Posts Tagged ‘offline consultant’

Business Blog Benefits

One very easy way to begin your offline consulting business is to offer a service to your local businesses that will have you creating blogs for them. We who are already familiar with the SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine marketing) value that blogs hold. Blogs are very easy and quick to create. In fact, if you create these small business blogs on Blogger.com (which is a Google property), they’ll get almost immediate attention paid to them.

If you’re already using ANY of Google’s accounts (Gmail, AdWords, AdSense, etc…) you can sign into Blogger with that same ID. You always have the option of starting a new account distinctly for the purpose of this business tactic. After all, Google accounts are free.

Choose the name of your client’s blog carefully. It will reflect the name of their business and be formatted something like this:

http://mainstreethardware.blogspot.com   or   http://sallysbeautysalon.blogspot.com

There are a few reasons why a blog is good for your client/customer:

• Even if they have an existing website, a blog is inherently equipped with more technically beneficial features.
• It gives them a high value backlink from an historically high site. (Thank you Google)
• Blogs equal targeted traffic.
• Targeted traffic equals leads.
• Leads equal customers.
• Customers equal a better bottom line
• Blogs do a better job at keeping them in touch with their customers.
• Blogs are dynamic and easily edited or changed to keep up with special offers and sales.

A great way to begin the conversation with your potential client, that small business owner down the road, is to ask him how he keeps in touch with his existing clients right now. If they stammer or stutter for an answer, you’re in the right place.

• Explain to them how they can stay in touch with their customers very easily and cheaply.
• Tell them about all of  the money getting benefits of a business blog.
• Educate them on auto-responders and how they can send out an e-mail blast right in the midst of a slow week or month in order to bring in more business.
• Describe how they can put advertisements on their site with a cooperative and complementary ad program with another business.

These ideas alongside your imagination and entrepreneurial spirit should give you enough to go out and start knocking on some doors or pick up the phone. There are dozens to hundreds of prospects for you to contact, depending on the population where you live; and don’t let that diminish your drive either.

You’re likely reading this on your computer, and you can therefore use that same computer to begin your search for the businesses that will ultimately make up the foundation and future of your business. The secret is to take action.

You’ve just been handed a simple, step by step method of getting a start in the offline consulting business. Pick an area to specialize in, pick a direction to take that specialty and PROVE to yourself that it’s as simple as making a choice. You CAN do this. Start today.

Selling More in A Recession

Before starting out any new business strategies in a down turned economy, it’s always beneficial to bolster your position with preexisting clients and customers. Many times there is enough business to be found amongst your existing client base for you to then finance a “new idea” or strategy that you’ve wanted to implement.  Use these strategies to shore up your financial foundation and then go looking for “new” business.

Whether your primary business is offline or online the same principles apply. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling e-books or toothpaste, applied with the right amount of preparation and presentation, these ideas can make the difference between finishing your quarter in the red or in the black.

Try these tips:

• Begin calling your “inactive” customers.
  • Determine why they’ve gone inactive.
  • Ask for the opportunity to “make it good“.
  • “Would taking care of this immediately change your attitude toward us?”
  • Fix it immediately or task someone who will follow through to completion. (Whether it brings the client back immediately or not)
• Call 20 of your “active” customers/clients and ask them make an additional (wisely chosen) purchase.
  • Make them an OTO (one time offer).
  • Offer an upgrade.
  • Offer a “value added service“, something that improves your existing relationship with them.
• Call other businesses that offers complementary products or services to yours and ask for a trade of referrals. Don’t stop with one.
  • Offer to make it an ongoing relationship that’s mutually beneficial.
  • Over deliver! Offer more referrals than you receive. It will serve you well.

Since these principles apply to either an online or a brick and mortar business, they’re perfect strategies for the Offline Consultant to keep in mind when talking to or even prospecting for small business owners. These are the types of high value free advice that will in turn have those shop owners ready and willing  to do business with you.

In fact, the more giving you’re able to be, the more you’ll have people actually asking YOU to do business with them. It will quickly establish you as an authority  and as the person that everyone will want to be affiliated with.

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How ToMake A Living By Leasing Websites

Making a good living with internet marketing is nowhere near as easy as some people would have you believe.  To grow a sound and prosperous business requires a range of skills as well as knowledge and persistence.

Usually internet marketers are involved in selling e-books, videos, home study courses, reports, membership sites, CD’s & DVD’s.  It is not often that you hear about someone earning a living by leasing websites.

How can this be?

In the operational area of consulting to offline businesses, there is a huge opportunity to do just that.  It is now well established that this is a major growth industry.  At the present time, the large majority of small businesses either do not have a web site, or if they do, it is not bringing in new business.

Enter the offline consultant…

Becoming a consultant to offline businesses dictates that you need to provide them with an effective online presence that assists them to grow their business.  In order to do that you need to weigh the options available to you.

One opportunity would be to design an appropriate web site and sell it to the business owner.  In this scenario, this becomes a one-off transaction and he becomes the owner of the site.  The new owner also has the responsibility to maintain it on an ongoing basis.

A far better option is to prepare a web site for which you remain the owner.  Then lease the website to the business owner on a monthly basis.  You then retain control and can keep things to a proper standard…  More importantly, you then start receiving passive monthly income.  This is an important consideration, particularly when starting out in this area.

As your client portfolio grows, you will have a substantial monthly income.  Of course this income will be supplemented by other products and services that you may provide to your clients, but it will remain as the strong foundation of your business.

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