A year or so ago, I decided to follow Dan Kennedy’s
advice and go where the money is. So, I shifted my
primary focus from Internet Marketing to the local
offline market.
Actually, I decided to split my focus, and make my
focus in the IM arena, working as a joint venture
broker, since I have built up a substantial “rolodex’
over the past 14 years online.
A week ago, I found myself telling a local business
owner who wanted me to help him get more business
through his website that I couldn’t take on any new
clients right now. I was at capacity until I
scaled a little more… something I’m currently
working on… getting more organized and hiring a
few full-time outsource workers (non-contract).
I’m talking about clients who come my way with
$18-$20k jobs.
Here’s how I got to that point…
I first heard about much of offline stuff from
David Preston. He attended a local beach-front
networking gathering that I sponsored in 2008.
I announced it on the Warrior Forum 
After studying David’s materials, and encouraging
him to get more active in the WF community, I
discovered and devoured Andrew Cavanagh’s
materials.
It was about that time that I decided to get
more active in my local chamber of commerce, so
that I could more easily meet local business
people without needing to go door to door looking
for local businesses that could use my Internet
Marketing expertise.
Then I discovered Maria Gudelis, who was
actually a member of my Internet Marketing Inner
Circle private membership site. I discovered that
she had actually earned $50K in her FIRST offline
consulting job, so I began to pick her mind and
study her materials.
About the same time, I discovered Tim Castleman’s
system, and went through his materials several
times.
Each of these experts approached things slightly
differently, and each of their systems worked
for their styles, and for the segments of the
market that they chose to go after.
That’s an important factor. When you get into
the offline consulting world, you have to
decide which specific types of clients you are
going to seek as clients. I believe that you
should somewhat specialize.
I’ve evolved to where I prefer clients that have
jobs in the $18 – $20k range, and have discovered
that there are plenty of them.
I somewhat lucked into the sub-niche that I
serve. A year or so ago, a Glazer-Kennedy
Insider’s Circle group formed in my city. I
attended the very first meeting and decided to
join the group… one of the best decisions I’ve
ever made.
A good percentage of my local consulting clients
have come from that group, where meeting after
meeting, I’ve been introduced at the Internet
marketing expert… and I’ve offered lots of
useful ideas and tips during meetings.
Many of the “serial entrepreneurs” in the group
have tons of websites that are under-performing,
or that they have done absolutely nothing with.
I’ve met with many of them over lunch or for a
cup of coffee at a local Starbucks. Business
relationships just evolved naturally, without
me really having to force them.
The next “natural” step is for me to turn to
existing clients and ask for referrals. If they
are happy with the help that I’ve provided them
they will refer other business people that they
know.
My thing is that I don’t want to take on more
clients than I can manage. I’m managing the
growth of my business…and have often considered
dropping out of the joint venture brokering
business altogether. However, the JV brokering
business is something I do where I also can
outsource much of the laborious part… so no
need to drop it yet.
I manage each project using the online project
management system BaseCampHQ. It works great!
http://timic.org/BaseCamp
One other neat thing that happened recently…
Check out this site:
http://marketingfortheneweconomy.com/
That was a half-day workshop that the local
GKIC “independent business advisor,” the local
newspaper owner, and I put on… where we
invited the entire local chamber of commerce
membership, plus members of several local
chambers of commerce.
We offered to do this for our local chamber as
a member service, to teach them to better market
their businesses. Since it was a benefit for
chamber members, we managed to get the chamber
to email and mail their entire database, inviting
attendees (we covered the expenses involve in
the mailings). We also got GKIC chapter members
to invite their friend who ran businesses.
With really minimal effort, we filled a nice
sized room, hosted a workshop that got rave
review, and met a ton of our ideal clients.
How easy can that be
So, when you read those promotions for “offline
gold” or local business consulting, and you
wonder if it’s all that it’s cracked up to be,
the answer is that it is for me! It took a
while to build up the momentum, because of
the way I chose to approach it.
The thing is, local businesses have money
already allocated for promotion their businesses
and all you’re really doing is pointing out
to them that they’d be better off spending
at least some of that money with you. The
results that they get from spending it with
you is easily measurable, and you deliver
results much cheaper than things like
yellow pages display ads.
It’s a great time to be an Internet
Marketing expert!
Willie
By the way, the system the I use most closely
follows the process taught by Maria Gudelis here:
http://timic.org/OfflineSecrets
Tags: Andrew Cavanagh, BasecampHQ, David Preston, GKIC, Glazer Kennedy Insiders Circle, Maria Gudelis, Offline Gold, Tim Castleman