So you want to be an ‘offliner’ and sell your valuable IM knowldege to small to medium sized businesses in your local area? Kudos to you for the want and desire, but I have a question for you…

DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO SELL?

Now some will have you believe that you have to treat this just as any other sales type of job. From used cars to Amway and Herbalife, from encylopedias to vinyl siding, many a person has made a comfortable living making sales.

I am not knocking those who have a strong sales background like this, but it is a numbers game. If you can hit 300-400 prospects a week, and you continually work on your presentation, you might get 5-10% conversions. Depending on what you are selling and your cut, that is probably a great week.

But that is NOT really relevant in the offline world. And it may work for a short time (on the low end customers), but you certainly can’t build a business on it.

First off, with the above ‘pray and spray’ approach you will run out of prospects within a month in a reasonable sized city (probably quicker in small communities). So what happens after you cold call everyone in town and get your 5-10%? Go back and hit them yet again?

I am not a fan of cold calling, one because I hate it and I feel intrusive, and secondly because you are trying to sell a service that is completely custom to each business, and trying to ’sell’ that over the phone is futile at best.

Read the rest of this entry

So we are approaching the Summer of 2008 and the US economy is dropping faster than Tommy Lee’s pants. And here we are smack dab in the middle of trying to get business owners to spend money with us to better their business (and of course better ours at the same time. Read the rest of this entry

As a local small biz consultant one of the most lucrative things you can do is hold a seminar. Why? Where else can you get a group of small business owners all in one place listening to you?

“How can I go about doing this?” you are asking yourself. Well, it’s not as complicated as you may think… Read the rest of this entry

The local directory/portal business is just that, a real business. You will be working with places in your own town, and your reputation is at stake. Always present yourself in a professional manner, at all times!

For those who don’t live in sprawling metropolis’, word travels fast, especially bad words. If you act like an ass or piss off the wrong person, well, you know how it goes. Read the rest of this entry