How I paid off $50k debt using offline marketing - Thanks to the Warrior Forum!

Hey Warrior,

This post is to say thanks to the Warrior Forum and also provide you with my tips and advice.

Around 4 years ago I was in around $50k of debt, caused by spending far too much on cars and holidays.

I came online to find a way of making an additional income to help pay off my debts, this was pushing me further and further into debt as I was buying product after product which claimed to show me how to make money online.

When I came across the Warrior Forum I was convinced that what I had just found would sure as hell help me get out of debt and get my life back on track.

I read a post about providing internet marketing consulting and services to offline businesses so I set about creating some sites and getting them ranked on Google to make some sales, once I had some proof of results I should be able to sell these services to businesses all day long – that was my thinking.

I got taken down with a double hernia injury which left me unable to work for about 3 months (my truck driving job was delivering heavy equipment and I was unable to lift), with my debts mounted upon me, no income for the foreseeable future and only a little over £100 in my bank account I knew that I had to provide services to small businesses right now!

I invested in a cheap website design course so that I could at least understand the technical side of web design and provide very basic & cheap website design services.

I posted an advert on Gumtree (The UK’s version of Craigslist) and within 24 hours I had made my first sale over the phone. This first sale totaled to be the equivalent of one week’s wage in my Job. (Just over £300)

I worked this model for three months I was off work and then returned to my Job because although I was surviving, I was sick with the worry of my debts. I went back to driving trucks and continued to build my business around my Job.

Now I have:

• Paid off every single penny of my debts
• Quit my job as a truck driver
• Built a six figure offline marketing business
• Saved my old employers company from the recession by carrying out Internet Marketing services that have actually grown his business
• Taken a local plumber from a £5k a week business to a £15 - £20k a week business and still growing well towards having our first £1 million year in 2013! And I have negotiated a partnership with the local plumber for this business

All of this was done from scratch but it hasn’t been an easy ride!

I wanted to make this forum post today to help those who are getting started in offline marketing or any business to succeed much quicker than I did.

Here are my 5 tips based on the past four years of my life and business:

1. Focus on the marketing of what you are selling and outsource the service delivery

If you are not marketing then you are not making money, plain and simple.

I got hooked up on 2 key areas of service delivery which I didn’t need to. They were building the websites for clients and doing the SEO for those websites myself.

Getting myself deep into the "how to" of SEO wasted thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours, both of which could have been spent on marketing to get more clients.

Everything can be outsourced to reliable service providers online via odesk, elance or freelancer.com or even here on the Warrior Forum.

The biggest thing to look for when outsourcing is the outsourcers feedback and their ability to communicate with you. I always speak to my outsourcers over Skype before hiring them. Also ensure that your requests to your outsourcers are as detailed as possible, this helps you to get the job done right on the first attempt!

2. Immerse yourself in marketing knowledge, this is the most valuable part of your education

I don’t mean just Internet Marketing, but marketing in general and how to generate the maximum revenue for each customer (of yours and your clients if you are working with offline clients).

Continually learn from the best in the marketing world, I regularly travel to Internet Marketing events to network with & learn from the best in our industry.

This increases your value to your clients as you can advise them on how to generate additional revenue into their business but more importantly create more profit out of everything that you do in business.

3. Charge what you are worth and show your clients what you can do to their bottom line

When I first started out I priced my services far too low, this meant I had to sell to more customers to get myself out of debt.

By selling your services cheaply you will get business easily but in my experience the customers looking for cheap services (especially SEO) will be the ones who are the most demanding in terms of customer support yet my higher end clients never bother me with customer support issues and when they do they are easy to deal with.

4. Decide if offline marketing is the route you actually want to take before doing it!

Offline marketing worked for me to get myself out of debt while helping business owners locally and throughout the UK.

If you are in the financial hole I was in then Offline Marketing could well be the best route for you to pull yourself out of that financial hole.

I don’t actually take on any clients now, I just work with current clients and fired the time sucking ones to allow me to focus my time and effort in building my online business, helping others to become successful.

5. Treat your business like a real business

No matter if you decide working with clients is right for you or not, you need to treat your business as a business and always be looking to improve & grow.

Nothing happens to get your business started or continue to move your business forward without taking any action and that is unfortunate reason why so many people fail to change their financial situation.

Plan weeks ahead, and focus on your tasks daily to reach your goals.

Set yourself marketing productivity goals, these may be contacting x number of businesses per day , posting x number of helpful posts in small business forums per day, posting x number of freeads per week etc

Ultimately in business if you are not marketing then you are not making money so always be marketing, learning & studying it

If you have any questions for me then Ill be glad to reply in the thread below for you, ask your questions below and I will check / reply each day