Now Is the Time For Offline Consulting!

I’m back in Costa Rica putting the finishing touches on our new KILLER APP that you’ll be hearing about in the coming weeks. Ok, here’s a hint…

In the meantime, in this week’s Free Line Report, I want to introduce you to an Internet Marketing rocket scientist that I met last fall, and let’s just say I was immediately impressed – I think it took me about 12 seconds to offer him a Faculty position at StomperNet.

His name is David Preston, and you might have heard of him during the recent Main Street Marketing launch. He is one of the smartest marketers that I know, and his niches include offline consulting, local business marketing, and high-end JVs.

When I say “high end,” I’ll give you an example. He actually visited Costa Rica while I was here, and he was in town to look at a bunch of land that he’d been given just for helping one guy put a deal together. Now that’s a JV!

He really knows how to “bridge the gap” – he knows online marketing, and is one of the best around at applying online marketing AND offline marketing concepts for an integrated approach with his clients. Here’s one example — lately he and his whole team have been visiting 5-STAR resorts, ALL expenses paid, just to sample all the services and restaurants, in order for them to let the resort owners know if they will take them as a client.

If they agree to take them as a client, they get a big retainer fee, and a big percentage of all the increase in profits.

David will be one of the key teachers at our upcoming SEO Pro bootcamp in July, and I thought you’d enjoy an article he wrote for the January issue of “The Net Effect” – it’s still timely, and stuff you can go out and do TODAY!

Talk to you next week!

Brad

P.S. I’m doing a very special webinar with David next Wednesday. It’s to promote our SEO Pro Boot Camp, but I’ll be talking to him about these high-end JV’s, and grilling him on some of the very specific strategies he’s using right now to create BIG DOLLARS out of thin air by doing one killer JV after the other with business owners of every kind.

Register at this link — you won’t want to miss “How to Do BIG LEAGUE JV’s . . . Right Now” with David Preston, and it won’t be available after the SEO Pro Boot Camp is sold out.

By David Preston, StomperNet Faculty Member

Although every day is a great day for consulting local businesses, now is a crucial time to get into the game. Why now you may ask? There are a number of reasons to get involved in local business consulting, other than the money of course.

If you have ever considered using your Internet skills to help local business owners, here are some reasons that should help you get over the fence:

The Current Economic Conditions

If you take a drive down Main Street in Anytown, USA you’re going to see the proof of the economy everywhere. “Going Out Of Business Sale!” or “Closed,” and of course the “For Rent” and lease signs popping up everywhere. I’ve seen several of these over the past few months in my own backyard. Unfortunately, by the time the business reaches that point, there’s little that can be done to turn them around.

They don’t know what to do! Business owners in this condition simply do not know what to do, or where to turn for help. They all know they need to do something, they just don’t know what.

And remember – a lot of business owners run in the same circles. They belong to the same organizations, clubs, etc. This is another major reason for their marketing failures. Since they don’t interact with ““outsiders” like us, they have a very narrow view of marketing and advertising. And they’re not sure how much this marketing might cost them.

They already have the budget for you and they’re going to spend it. That’s guaranteed. So, why not find a way for you and your services to fit into that budget for the coming year?

Here are some ideas to help you become a part of their annual budget:

List building and database maintenance

This is very simple for you to do and can be the difference between life and death for them. Open the yellow pages and look for any business with a website listed. Chances are, over 80% don’t have any lead capture system at all! You can install an auto-responder form on their site that you create from your system and take care of their mailing list. I charge $150 per month plus $100 per broadcast for sales events. It’s dirt-cheap for them, but you can earn a six-figure income from this simple tactic.

Here are some points to cover with them when you sell them on adding an autoresponder. Start with return on investment or ROI. If a business owner runs a full-page ad in a local newspaper, it’s normally going to cost between three and four grand. If their average profit per sale is $30 or $40,they would have to make at least one hundred sales just to break even!

However, if they instead pay you to create and send an email to their list, they only have to make three or four sales…and the rest is profit. That’s a big difference. You
can also make a sale exclusive to their list, which drives the response up as well. Business owners understand the language of ROI and this makes it a no-brainer to fit your services into their new budget.

You can also change their sales receipts so it directs them to sign up for discounts and coupons that are only available to “preferred” customers. (Your list.) This way you can build a list of nothing but buyers for your client, and that is a very responsive list. One properly constructed offer from you to this list will drive their ROI through the roof! The customers on this list already know them, like them, and obviously trust them because they have already spent money with them before.

Which brings me to another strong point to cover with them. It’s been proven over and over again that it takes almost eight times as much to acquire a new customer than it does to market to existing customers. Just about every business owner that I have pointed that out to has heard it all before. They already know that…but they just don’t take it to heart.

Just about every client I deal with spends their time going after new customers, and neglecting their current customers. How many times have you bought something from a local store and never heard from them again? Sad, but true. This practice is so commonplace that I have an entire division of my company that does nothing but customer reactivation campaigns for clients.

The bottom line is that with auto-responders – email campaigns and customer list building is simple. You can honestly cut up to 70% of their advertising budget and increase their profits at the same time. That becomes an almost irresistible offer to a local business owner. The best part is that it’s easy for you to implement and it also builds residual income, which is what we’re all after.

This one simple addition to their current marketing strategies will also get your foot in the door with a new client. From there you can offer them a myriad of different services that can save them money and increase their profits. Once you’ve proven your skills with this, the door is wide open for you to step in and offer other services.

Newsletter and email campaigns

It’s fairly easy for us to create a newsletter template and send it to their list to build customer rapport for them. I emphasize the fact that they only have to pay for the creation once and it will work for them from that point forward. In other words, if they pay me $350 to create 26 bi-weekly newsletters for them, it’s done. That’s basically a year’s worth of content that will continue to work year after year. The key to the newsletters is to brand the merchant, not the business. You want them to get to know the business owner personally because that brands loyalty.

You can do the work yourself, or find someone to do it for you and outsource it. I don’t make much per client campaign when I do this, but it gets me in the door to offer other services that are even more lucrative for me. Here’s another important point to cover with them when I am selling this newsletter service. I always let them know that they can hire a copywriter for an exorbitant fee, do it themselves OR hire me to do it for them. I’m far less than a copywriter would normally charge, and I have a vested interest in their success. Once you get that across to them, it becomes an easy decision for them to just hire you for that too.

Search engine marketing/optimization

There are literally tons of methods you can use to drive new customers through their front door. Articles, press releases, videos, audios and on and on. This is all magic to most business owners. They don’t understand SEO and more importantly, they don’t want to. They will hire you to do it for them though. They have no problem paying someone to do the things they don’t understand, or just don’t want to do themselves. (That’s why they hire employees, after all.)

Here’s a word of warning on providing SEO for local businesses. I’ve had several students that went this route and wound up putting a cap on their own potential. It doesn’t really matter if you’re charging a couple of grand a month if you can only handle two clients per month. You have, in effect, just created another job for yourself.

By doing all the work yourself you have created the very situation you wanted to avoid. You’re trading hours for money. Most marketers don’t realize this when they’re first getting set up, and are just happy to have the clients. Believe me, it’s a trap you don’t want to step into!

I made certain that I built an executive level, high touch SEO team who were willing to work with me to get my SEO services off the ground the right way. Spend your time doing your due diligence and build a team that will help you further your service reach, and take care of your clients as well. There is more than enough mark up to earn an executive level income with local SEO. Many clients were already paying two or three grand per month in pay-per-click charges, so they’re already spending it folks…. they’re just not spending it wisely.

If you can step in and offer them a hands free solution to that problem, chances are they will do business with you. Here’s an important point to cover with them. If they are currently using PPC, they can reduce their budget- spend to accommodate your SEO services. Within a few months, they won’t even need PPC anymore. Another great thing about offering a recurring service is, well, recurring income! If you set it up right, it can be a true win/win for you and the client, with an added benefit of a very lucrative hands free income for you as well!

Now you know, get out there and help a business! (While starting one for yourself!)

In a fantastic webinar we had last night about list building, Stomper Sue gave us a tip about how to get people that purchase from you to opt in to your list (because having a list is one of the most valuable assets of your business!)

“In my very first email after they purchase I give them the download link and tell them that they’ll get 4 more emails from me over the next 14 days to help them consume the product they bought. Plus I tell them how to opt-out if they do not want the emails.”

It’s that simple. Manage expectations and they’ll WANT to hear from you.

“One of the biggest things for me is how STRONG this community is…everyone is so generous, so accessible, so approachable…and that’s what makes StomperNet so valuable.”

Dr. C.K. Lin
StomperNet Member

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