My offline strategy

Hey all,

This will be my first post here I believe, but I've been lurking for quite some time. I just thought I would share a strategy that has been working for me. It won't make you rich financially, but it will help you a TON with networking and set you up as an expert in your given topic.

The whole idea is to help provide value to member who are near you geographically by teaching them how to get online, get a website created, and make even $1 online. You'll feel great doing it, and you should be able to create lots of goodwill and even a little money at the same time.

See, making money online looks (from the outside) like a secret club with a bunch of folks who won't share information. Most people don't know about WF. Most people don't know about Wordpress. Most people don't even know what SEO stands for. What they DO know, however, is that there are people how there making money on the internet. The problem is that they are going about it in the wrong way.

It's pretty simple, and shouldn't cost you very much to get started:

First, decide what you want to show people. If you are here, you're ahead of the curve. To most, you ARE the expert. You will want to create a group on Meetup.com, and schedule events that show people basic stuff like what a domain name is, what hosting is, and what Wordpress is. You then start promoting these events on Craigslist in the Groups section, or even with flyers posted around your town. The possibilities are endless, but these two strategies should be enough to get you started.

Setting up a Meetup.com group is pretty straight forward, and I won't go into details on how to do this. There is a fee to set up a group, but it's not too expensive, and it's well worth it.

You want to make these meetings as informal as possible at the beginning, and make them as accessible as possible. Even if the people don't want to RSVP, you will want them to show up. They don't need to bring anything. They just need to show up.

Before you first meeting, you need to sign up with the affiliate program of whichever hosting company you are familiar with, and sign up with the affiliate program of some registrar ( I use Namecheap.com). You can also get hooked up with a themes provider like ElegantThemes or WooThemes.

I always let everyone know that I am not a super expert, but I also tell them that I am willing to help them got to the level I am, and explain that I am there to help them if they have any questions. On the first meeting, I explain what all the parts of a website are, and show how they all work together (just a general overview). I then give them a coupon code to use with HostGator, and collect everyone's email addresses.

I then send out an email to everyone thanking them for coming, and asking them to invite their friends to the next meeting.

It's pretty straight forward, and the main point of it all is to not go in like you're some kick-butt marketer. You want to be humble, honest, and helpful. Also, I always let everyone know that I will get a small commission if they sign up to use any of the services that I have demonstrated, and explain that this helps pay me a little something for my time. So far, I haven't had a single person have ANY problem signing up via my aff link, and I have had several people even ask me to join programs so they could sign up and give me the referral.

It feels good to be helping folks, I meet some really cool people, and I've even made more than $750 this last month off of 3 meetings consisting of about 2 hours each. I was only one more signup away from reaching the next tier and being paid $1,100. Like I said, you won't get rich, but it's a heck of a lot of fun and you feel great doing it!