Offline Consulting : Step by Stepby Ryan Shaw

Table of Contents

1. Introduction2. Ten Ways to Acquire Local Businesses as Clients3. Running a Successful SEO Service4. Services to Offer Small Businesses5. Do you need your own Consulting Website?6. Case Study: Create a Local Viral Fan Page7. The Story Begins Now For You

1. IntroductionI have talked with a few internet marketers that are selling or wanting to sell their services to local businesses and it seems that we all have one thing in common.

Most of us have the technical skills needed to offer services to business owners, but we don't have the sales skills or we are not motivated enough to pick up the phone and contact them.

So, I thought about this for a while and then it hit me.

Neither do you need technical skills or massive sales skills.

You do however need some common sense, motivation, and belief in yourself that you can really HELP small business owners.

If you haven't gotten your first offline client yet, don't worry. You need to start small and build on your successes and also learn from your failures.

Having small successes to start off with will build your confidence and help you land bigger clients that pay massive money!

One client can literally help you quit your job; at least it did for me!

In this quick, easy to read ecourse, I'm going to highlight 10 ways to get a new offline client for your business. Pick at least 3 that you can use in your business starting today!

I've done over $500,000 in sales in just 18 months selling services and products, but it all started somewhere, and this is it.

Here is some quick advice.

When you start to look to acquire clients, focus on ONE niche and ONE product. Don't take the next two months to figure out what businesses to target and what to offer them.

Decide TODAY of what niche you feel most comfortable selling to and what service you would feel most comfortable and confident in offering them.

This way, you don't waste time in the beginning and you will quickly learn what methods are best to acquire some clients.

Another Tip. Visit my website http://ryanshaw.me to get access to my video trainings, and webinars. Make sure to subscribe to my email list for the latest information!

2. Ten Ways to Acquire Local Businesses as Clients

If you are brand new, I recommend you use the following method to get the quickest results possible:

#1 Zone of Influence / Referral Marketing / Warm Approach

This was the real beginning for my business and it should be for yours! I know you know at least 200 people. Heck the average person on Facebook now has 500 friends. Now, write down those people that are business owners or that could use a website. Write down those those people already have a website and find ways to help them promote it or make it better.

Simply contact them via email or phone and let them know you are starting a new business geared to helping small business owners get more business using the internet.

Tell them it would mean a lot to you if they would help you out if they just TRIED your services. If you need to, explain that you are SICK of your job and are really looking for a way out.

Even if they say they aren't interested, you can always ask for referrals from them as well.

Here's the exact script!

Hi John,

I wanted to ask you a favor. As you may know, I've recently started a new business helping business owners with their online marketing.

Do you know of any business owners that I can reach out to talk with?

[Insert Your Why]

Your “why” should be your strongest emotional reasons for starting your business. Such as sending your kids to college because you never got the opportunity or leaving the corporate world to spend more time with the family.

All of my first clients came from using this method. Now, I was new and I didn't have outsourcing in place yet. My services weren't as good as they are today either. In fact,

they were pretty bad!

My first client, I built his website and created a logo and postcards for his business. I charged what was a pretty cheap price of about $500 for this.

I did everything myself and it took me a long time! I wasn't very good or quick. Here's the results.

This was a simple Wordpress blog. Nothing real advanced here.

I did the top banner and logo myself which took me a long time to set up just right using Photoshop. You can also download Gimp for free to do this.

From then on, I would head over to Digital Point Forums and outsource it for $10. Now we can use Fiverr thankfully!

95% of the time, the results were a better quality than I could deliver myself!

After a while of doing that, I found a couple people I like and I just email them when I need something. Now it takes me just a minute to get that done instead of a couple hours.

I would rather much pocket the profit myself. Wouldn't you?

Ok, so I created a simple website. What if you don't have technical skills to do that?

You can outsource that as well!

If you have a Host Gator account, you can setup Wordpress in just seconds using a little thing called Fantastico De Luxe, you can also use Quick Install or any other software like it.

You simple click on Wordpress and it will install it into any directory you choose. You then have a website up and running in just seconds! It's so much easier than the old days of HTML!

Ok, so now we made out first website. What other services could we offer??

What about SEO? This service is monthly and can help you really make a residual income if done right.

When I first started out learning about SEO, I started using Pauls & Angela's Backlinks. These things are cheap and pretty easy to use. Not only that, they got me some good results!

My next client, I got a chance to test out these links. I ended up ranking for the keyword “HVAC Duct Design” and getting a page one listing on Google. There is a good amount of traffic for this keyword and this led my client to a couple nice sales to his business worth over $2,000.

As you can see about, I also optimized his homepage for that keyword as well as for his company name.

This I did for $100. Really raking in the dough right?? Well, not quite.

However, getting some small clients to begin with will build your skills, experience, and confidence and start building you a nice portfolio!

#2 Send 10 Personal Emails Per Day

Ok, I admit it. I don't like calling up business owners cold. In most cases, it's bad

timing for them and it doesn't make it easy to sell them something when they are not willing to listen!

Many times, they just don't want to be bothered and I'm always looking for a way of the least resistance.

They NEED your services, it's just a matter of getting them to listen to you!

However, I'm not saying to never call business owners. Please do! It works!

In any case, here is a great way to get in front of hundreds of prospects a month offering your services without rejection.

Visit Google Maps and start visiting your local business listings. You can start with really any type of business. Salons, restaurants, doctors offices, etc. Take a look at their website and see where you can help them out.

Visit their website and contact them via email. Believe it or not, I actually get positive results from this! It's quick and easy and you can quickly send out 10 of these emails a day. Just use a simple script and copy and paste in most cases.

What can you offer an existing website??

Here are just some of the services you can offer them:

− SEO− New Updated Website / Graphics / Logos− Video Marketing (Youtube) – Using a flip camera, Iphone, Animoto.com− Email Marketing (I use Constant Contact for Businesses)− Social Media Marketing (Facebook and Twitter)− Press Releases

I charge anywhere from $100 - $2000 per month for my services. The good rule of thumb is to try to automate and outsource all the monthly services and leave yourself with 80% profits.

To sell these packages, I give them the normal price and then my discounted price for bundling!

I tell them that I will package it all together for a cool monthly price of $247! It sounds like a great deal for them since altogether it would normally be $500 per month.

Figure out what the monthly costs are to you to do the services and see if this price

works for you. It does for me especially as I build my client list, my profit ratio increases greatly.

This is using outsourcing for most of these tasks. I will write up an occasional consult with them or show them a report, etc, but the more you can automate using software and outsourcers, the more money you will make.

I outsource the graphics and website coding as well as the SEO.

So in reality, all I am is the middle man for the business owner. I'm their consultant who makes sure they have all the tools, services, marketing they need for their business to grow.

The expert designers, coders, and online marketers that do the work for me are working now for $5 on Fiverr or $5 - $15 for designers & coders at the most.

So, why wouldn't I outsource to people that do a better job than me and save me time to get NEW clients!

That's the key! Focus 60 – 80 % of your business on getting new clients. Outsource & automate the details!

Do THIS, and you will constantly be getting new checks coming in!

So, as you get new clients coming in, will you forget about your old ones?

I hope not!

Even though the work for the clients is being outsourced, it is still your responsibility to keep up your relationship with the business owner and share with him or her what you are doing and what increases or benefits they are getting from using your service.

It's also a very good idea to continue to get referrals and offer upsells to them. Give them value and consult with them on how you can help them grow their business further. I find many small business owners are completely clueless on how to market their business. So even someone with limited marketing knowledge knows a ton more than they do.

SEO for instance is a hard thing for a business owner to understand or care about.

Simply, explain what you do each month for the business. Send a monthly traffic report and SEO report each month. This isn't always necessary, but it goes a long way to showing you care and want results for the business owner.

Simply by showing you care will help you retain those clients longterm.

Who should you use to outsource?

I prefer to outsource the coding and graphics to someone in India although I have had success with using people from the Philippines and Pakistan.

Test out different people that you find on Digital Point Forums, Warrior Forum, Fiverr, and Odesk.

Keep their contact information on Skype and email to get quick access to them. If someone isn't working out for you, always have a backup ready to step in and get your assignments done. Give out test assignements and always be looking for better help because there's a ton of talent available to you. Always be hiring outsourcers!

Important: DON'T pay until they give you the work and you are COMPLETELY satisfied with the exception of Fiverr.

For the SEO, I have use many methods with varied successes. I will create a special section for this topic later in this course.

Ok, so you contacted everyone you knew and went through who they referred you. You are sending out emails daily to get responses from interested business owners.

What else can you do to start getting new clients?

#3 Contact Local Non-Profit Groups / Get INVOLVED with the community!

• Join your local chamber of commerce• Start a Non-Profit Group• Join a Non-Profit Group• Ask a Non-Profit Group if they need help for their website, FB page• Do a barter with a local business• Volunteer for local events and meet business owners• Ask the chamber if you could do a seminar about Internet Marketing; pick one

specific subject such as Social Media or the importance of using an email list

There are many ways you can get involved with your community. By doing so, you become well known by your target market. Business Owners!

*If you are interested in doing a seminar, the chamber can help you. You may also

want to promote it using Craigslist Events, newspaper ads, and more.

You may also want to join other networking groups in your area.

Try some of the following:

− Local BNI Chapter (Costs around $400 to start, but works well, you must attend every meeting. Once a week)

− Search Meetup.com for local groups. Usually free or a couple bucks per meeting

− Start your own local Meetup.com Group!− Join local chamber or join multiple ones− Your local Rotary Club

Hint: Once you join the chamber, you can get access to their entire list of local businesses. They then should be able to send that to you in a spreadsheet.

With this information, you can either call, email, or direct mail then. I prefer doing all methods. The more exposure to your name, the better!

Ok, so who will be calling these leads??

#4 Hiring one or two appointment setters

Ok, now that you are established as a legitimate business and have started building your portfolio, it's time to start scaling it up.

You can do everything yourself, but do you really want to?

How do you hire sales persons? First, you want to get an appointment setter. A good one should make 3 or 4 appointments per day and have them work 100% on commisssions.

This is actually very easy to setup.

Here's a sample ad from Craigslist that I used with success.Title: Appointment Setter

I have a web consulting company ( Rhino Web Consulting)

http://www.rhinowebconsulting.com

I need someone to set B2B Business Appointments in south and central NJ.

$10 per appointment + 20% Commissions.

Must have some prior sales experience, will be calling business owners with a short pitch to get a meeting in place for me to go sell them on a website and / or internet marketing services such as SEO, Social Media, Email Newsletter Systems, and much more.

This is not MLM.

There is no hourly pay.

I'm not looking for someone that HAS NO sales experience.

B2B experience is a plus.

** I'm an excellent closer and usually close 50% of my appointements so you will make money!

If you make enough calls and you have a level of skill, you will be making at least $10-20 an hour by just setting appointments. Then, you can build up your income greatly with our 20% commission pay scale which is very generous!

I'm only looking for one individual, I will hire two for a two week period and the best person will have a long-term job here at our company.

Script and basic training provided if needed.

Appointment setting is all about the amount of calls you make and how well you are with following up with interest.

Contact me back with your resume and contact information please.

Note: You may want to change it a bit, but I recommend you stick with going after “Appointment Setters” since paying them per appointment seems to work better from attracting a commission only sales representative.

Ok, now you have your ad out there.

What script should you give the person? Keep it simple!

If they are calling someone that doesn't have a website, simply ask, would you be interested in getting a website for your business?

People understand the value in having a website, however many do not understand that there is a difference in just having one and in marketing it.

Most business owners have a “brick and mortar” business where they expect people to

just come to them.

It's our job to show them the importance of MARKETING themselves effectively and using the internet is CHEAPER than traditional direct mail and newspaper ads.

How about asking the business owner that:

“Did you know that 94% of businesses are found by using the internet today? What are you doing to market your business online?”

Here's a sample script for a sales person talking to a restaurant owner that ALREADY has a website:

Get business owner on phone.

My partner and I are web consultants and we are focusing on help restaurants build their customer base using cheap internet marketing methods and keeping in contact with you customers at a fraction of the cost of direct mail.

I can teach you how to use something you already have and help it make you thousands of dollars using my proven marketing strategies which are a fraction of the cost of print and mail ads.

(Name restaurants I work for already.)

I have already helped Mud City Crab House in Manhawkin, NJ win awards (Best Crab Cakes in NJ; it was an online survey) and get press coverage in local papers.

I also work for Black Whale in Beach Haven, NJ and have doubled their visibility on Google in less than a month.

(Edify me)

I have 7 years experience in the restaurant industry and I know how to help them best and have been a local here near LBI my whole life.

I work for local charities such as Save Our Shack and Bridge Walk and want all the local businesses to not only succeed but to flourish.

Keep it ~60 seconds long

______________________________________________________

As you can see, I'm building credibility and value by having my sales person tell them about my current clients and what I have been able to do for them.

This is just an example of what you can do.

Of course, you can target any industry. I am targeting restaurants because of my experience in the industry and using the clients I already have as leverage for MORE!!

Target whatever business you feel most comfortable with and keep it simple. Don't go after 10 different niches to start because they all need different things.

Focus on one and it will make your life much easier.

Also, I recommend going after businesses that do more than $500k per year. Less than this, businesses don't have a set marketing budget if any in most cases. I would say a good minimum is $1,000,000 per year which would be a large restaurant, lawyer, doctor offices, a small chain of businesses,etc.

Many small businesses are just an individual, that's not a good target for you. Go after companies that have at the very least 10 employees.

#5 Do Video Reviews

It's free. So... why NOT?? It works much better than text emails. Its been tested to get a 75% response rate. So far, I'm at a 50% myself.

The only thing you need is:

Camtasia 7

Jing (Free Version)

Google Keyword Tool

#6 Place Ads in Newspaper / Local Magazines

Keep your ad short and sweet. Include your phone number, email, and website if at all possible.

Send your leads to a specific offer in order to track it's results.

I know people get results this way and its a cheap method to employ. Not everyone uses the internet yet, so you are missing out on customers if you don't advertise offline.

#7 Joint Venture with Local Businesses

This is really a great way to get you started. Contact offline marketing agencies, printers, sign shops that deal with business owners every day and have them promote you. Local printers don't want to deal with the internet for the most part and they only deal with promoting a business offline. This is your target to joint venture with.

You can send them an email, go visit their store, or send them a postcard. It doesn't matter, just make contact!

Businesses in today's economy are LOOKING for someone like you where they can make some money on the side to stay profitable.

In exchange, give them 20% commissions per sale. If it's a residual sale, just offer them a one time commission while you collect your monthly checks!

You could also just offer them some of your services in exchange for them getting you business. That's up to you.

Also, contact sales persons in your area that are selling to businesses already. They have established contacts in the community; use them! Pay them their commission and you both win.

Another great method is find about 10 web design companies local to your area. Preferably the bigger ones.

If they don't do SEO or marketing for their clients, there's a great partnership where you get as much as work as you can handle. Especially if they have 10 or 20 new projects per month!

#8 Place your business cards/postcards/brochures EVERYWHERE

It's a very cheap way of getting your business out in the community.

I place them everywhere I find a place for them.

Head over to Staples and buy some business card holders for a $1 and just buy them all up!

Imagine that your business cards are in 100 local businesses. That's a lot of extra

exposure for just a few cents up front.

#9 Talk to Business Owners you see all the time

This idea is simple. When you go to get your hair done, drop off your dry cleaning, visit your doctor, just simply tell them that you help businesses get new customers using the internet.

Businesses you already do business with have an obligation to keep you as a customer and listen to you, use that to your advantage. You also have a trust factor in place because you give them money.

This usually opens the door to further discussion and questions about what you do!

#10 Look at who's paying for offline ads

Pick up your local newspapers. Look to see who's spending money on color ads.

Find out if they have a website. Is there a service you could offer them to increase their business?

If so, find out how to contact them and do so immediately.

Getting in the mindset of always doing this will give you a constant flow of new prospects coming into your business.

3. Running a Successful SEO ServiceI recommend you first head over and get your SEO Certification. It's completely free at the following website and it teaches you everything you need to know and more.

I completed the course in a couple days myself.

On completion of the course, you will get a certification that you can use to build your credibility and show off to business owners! Hang it in your office!

The link is: http://www.seoinpractice.com/

Here's my certification:

I also recommend following the latest SEO strategies and avoid blackhat techniques. The latest is having a combination of natural backlinks, social interaction, and high quality content on your site for higher rankings. Its really half science, half art.

I also highly recommend investing into the Rank Tracker Program. Try the suite for free. It has complete functionality to run all your websites through. You just can't export the results on the free version.

That can be obtained through that link as well.

Also, get a trial of Market Samurai. I just started using it; it's awesome! It has rank checker, keyword research, and much more built in with a bunch of features. It's easy to use as well.

The great thing about offline clients is that the competition is very low in most cases and you don't need many links at all to rank #1 for multiple keywords on Google.

Check out my blog (http://ryanshaw.me) for resources on who to use from Fiverr to get backlinks.

4. Services to Offer Small BusinessesFree 30 Min Marketing Consultation ($100 Value)

− I will help you get the right mindset in marketing online

• We will get inside your customer’s mind and deliver what they want

• We will discover your unique selling points and strive to relay the benefits to your customers

SEO Listing Services

− #1 Results on Google,Bing,Yahoo

− Get listed in 10,000+ Directories online (Outsource this for $20)

− Listings in Local Business Searches and Google, Yahoo Maps, Yellowpages, Yelp (Easy to do yourself or outsource it)

Compare at $99-$1500+/month

** I charge usually around $199/Month, $399/Month, $799/Month for my 3 packages. Having 3 packages seems to be the best strategy for pricing.

Affordable Effective Website Solutions / Graphic

-Full Functional sites

-Provided content on request

-Best Copy to Funnel Potential Customer to Buy

-Custom Graphics, Logos, Templates, Designs

Pricing at $500-$3,000+ ($80 - $95 per hour.)

Visit my website http://ryanshaw.me to get some outsourcers contact info , get access to my video trainings, and webinars. Make sure to subscribe to my email list!

Pay Per Click Advertising

-Monitor Advertising online daily

-Target a certain demographic, area (25 miles of business) and use their credit card / account for billing

-We will set up where you want to advertise and how much and for what

-Get a My Client Center account with Google and become a member of Google Engage to get free coupons

-Get Google coupons on Fiverr, maybe even FB coupons

-Start at $99 / month for managing their account

Note: You can do Facebook and Google PPC here.

Article & Press Release Marketing

− Get seen by a larger audience and drive more people to your site.

− Get your articles picked up by blogs, news sites, and much more!

− Use Fiverr to get it written and submitted to free PR sites.

I use PRWeb(http://www.prweb.com/) and Webwire (http://www.webwire.com/)when doing press releases.

Note: I usually only offer this service to bigger clients.

For more exposure, I visit all the local newspapers websites and get the emails of reporters and the editor where I send the press releases manually as well. This service can really be a great money maker!

Video Marketing

- Be seen on the new TV! Video Marketing is highly effective and can be used for your website to capture your audience!

- Custom Videos such as a 30 second ad clip of your business seen on Youtube, and many more video sharing sites

- Will also be seen on the top 50 social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and Stumble Upon. (Note: I like to use a program called OnlyWire to do this in just a couple seconds)

Here's an example of a cool video you can create with animoto.com and charge $500 for it. It looks so professional and only takes two minutes to create!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAbR4ndVlQE

Email Marketing

- Keeping in contact with your customers is VITAL

- If you do not have an email list, I urge you to start right now. The money is in the list!

Note: I use Constant Contact usually for small businesses because its easy to import their database of emails they may have already and they give you great templates to build an email that looks good.

Detailed Reporting (Use Google Analytics and setup auto monthly reporting for the client)

-Find out where your visitors are from in the world

-Find out where your visitors go to and from your site

5. Do you need your own Consulting Website?

It's actually not necessary. People don't care about your website, people want to have their own website looking good and converting for them.

If you show that you have other clients and you show what you did for them, that's enough for your potential new customer.

However, as you build a business, you should invest in a website so you can generate new leads to it using the internet and offline methods of marketing.

Important: DON'T pay until they give you the work and you are COMPLETELY satisfied.

I have outsourced work and I thought since they did a good job the first time; I'll pay them ahead of time.... Wrong! It's been two months and I still haven't heard from that person regarding my job....

It seems to work that way especially with coders that you may outsource. Have someone check their job before you pay them. Make sure everything works and its the way you want it!

Your websites reflect on you and will help land you future clients. Make sure they look the best!

6. Case Study: Create a Local Viral Fan PageFacebook Fan Pages : Local Fans Revealed!

I first created a Facebook fan page called “Blond Jokes” and invited all of my friends to join. Currently, this fan page has over 3,000 fans without any paid promotions of any kind. I added some jokes to it and people started interacting and adding their own!

Well, I didn't make any money from it, but I saw the potential for viral traffic using Facebook fan pages.

Although I know I can create a fan page like “I LOL too much” and get thousands of fans to join, I wanted to think of a way to target local Facebook users to join my page.

What I did was I started thinking about the top and controversial local news related issues in my area.

This is what I came up with:

There is an old building that everyone refers to as “The Shack.” It's a landmark and brings up fond memories of my area. Many people want to save it and many people want it to rot! There was my hot topic.

I simply created a page entitled: SOS: Save Our Shack!I was hoping I would feed on the interest and the controversy of the idea of saving it.

Well, I invited all my friends to it and I started running an ad campaign to it. I spent a total of $35 and today, I have over 10k fans today; most of which I got after just a month of starting the fan page.

Take a look for yourself!

As you can see, I went from 0 to 6,000 fans in just two weeks!

Http://www.facebook.com/saveourshack

What also is really exciting is that they are all from local areas. Most of which are within 20 miles of my home. What a great local market to hit for your services!

Now, it's vital when you start a fan page like this that you stay true to what the fan page is about. To work in my offer, I would promote it saying that I will offer my services and donate a percentage for rebuilding the Shack.

Note: We are actually trying to rebuild this “Shack” and are raising real money!

What was amazing is that business owners in the community and important people locally started contacting me!!

What was even better was that my fan page became so popular that everyone I asked about it seemed to have heard about it!

What was even better than that was that I was published in ALL the local papers!!! Guess what, they put a link of the fan page and the website in the article and that linked back to me!

Then, emails and phone calls started coming my way on how they needed website consulting and online marketing services that I offered all due to this simple fan page!

WOW! That's it, go out there and find an issue in your community and start a RIOT!!!

7. The Story Begins Now For YouIt's simple, contact enough business owners with your vital internet marketing services and you have a thriving business.

Ask yourself right now: How many business owners have I contacted over the past month about my services; either directly or indirectly.

This will give you a good idea of what your results should be. Just like with selling a product, you won't make a sale every time.

Email and direct mail should give you a return of just 1 – 3%. That's why when you start out, go after people you know and referrals for a much higher chance for success. Then, branch into networking meetings and hiring an outside sales rep. Doing this in order will help build your business at a good pace and keep you excited as you land new clients every month!

Now, since I manage a few sites, I am able to put my website link on them. It gives me a chance to advertise for free.

Make sure you put your contact information or website on every website that you do!

I landed a $2,000 sale of a new restaurant website which I will outsource it for $400 and do about an hour of work for a nice $1,600 profit. This was due to my website link being on a clients site. So, market yourself through your customers!

As your business begins to build, keep asking for referrals from your clients and offer them upsells and make sure they are happy first!

If you don't ask, you won't receive!

By not ASKING for referrals, you can easily miss out on thousands of dollars. Never hurts to ask, people naturally want to help you succeed since you are helping them succeed.

If you are serious about working from home in an industry that is thriving and will continue to grow over the next 10 years, take advantage of this course and start applying what you learned today!

Once you start having success in offering internet marketing services, maybe then go back to offering products such as this course. This way, you will have multiple streams of income and you can build a solid base for your business because it will have it's ups and downs!

To Your Success,

PS. Visit my website http://ryanshaw.me to get access to my video trainings, and webinars. Make sure to subscribe to my email list for the latest information!

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