Tale of the Offline Idiot – How NOT to Market Your Services

CLICK HERE TO GET LOCAL BUSINESS LURES: VOL 3

I want to share a story with you.

Yea! Everyone loves a good story, right? Well, this one’s about one of the most embarrassing things I have ever done in my business.

Why I’m sharing this with you:

I was browsing the WSO section of the Warrior Forum and found a WSO by my friend Luther Landro called “Local Business Lures Vol. 3: Tanning Salons“, which brought back this old memory I am about to share with you.

Luther’s WSO is all about how to sell your internet marketing services to a specific type of local business: Tanning Salons.

Why Tanning Salons are a good local niche to target with your services:

95% of tanning salons are independently owned, so getting through to the business owner (aka: decision maker) is a lot easier.
Their target market are generally young females who LOVE Facebook!
The majority of tanning salons are hugely receptive to social media marketing and will most likely listen to what you have to say.
Most tanning salons have a Facebook page, but are not using it to it’s fullest potential because they don’t know how!

That’s where we come in.

In his WSO, Luther’s got a pretty cool technique that involves leveraging Facebook to automatically attract and convert tanning salons into paying clients.

If you’re a local marketer, you need to pick this up now!

How I was an “offline idiot”:

In the early days or running my brand new local web design business, I was very desparate for paying clients.

I tried lots of different marketing tactics. Some worked. Some completely failed, and some were just down right stupid!

One of the most embarassing marketing capaigns I ever did was in the summer of 2009.

I made a list of some local businesses in my area, and typed up a very weak sales letter pitching my web design services.

It was defenintly the worst sales letter I have ever written.

I basically opened up the letter explaining who I was and where I lived…you know, because if I told them I was a local resident then they would automatically trust me and want to hire me.

Right?

So, after the letters were written, I put them all in plain white enveleopes with the business owner’s name hand written on the front in blue ink.

I also stamped the words “CONFIDENTIAL” on the front of the envelope with red ink.

I then waited until 8pm at night when it was dark.

This meant that most of the local businesses in my area were closed, and that I most likely wouldn’t run into the owner.

I avoided human interaction at ALL COSTS!

I stuffed all of my letters into a cardboard box and drove around town taping these evelopes to the front doors of the businesses.

I thought this little “scotch tape” masacre would bring me more new clients than I would handle, but…I was wrong!

I got ZERO clients from that little campaign.

Why this was stupid:

Well for starters…it wasn’t very well planned out. It was kind of a spur of the moment idea I had at the last minute.

But this happens to be one of the most embarrassing marketing techniques I have ever tried because I now have to face these business owners every day.

They know that I am the one who taped a confidential sales pitch to their front door after business hours.

They know that I am the one that pretty much told them that they should give me $1,000 so I could build them a website for no other reason than that I was a “local guy”.

I became that “annoying” vacuum sales person over night.

Instead, I should have gone about getting clients an entirely different way…

What I should have done:

First off, I shouldn’t have came acrosss as desprate. That is a huge killer. NEVER come across as desprate…even if you really are.

I should have automated my markting techniques so that I brought leads into my marketing funnel at all hours of the day…even when I was sleeping.

I should have had a system in place that eduacted and followed up with thes leads on my behalf…automacitcally.

I should have taken the time to think about what these businesses are already doing for marketing, soI could speak their language.

If I had implementing what Luther talks about in his Local Business Lures products, I would have saved myself a lot of time and made money alot faster.

Conclusion:

So, I hope you enjpyed the story and learned something from my misery

Don’t forget to check out Luther’s WSO. It’s got some really smart techniques for how to approach businesses the RIGHT way.

I’ll talk to you soon!

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-Peter Beattie