next, I created a simple QR code for the mobile order page.

The client then printed professional flyers with their menu and QR code. He visited all local companies and asked to put the flyers in their office lunch rooms or hallways. Within a week, he had 4 companies on board and he got VERY busy filling all the new lunch orders. He offered delivery for larger, group orders, and ready-for-pickup for individual orders.

Company employees found it very easy to scan the code, submit their order and pick it up their lunch. No waiting, no lost time.

To this cafe owner, I'm a hero because I provided the tools he needed to offer an extremely unique and easy system to manage his lunch orders.

His customers no longer have to worry about time lost standing in line, ordering their food and then waiting for it to be prepared. They order their lunches well ahead of time, specify the time they'd like to pick it up, and it's ready for them when they arrive. He looks pretty good offering awesome service like that.

My suggestion would be to set this up for free and allow the cafe owner to try it out for a month while it's installed on your own servers. Offer them a simple Fiverr flyer to give to nearby businesses. You can buy the PSD file on Fiverr and swamp out Business Name / QR code and have it ready for them.

After they see results and fall in love with the system, you can make money in any number of ways:

1) Hosting - buy a domain http://theircafe-orders.com
2) Deploy on their own servers to http://m.theircafe.com
3) Keep their plugins, etc. up to date.

If they give you trouble, just explain that the software needs to be kept up to date so it works, and they're better off having you available if there are problems. You'd hate for them to lose business because the site isn't maintained properly.

How does this story end?

My client immediately wanted me to develop a full mobile site for them. Shortly afterward, he was running a promo for valentines day and wanted a new order form to pre-book V-day tables. You can bet he listens closely to any ideas I have.

One final word:

DO NOT host with GoDaddy LOL My client insisted on staying with them and his CF7 stopped working after an update was done, so now I'm telling him again how unstable GoDaddy is when it comes to webforms.

Not everyone has troubles with them and forms, but I and many others have. They just are dependable and you can't risk your client's business. One missed email or late delivery from the contact form, and your client could miss out on a lot of business.

Let me know if this works out for you, and share any ideas to make this strategy better.

Enjoy!