Great point daj,

I had a lab testing company called anylabtestnow a franchise I was working with and we not only had gotten the first spot we had the first 8 spots out of 10 on google for lab testing in lancaster.

They called me up to let me know the company had gotten a number of calls for DNA testing when they had hardly gotten a call in the 5 months they'd been open.

Another called to say thanks b/c they had gotten their first sale for a piece of furniture on their website.

They didn't have a website before- I created the site free as part of signing up for my portal. The website was nothing fancy http://wickerimportsonline.com but the site was set to work with the search engines to get leads to their site.

I hope that helps,

John

I also forgot to mention that taking over local markets on the search engines isn't to difficult.

Because we are so used to using keywords such as making money online, or forex or whatever where as the keyword hunting in lancaster or appliance in lancaster pa etc are still wide open for someone to take over because many of those websites aren't optimized or aren't optimized correctly.

Plus I share with the businesses that google isn't the only game in town there is still yahoo and msn and a couple of others such as youtube which can still provide pretty decent traffic.

Just knowing a little of what we know such as meta keywords, meta description, etc can dramatically affect the positioning of their website in the search engines many look at you like you're speaking a different language and quite frankly to them you are speaking a different language so I take the time to explain this to them or in some cases they just look at me and say I really don't want to know this that's why I'm going to be using you-great.

Plus just providing that little bit of an update to a site causes a site to increase in the rankings plus the search volume isn't the same because you are dealing with pretty specific keywords.

I hope that helps,

John

I was just getting tired of seeing so many "how to" stuff and wso's and how to do this or how to do that and within 30days you'll have made x amount.

If you just went out today and offered to provide a free video commercial and you'd upload the commercial for for them for free to YouTube I'm sure you'd have at least 1 business who would talk to you or say ok, I know I'm doing that now and that really works.

I then mention that instead of just uploading the video to youtube you could use a free service called tubemogul.com which uploads their video to youtube plus a number of other sites for FREE.

I had one business have their business consultant contact me and we went thru a number of generic techniques and he was the supposed online business expert and tried to "trip me up" but after answering a few of his
questions and providing a bunch of good information for free he started to have a turn in his thought.

He then told his client that my services were a steal and recommended me to several more of his clients.

Remember people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care and I was genuine in wanting them to have success.

I'd access do you have a video ad on youtube? most did not, actually only 1 had a youtube video and he was getting traffic from the youtube video but guess what-he hadn't updated his video in over 6months!!!

Instead of waiting 30days and writing 30 articles etc. you could have money in your hands today by just going out and talking to businesses you really have no idea how much you stand to help or benefit these businesses with the knowledge you have- we take a lot of what we know for granted.

Started getting a return on your investment in your internet education.

Remember http://lancasterpaguide.om didn't even exist when I started talking to businesses I just mentioned the idea and that the site was being developed which was why they should get in now at my pre launch special.

Have a great morning and go out there and make a difference for these businesses and yourself!!!

To your success,

John

Thanks flnz400, but seriously anyone can have this success by calling up a few businesses let them know you'd like to interview them for your new portal ie lancasterpaguide.com or whatever portal name you have for yourself.

When you get their ask them about their business then start asking how they advertise their business, ask them what's worked and what hasn't worked and since you are only calling on businesses that are advertising in the newspaper, tv, radio or the coupon magazine you already know the answer to a couple of their questions.

From there ask if they have a produced any ads for youtube, if not ask why haven't they or at least why haven't they considered that idea since youtube know comes as a standard icon on most phones so that you can quickly views videos while you wait in line.

Ask if they have a google blog, msn blog, yahoo blog, myspace page etc, because all those services are FREE and can get them exposure for their business.

You are at this point starting to build big time creditability in their eyes so continue to ask questions such as have you considered any of these, don't forget that yellowpages.com and yellowbook.com are trying to market their services to these businesses for $100+/mo for X clicks nothing else and who's to say they don't have some kid in the back just clicking your link?

Starting to get the idea, have a great day-now go out there and make some money and a business happy

John

Here is a sample of a video I just created for an eye doctor that took about 15minutes total to develop and upload to youtube.

YouTube - Kissel Village Eyecare In Lancaster PA
Download video!

The software I used to create this was animoto.com and it's FREE if you keep your videos less than 30seconds.

I am off to several more appointments today-wish me luck!!!

John

I am just getting back, I had one appointment today and 1 sale for $799, this is a local gun shop who's ad I heard on the radio.

I called them up yesterday and set an appointment for today, we went over what he was doing and he had shared with me he had just recently stopped his yellowpage advertising because they were charging him $600/mo. and he wasn't getting results.

As we were talking I had mentioned to him about Myspace and he said he had heard of the site but didn't know anything about Myspace, within a few minutes one of his customers had asked him if he had a Myspace page-I honestly couldn't have timed that better

He just looked at me and I didn't say a word, I will be putting his video up on youtube this evening and will post the video on this post to review.

Honestly guys, this isn't hard. I am not a hunter, I don't shoot guns or arrows but I know people.

Until yesterday I didn't know this business and today they are a client-YEAH!!!!

Go out and make a friend in the business world and you just might make a sale before the day is done-I did.

To your success,

John

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnSpangler When I started back on August 19th I had been out of work for over 2months with no prospects of a "good job" so I had read Andrew Cavanagh's inspirational post he provided around this time last year and thought what do I have to lose. So without a portal, without any money, without really any idea of what I was doing I started setting up appointments with local businesses with an idea I had on how I may help their business. I started with businesses who were already advertising in the local coupon books because the ads in those magazines I found out ran around $500/mo and went out to roughly 40k people. So I let the businesses know that my portal was in development "which it was because I was waiting for a couple of checks to buy one of Rick's portal portaldomination.com" so since the site wasn't up yet I would give them a better deal. What I found was when you honestly give to these businesses and I really did, during the time I spoke with these businesses I gave them so much FREE information that I know they had to be thinking jeez if he's giving me this much free information I wonder what I'll get if I go with this guy. I averaged about 2hrs per client to really understand their business and how best my solution will help them- I didn't even have a checking account for the business so I had to get the businesses to go online AFTER I left to pull out their credit card and pay me online for a site that wasn't even up in the hopes that my site will be a solution to their problems. But I did have an ace in the hole and that was I was LOCAL, these businesses loved the fact I wasn't just a salesperson I was the owner and I gave my cell phone and insisted that if they had any issues to call my PERSONAL cell and I'll handle the problem myself. I used the big business tactics against corporate america because how many times when you have a complaint you and you call a phone number are you greeted with press 1 for this press 2 for that etc Here they had a local person who answers their call and answered their questions, I know once I had a number of businesses signed up and actually had a "real" portal the rest would be easy. So within the first week I had $1737 or 3 clients at $579 each so I had enough to buy the portal, pay daycare and have a little left over for the next week. The rest is history, I don't say this to gloat I say this to let folks know to stop reading these forums to find the golden ticket. If you get anything from this post get the fact you need to take action, I couldn't have been any worse off financially when I started this and by all accounts I should have failed because we are arguably in the worst recession we have seen in recent times and I am starting a business.

VERY cool John.

You've made my day.

There are a TON of things you say in this post that are worth highlighting:

# 1: You didn't wait to get a site up or for conditions to be right...you just took action by getting in contact with business owners who could hire you.

That is THE most important thing you can do.

And it paid off. In the first week you had $1737 or 3 clients at $579 each.

Most of the people on this forum could get results like this.


# 2: You spent on average 2 hours per client taking the time to really understand their business and coming up with solutions to help them.

Most people are in way too much of a hurry to get paid instead of really taking the time to get to know a business owner and his business.

Here's a secret: THE MONEY IN THIS BUSINESS MODEL IS MADE BY SPENDING TIME GETTING TO KNOW BUSINESS OWNERS AND WHAT THEY WANT AND NEED.

The more time you invest doing that the easier you'll find it to get hired over and over and to get referrals.

# 3: Once you realized it was a huge selling point you played up the fact that you were a LOCAL and they would be dealing with you the OWNER of the business...not a sales person.

Business owners like dealing with other business owners.

That's one of the biggest reasons it's so easy to get hired if you'll just go talk to some business owners.


# 4: You took action without spending weeks or months analyzing things to death.

You need to take action to develop the skill of dealing with business owners and get some real world experience.

Also taking action TODAY is likely to get you hired...and that's the real objective when you're starting out.


Great post.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh
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Thanks everyone and thank you Andrew!!!

You were the catalyst for my entire giant leap forward.

You gave SO MUCH great information about a year ago in your now famous post that someone could have paid a $1,000.00 for that information and you still would have under paid.

To many times we get caught up in the what's new phase and NEVER move on to the DO phase because we want that magic button that will print out dollar bills for nothing.

I am reminded of the story of the man who sat in front of the stove and said give me heat without first putting in the wood.

We are programmed to believe that we have to pay for information to be successful so when some fantastic useful and very practical advice is suggested we discount the usefulness because we didn't have to pay for it, they did a study where a man was walking up and down the street trying to give $10 a way just handing them the money-guess what no one wanted the money.

They thought there was a catch, we always think there is a catch when sometimes there is just an opportunity waiting to happen.

This recession is for our business model one of the best things to have happened to us because this is forcing businesses to think outside the box because traditional means of advertising-radio, tv, newspaper etc is just plain expensive.

By taking an honest interest in a companies success you are way ahead of the curve because the businesses need your help.

Take today, I gave Terry the owner of the business all the tools to do the job himself and he still hired me because he just didn't have the time or the desire to do the work himself.

To many times we feel we don't want to "give away" our secrets because we are afraid someone will steal our ideas when really there aren't that many secrets to success whether brick and mortar or online.

I give so many gems and secrets away during my talk that they feel very comfortable working with me because I am not trying to hide my cards I place them all face up on the table so to speak.


Kevin, glad you're in the neighborhood as well. I'd love to compare notes, thanks for your comments.

To your success,

John

PS. Thank you again Andrew for taking the time to comment because I have always been a very BIG fan of your work-Keep up the great information you provide to so many on the net-there are those who use the information and take action.

I posted your thread on lbb John and told them about the video software you mentioned.

Here is a reply I got from James.

animoto is good and have used it a fair amount for our local Greyhound group, but recently was challenged on YouTube for one of the pieces of 'Royalty Free' music that I had used. Challenged by the music creator (band). To reply to the challenge on YouTube the process includes you admitting fault before the process can continue ... so I didn't proceed. Still waiting to see if the band continues its complaint. If they succeed then ads will appear on the video in question and I will recreate the video using the service below.

After finding animoto I also found OneTrueMedia.com ... much better, in my opinion and more options. A lot more music/songs, especially with their paid subscription (which I opted for). Working on my wife's website right now (pressure is on me to get it finished, as you can imagine LOL), but a video I created using OneTrueMedia in on the front page.

Posted by Jimnopks

Quote:

Originally Posted by daddyoh Way to go John! Your town is probably a LOT bigger than mine. Mine has a population of 32,000. Do you think an online portal will work for a town of this size? I mean, how much traffic is a website in my portal going to get from a town of 32,000? I came up with a couple of ideas for other types of offline income: 1) offer to build them a website 2) offer to do some SEO work on their site 3) offer to set up an opt-in list on their site 4) offer to handle the newsletter for the subscribers 5) offer to get their business listed in "Google Business" (I think it's called) What do you think, John? Do you do any of these things as well?

There are many, many ways of making money selling your internet marketing services to local businesses.

Here's one a lot of people miss and it's a service that can stand independently of running a business portal or can be an add on service you offer.

Most brick and mortar businesses have literally thousands of people walking through their doors in a month.

Some are prospects...some are paying customers.

You can create a method of capturing the contact details of these people and follow up with them by email autoresponder with special offers, deals, education on why they should buy from the business, cross promotions with related but non-competitive businesses etc etc.

It's simple to do this using a service like Aweber but to most business owners this kind of thing is like magic and you can charge a premium price for the service plus ongoing fees for maintaining it.

Here's another one...creating online video to promote a business...it can be as simple as getting video testimonials from customers of a business and posting dozens of them on YouTube and embedding them on the website.

If you use well chosen keyword phrases to name those videos they should bring in targeted prospects.

Or you can get more sophisticated.

Either way that's a service most businesses will see as very technical that you can charge a premium price for.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Great post John. :-)

Operative words: "Once you start building success you really can write your own check."

Anyone who's new to IM should print out your post, and take it to heart.

I especially loved this:

Quote:

I have to admit I wasn't all that stoked about picking up the phone and gulp cold calling but you know what I had to or you know what was going to hit the fan. Guess what I survived, I had no script I didn't have a website all I had was the knowledge I had gained from being here in the WF as well as just being online for the last 10years.

Yes, cold calling can induce terror, but it works. And after the first few calls, it's fun.

When I teach new copywriters how to set up their business and get clients, I always recommend that they start LOCAL, and do some cold calling. (Local meaning city, state.) There's usually little to no competition from other copywriters locally, and people are eager to work with them.

It takes just a couple of hundred calls, and they're booked solid for months. They make 20 or so calls a day and by the end of a week of this they're all set, with plenty of work, and money in their bank account.

Local businesses are a gold mine. They're local, you're local: instant trust. Yes, working online is great, but it takes a while to get known online.

Over the years when I've gone through the feast and famine cycle of being a freelance magazine writer, I give thanks that I can always pick up the phone and get copywriting gigs.

If you're wondering whether YOU can do this too: if you've got a marketable skill -- you can. Pick up the phone. :-)

Cheers

Angela

Hi Everyone,

Sorry, I was doing some trainings this morning- YEAH!!!

Jimnopks- Thank you for the info I wasn't aware of onetrumedia, I'll check out their service, I have had great success personally with animoto and love the ease. They used to have some issues but I believe they've worked them out b/c I think the service is fantastic for what I do for my clients.

naruq- thank you.

momwow- for the $799 that is the inperson special I run so that they have an incentive to pay me right there on the spot. If they want to wait-most don't, then the price jumps to $999 so they'll save $200.

For that money they get my personal cell, access to me, a premium listing, 4 videos right off the bat and 1 video a month for the next year-plus I set up email for them as well as the social bookmarking and social networking sites plus 1x a month I send out a press release.

I hope that helps.

Lexiranae - thank you for the kind words.

brucerby - thanks I agree.

Bakai- You can do the exact same thing in your area, even if a number of people in your area did this you still wouldn't overlap b/c the market is just to huge.

iw433- Thanks Bill- To your success as well.

I will be uploading my newest client video for your review below.

Is your portal site the main point of your service - or are you giving that as kind of a freebie to get someone to hire you for a website or video? (I guess the video is designed to get traffic to their website, right?)

I wondered if a local portal would be seen as of value to anyone - it's not, really, until and unless you can get OTHER people visiting it.

You rock, John!

I think we were typing at the same time, John - thanks for the reply!

You give a LOT for that service - bet you could get the same money for a lot less stuff! A premium listing - is that with the 2-page website as part of it? (Took a look at that portal service you use.)

WHen you say an in-person deal - you mean if they agree to work with you right then, at your first meeting, and hand you a check, it's $799, but if they can't make up their mind or something it goes up to $999?

And now you're charging maintenance fees too? On top of that? You're doing so much already, what do they get in addition for their maintenance?

daddyoh- that is right on track, I provide all of that and then some for my clients. One of the "tricks" I show is how to get listed in the google local business directory for free and we actually do the listing right there on the spot so they don't have to wait I provide that service (since it's free anyway) for them and I walk them thru getting their listing on google-they love this!!!

I came up with a couple of ideas for other types of offline income:

1) offer to build them a website-yes ( I provide this free )
2) offer to do some SEO work on their site-yes ( I provide this free )
3) offer to set up an opt-in list on their site-yes-yes( I provide this as part of the package )
4) offer to handle the newsletter for the subscribers ( I provide this as part of the package )
5) offer to get their business listed in "Google Business" (I think it's called) (Yes-see above comments).


Thank you Christie- You are very kind, I hadn't thought about the WSO because I had just wanted to give back to the community that gave me the opportunity to start my business, so I would be able to show that YES Virginia there truly is a santa claus ( sorry it's that time of year-haha) but yes there really is someone who's doing this professionally who started with absolutely nothing and has started to build a nice business.

I couldn't have posted earlier b/c I really didn't have that many clients or that many videos produced etc but now I just cracked the $20k mark ($20,137 to be exact -yeah) and I now have 35 clients and growing.

Everything to succeed is right there online either in Andrew's post or in this post- YOU CAN DO THIS- I promise this business is not that hard.

To Your Success,

John

I'm sorry Lesley, I appreciate your patience.

Start with some of the businesses that have no website-believe it or not there are quite a few.

Let them know you created a website for their business and that you'd like to go over the site with them when would Monday morning be good or Tuesday afternoon.

You get the idea- if they say no not interested then move on if they say ok then go to godaddy and get a .info name for 99cents and create a blog website-only takes an hour-tops.

Then show them your website and mention about your youtube video which you uploaded to their site.

This is just a start there's a number of ways to start a conversation, I honestly can say I have never failed I just found ways that didn't work as well as other ways that did work

I hope this helps-the best action you can do is just pick up the phone and give freely of your skills to these businesses because they honestly need your help- even if you think you don't know anything you know more than they do, I went in to a business and they hadn't heard of myspace or facebook because as he put it he didn't care about the internet.

He went with me because he knew he needed to have a presence on the web.

To your success,

John

Your welcome Lesley,

You can do this business-you can start earning money as soon as tomorrow morning-I'd say today but it's about 2am here on the east coast and not to many businesses are open right now.

But I'm sure you could probably find some-bars, pubs, restaurants who knows just knowing what you know can prove very profitable for you moving forward.

Always try to think outside the box.

To Your Success,

John

Hi folks,

I've been reading through this thread and I have some startling news about portals for some of you.

Stop thinking like an internet marketer.

Think local.. not global.

Don't concern yourself with how much traffic the portal can generate. Don't get caught up in the "how many hits are you getting" syndrome.

Look.. which would you rather have if you were a local business owner:

1. A parade of people walking past your door.. some of which may turn their head for a quick look over of your business as they pass by.

2. People walk into your store, look around, ask questions and.. (gasp) purchase something.

I'm guessing you picked #2.

A portal should allow a business owner to generate their own traffic whenever they want.

How?

By allowing them to harness the internet and their community with what I call "the endless loop".

Want an example? OK.. here is how it works:

A deli owner gets a two page premium listing where they can interact with the community.

Their listing has all the standard faire like pictures of the deli, foods they serve, hours of operation, address, phone number, printable coupon.. etc etc.

But..

They can login anytime they want and make changes instantly.

So the deli owner gets up in the morning, has breakfast and while finishing off a cup of coffee.. logs into their listing on the portal. They change the coupon so it says..

----------
Todays Special
Captain Soldado Sandwich

* Chicken Tender strips and ham
* Melted Provolone cheese
* Black Olive , red onion
* Pesto
* Grilled seven grain Bread

Served with coffee or soda

With french fries or potato chips - $5.99
With small soup (12oz) - $6.99
----------

Then they click on the save button and the information goes live instantly.

They go to the deli, open up for business and as plastic bags go out the door in the customers hands.. each one contains a yellow piece of paper thats a bit larger than a business card.

The paper contains the following:

In todays economy, saving money is important!
Our daily special allows you to eat like a king
on a pauper budget. Our special changes daily
and it's guaranteed to satisfy your taste buds.
You can get our daily special coupon at:
http://www.tastebuddeli.com

The same blurb is printed on everything that goes out the door.. receipts, business cards, take-out menus.. etc.

Each day the special changes. Each day coupons come in. Each day more blurbs go out the door.. are you starting to see a pattern here?

The portal gives the deli owner the ability to reach his customers daily and the cost to do it is laughable.

Remember.. think local.. not global.

Richard

Incredible thread. Like most people who have commented, i want to thank you for sharing your inspirational story.

My favorite part so far is the golden nugget you have about how to set up appointments by saying you have already built them a site for free. That alone opens the door to a range of possibilities on services you can offer and its a great way to get their attention from the start.

I need to get over my fear and just start making some cold calls. Ive been saying i would do it for days and still haven't done a thing yet.

Im going for it .. wish me luck!

-MakeCash
(although im not yet) ..lol

Thanks Dennis,

I appreciate the feedback, you are right but the information is only valuable if people use this information.

If one just took the time to read this or Andrew's post you'd be on your way to your own career if this is the path you choose.

Saturday's are a great day to talk to owners so if you're reading this thread call a business and set up some appointments for this week, yes I know it's Christmas week but we still have Monday and Tuesday Thursday and Friday.

To your success,

John

Quote:

Originally Posted by MakeCash I I need to get over my fear and just start making some cold calls. Ive been saying i would do it for days and still haven't done a thing yet. -MakeCash (although im not yet) ..lol

If you're reluctant to pick up the phone and call strangers try flyers, giving out business cards, local classsified ads, or do some work for free for a friend or relative who owns a business. The latter is how I got started and I've never had to do any cold calling or promotion since.

Regards

Johan

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnSpangler Hi Everyone, momwow- for the $799 that is the inperson special I run so that they have an incentive to pay me right there on the spot. If they want to wait-most don't, then the price jumps to $999 so they'll save $200. For that money they get my personal cell, access to me, a premium listing, 4 videos right off the bat and 1 video a month for the next year-plus I set up email for them as well as the social bookmarking and social networking sites plus 1x a month I send out a press release. Follow me on twitter at Twitter / johnspangler

John,

Do you write the press release yourself or hire someone?

Also do you add content to the social networking sites for them? If so do you get the content from them or do you write it?

Last do you mind if I ask what a customer gets when they pay for the monthly program that you offer for $49.95?

thanks,
John

John,

This is great information. I'm also a very happy owner of one of Rick's portaldomination portal sites, and could not be happier with the operation and service he provides.

(At an almost embarrassing price - one of your customers will basically pay for your site)

I'm in the opposite position as you have been in. I do sales for a living, and don't have time to go out and sell my sites. But, by networking, have lined up a potential sales person to do that for me.

You and Andrew Cavanaugh have already pointed out that there are an almost unlimited range of possibilities for what those of us with a modicum of internet marketing skills can offer local business owners.

So if there are people holding back on jumping in on this because of bashfulness in the sales area, don't let that stop you.

You can find a sales person who will work on affiliate commission. Give them half the upfront sale, and maybe 25% of the residual, and you handle the back end.

Where do you find one? Well, who else is selling to local business in your area? Who sells advertising, or related services. There are many out there who already have a client base, and with a little training can add your services in easily.

If you don't have the money or confidence to take on this level of project, don't worry.

Get good at one thing that John has listed, and offer that service to others with portals.

For example, learn the video production tools that John mentioned, and offer to create videos for portal owners to use for their clients.

Could you create a one minute animoto video and blast it out on Tubemogul in 30 minutes or less? Why not offer that service for $25?

That's $50/hour, and when you get too much work, up your rates.

Perhaps someone like John could find that a bargain, and take that time to make a few more phone calls. Would he trade $25 for the time to sell another $799 site?

Well, you'll have to ask him, but I would certainly be interested.

If you live local to his area, I bet he would be very interested. I know I would be.

Or maybe you can write articles, blog posts, autoresponder messages, etc. Maintain wordpress blogs, do graphics, etc.

There are just too many things to learn starting out in internet marketing. The biggest stumbling blocks are that too many people try to do everything on their own and don't ever make headway.

They want to stay at home away from others because of any number of reasons, but that is a much tougher way to go.

People who run businesses are really under the gun to keep things going in these times. And not to be doom and gloom, but there may not be a turn around this time.

This crazy funny money/tax the productive/take no thought for the consequences system we are in cannot be sustained forever.

Only those who are resourceful and trustworthy will make it through the tough times if this is the "big one." If not, you are certainly no worse off for developing those attributes.

So thanks again John, for all you have shared, and I will PM you to introduce myself. Look forward to hearing about more of your success.

Posted by thmark

Quote:

Start with some of the businesses that have no website-believe it or not there are quite a few. Let them know you created a website for their business and that you'd like to go over the site with them when would Monday morning be good or Tuesday afternoon. You get the idea- if they say no not interested then move on if they say ok then go to godaddy and get a .info name for 99cents and create a blog website-only takes an hour-tops. Then show them your website and mention about your youtube video which you uploaded to their site.

What an idea!

Okay - I assume you're doing like a Wordpress site, just maybe a one-page deal to show possibilities, right? I mean, if you don't know anything about the business you can't really put in much info.

And how do you create a video w/o knowing much about the business or having any actual product or store photos?

Just trying to get a handle on this idea.

One way to tweak this...

You COULD just buy up a lot of .info names for your city...
BestPlumberCityState.info (or .com if its available)
BestAccountantCityState.info
BestDeliCityState.info

and put up generic info on each site. Then start calling plumbers, accountants, deli owners, etc without websites (heck, or with a site) - tell them you've built a site that they might be interested in. If the first plumber isn't interested, it's not so personalized that you can't call the next plumber on your list and make them the same offer.

I'd personalize it somewhat - say, put the business specific business name/contact info - but maybe the rest of the site could be generic.

Whatcha think, Johna & others?

Posted by momwow

If someone comes up to you and starts spouting off something like...

I've noticed that you don't have a anti-obfuscating photon refraction device.

Would you know what they were referring to?

Probably not.

Another word for an anti-obfuscating photon refraction device is: sunglasses

Most business owners don't understand much of anything when it comes to the internet.. especially when it comes to internet marketing.

You have to break it down into terms they can easily understand.

They don't know about multimedia, autoresponders, opt-in forms, call to action, etc.

They do know about video, leads, getting more customers, selling more products/services, increasing their profits, sales people, etc. These things exist in the non-internet world they live in and they can relate.

So when you speak to them.. speak in terms they can relate to. For example, don't say autoresponder.. say "get more leads". You will find that you are probably the first person to explain internet things in terms they understand and you'll see the light in their eyes go on.

Then.. they get excited.

Want to take a guess what happens next?

Richard

posted by Rick Hunter- The Portal Guy

Good point, Rick.

Part of my problem is a) not knowing how to strike up a conversation with someone and b) deciding what I really want to do to begin with (as far as what services to provide.)

Don't know if I think the portal idea is a good one or not, for example - at least as a stand-alone product offering. Need to see some more pros/cons of that model.

But seems to be working for John, although I don't quite get what he does/offers if the person already has a website.

Thank you!

Posted by momwow

With the recession hitting so hard, contractors are REALLY feeling the pinch. It's a great time to work with them. Most contractors are paying big bucks for Val-Pak (in my opinion, a TOTAL waste!) and hundreds a month for yellow page ads.

It's all too easy to set them up a website that will rank well in google and send them steady, local leads.

Another idea, you could even start a referral service for contractors and either charge a monthly fee to be in your network, or a 'per job' fee. This is similiar to what ServiceMagic does. You would check licenses, referrals, and insurance to make sure the contractors met your standards.

You can make big commissions when you start making referrals for custom built homes.

Dennis

Posted by dennishardy

Diana,

The best way is to pick up a phone and start calling contractors. Start looking through all their pricey ads that they are paying too much for, and give them a ring. With this economy, I can't imagine they wouldn't want to talk with you.

A dirty way to get their attention is to call and ask for an estimate. :-) You could set up appointments all day long. After you get their estimate, you'd say, "Oh, by the way...."

That is pretty dirty though. At least you'll already know who shows up on time for appointments!

Debra Cohen runs a business called homereferralbiz.com. I was considering a business like this years ago and talked to Debra about it. I even called about a half dozen people she had helped to get started. I couldn't find anyone with anything negative to say.

In my opinion, this could easily be a low overhead- 6 figure business in 2 years.

It would also be easy to get free press. A contractor referral network is a free service for consumers that helps them find reliable contractors that won't scam them. I know for a fact that the owners in Debra's network get tons of free newspaper press.

Ayhow, this is just a business idea that I researched a while back.

John...sorry, didn't mean to hi-jack your thread bro.

Dennis

P.S. You'd probably want about 50-60 contractors in your network. Several each of painters, HVAC technicians, plumbers, roofers, siding contractors, landscapers, custom builders, electricians, pavers, etc. The most difficult part of this business would be the setup...probably take a few months. After that, it would be a breeze to run.

Posted by dennishardy

PortalDomination Vs PHPMyDirectory?

John, I realise you are a big fan of Portal Domination, and I know one signup pays for the listing, but for circumstances that will take too long to explain, the price tag is beyond me right now. I'm keen to get this show on the road for when I go back to New Zealand, so I was looking at other options.

I was wondering what John or other Warriors thought of the above options, and would love to hear your thoughts on the pros and cons of both.

Your advice as always will be greatly appreciated!

Posted by Lesley Hunter

Leslie,

At a very minimum, reserve your domain name and get a blog up and start writing about local businesses in your area. Go and interview them and put up articles about their businesses.

If you have cold feet about that, it will give you the chance to dive in without spending money and you can see if you will follow through.

I would suspect each one you interview will ask you why, and you can tell them your plans.

As for the portal to use, if the other is dirt cheap, you can always start with it and switch over.

But Portal Domination is very well designed to get indexed quickly. I had hundreds of pages indexed before I even began to do anything with mine.

So I wouldn't skimp on it, as the cost will be trivial in the long run.

So start with your blog, get a couple of interviews up every week, send out press releases, and mainly see if you have the mettle to go out and do what John is doing.

(Also, there is a bit of set up work involved to put in your initial listings with Portal Domination. Maybe you could make a deposit and get Rick to give you the tools to do that so you are ready when you get that first sale.)

Posted by thmark

Hi Everyone,

Sorry, I had a client drop off a check yesterday-YEAH, I am now over $21k or $21,075 to be exact.

daddyoh- Dan what really motivates me is the fact there are folks over in Iraq who risk their lives every day-literally risking their lives for us here in the US, there are others who have no place to lay their head down at night while still others have no idea where their next meal will come------
and I'm worried about cold calling-that a business may hang up on me or gulp say no------you know if that's all I have to worry about then I have it pretty darn easy compared to some others so I owe it to myself and the business owners to let them know what I have to offer.

If I really believe in my heart that what I have to offer will benefit them and I'm not worried about getting paid but more worried about how I may benefit the owner with my services then everything else becomes secondary.

I really honest mean that, we have policeman, fireman, soldiers, regular folks who may have been killed in an accident or whatever but they don't have any more chances, we get a chance to start our day over whenever we want to because we are alive- I'm not trying to be coy, I really mean this especially this time of year when we are to be thinking of our fellow person.

You get a choice when you wake up to be and do the best that you can to make a difference in someones life or just skate by, I choose to help people and I am getting rewarded for my help.

It's the old pay it forward idea, I get motivated when I see the businesses using my stratagies and they have success and you will do, just talk to these businesses they won't bite and if they do, fine move on to the next business because you owe yourself the opportunity to succeed.

I hope that helps Dan,

To your succeess,

John

Hi johan-that's exactly right-just making action happen causes the butterfly affect. When you create something right wrong indifferent if your object is to benefit another human being you will succeed.

John Gottshall, thanks for the post, yes press releases are something that I write myself, yes I add the content to the sb sites as well which you can use a site called ping.fm to help and the service is FREE, and the maintenance program gets them to have contact with me plus I update their sb sites and produce more videos- I hope that helps.

Thanks BizBooks, I sent a pm back, I appreciate the post.

F1cam- thank you for the post, I really appreciate the input, I just wish people took action and they WILL have success. The law of reciprocity can't be broken, just like the law of gravity what goes up must come down, with the law of reciprocity if you provide for one that good deed comes back to you some how some way.

I just got done making dinner for the family and they're calling me to eat will finish after dinner, thanks.

To your success,

John

"Dan what really motivates me is the fact there are folks over in Iraq who risk their lives every day-literally risking their lives for us here in the US, there are others who have no place to lay their head down at night while still others have no idea where their next meal will come------
and I'm worried about cold calling-that a business may hang up on me or gulp say no------you know if that's all I have to worry about then I have it pretty darn easy compared to some others so I owe it to myself and the business owners to let them know what I have to offer.

If I really believe in my heart that what I have to offer will benefit them and I'm not worried about getting paid but more worried about how I may benefit the owner with my services then everything else becomes secondary.

I really honest mean that, we have policeman, fireman, soldiers, regular folks who may have been killed in an accident or whatever but they don't have any more chances, we get a chance to start our day over whenever we want to because we are alive- I'm not trying to be coy, I really mean this especially this time of year when we are to be thinking of our fellow person.

You get a choice when you wake up to be and do the best that you can to make a difference in someones life or just skate by, I choose to help people and I am getting rewarded for my help."
__________________________________________________ ____

^^ Another gold nugget. This right here is something everyone should think about..

We have a chance to start things all over every morning and all it takes is action. Just knowing that there are others who dont have that same chance is enough to light a fire under my you know what and it should do the same for anyone else who has read these great words. To think that i was a bit fearful to do some cold calls when there are people out there who risk their lives for US everyday.. makes me feel a bit foolish.

Well said John. Its a reminder that tomorrow is never promised.

-MakeCash

thmark- that's exactly the point [Get good at one thing that John has listed, and offer that service to others with portals.

For example, learn the video production tools that John mentioned, and offer to create videos for portal owners to use for their clients.

Could you create a one minute animoto video and blast it out on Tubemogul in 30 minutes or less? Why not offer that service for $25?

That's $50/hour, and when you get too much work, up your rates.] you're getting the idea.

momwow- absolutely...there is no wrong answer when you take action, there are no failures only learning experiences, you will find what works by working different ideas.

rick_hunter- thanks Rick, I believe everyone should invest in one of your portals, you go over an above the call of duty... great service and support.

momwow- striking up a conversation is easy, just ask them how there website is doing if they have one, if they don't let them know you'd like to go over the website you set up for them and if they agree spend 30-45min putting up a quick site-that'll get the ball rolling.

If you are earnest in helping people they know that, we are in a recession and these businesses are feeling the pinch and are very much wanting to hear any way that may help there business grow especially if it's inexpensive.

I'll follow up more in a minute,

To your success,

John

dennishardy- Thanks Dennis-great insight, I ran into a few contractors from other businesses and they are VERY interested in talking to me about producing YouTube videos for their business, I tell them right up front they could do this themselves and they almost always say the same thing-yeah but I don't have TIME- Folks we give these businesses their time back plus provide a service-thanks again Dennis!!!

momwow- Ask a contractor you'd like to see their youtube video of one of their developments-oh you don't have one-why not? have you ever considered putting up a YouTube video-let me tell you how I may help you...

marlondirk-thanks for the post-Happy Holoidays!!!

dennishardy-Dennis great stuff, more great insight-I hope people take action because all this great information is useless unless you act on this information.

Lesley Huntley-Hi Lesley, I really appreciate your enthusiasm, when I started I HAD NO PORTAL- I had nothing- I had no credit, no laptop, no website, nothing but the information in my head. I just started talking to businesses.
If they had a website I'd ask if they also had a blog- from that point they either asked what's a blog or yes I have a blog- if they asked me what's a blog I'd say I'd like to go over a blog I created for your business would Tuesday afternoon or Wed. morning be better.
If they didn't have a website at all-great I'd like to go a website I created for your store-would Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning be better.

The less you try to explain yourself on the phone the better, you want to be in front of the business owner-not on the phone explaining yourself-trust me on this one- I have yet to close anything on the phone-because you have no idea what's going on-on the other side of that phone line.

So with that said once I got my first 3 deals (which was in the first week) I was able to pay for Rick's portal so that I had a website to show businesses, pay for daycare and have a couple of bucks left over. So s wyes I'd lean towards Rick's portal b/c he's the developer and you actually get to talk to the developer of the portal on the phone plus he's provided a ton of videos to help as well.

CuzinTim- Thanks Tim, that's exactly right-but you know what, I had no idea if I'd do it I just knew I wouldn't do IT by just thinking or talking about IT, I needed to go out and talk to businesses that was the only way to ask for the order. You can't hit a homerun unless you get up to the plate and take a swing-and scratch the homerun idea-you can't even get a base hit unless you get up to the plate and if you get up to the plate enough times and take swings you just may hit a homerun or two.

thmark-thanks for the post- that's very good insight into the portal-Rick's portal generally take about a week to get everything up, but he can have your portal look up within 48-72hrs if not sooner.

Hi momwow- I wouldn't even worry about the portal till you had a few clients lined up that have paid you already-don't spend more money-you can do this business with no money at all. I have had my site up since August and I have Google coming to my site a couple of hundred times a day after 5 months and that really hasn't increased my sales as much as just picking up the phone and talking to these businesses and finding out how I may help them.

I'll be back to follow up on more posts- I have a call coming in...

To your success,

John

ebizerati-Hi, the reason in my opinion is the fact that Rick's portal has almost 2,000 pages of content-plus if you keep adding businesses and new data your site keeps getting crawled by the search engine spiders. In addition to all of that Rick's portal is actually developed with SEO in mind by allowing you the owner to choose your page title, meta tags, meta keywords, meta description plus allows video, rss feeds, social bookmarking tags and more.

I hope that helps give you the difference b/w the two, not to mention you have direct access to Rick, he's available almost all the time via the phone to help you if you need help, plus he has a number of videos available as well.

Hi momwow-regarding cold calling-folks have asked me to put a wso together regarding my step by step blueprint so I'll put together my specific steps.

I am planning on releasing a free wso on Friday Dec. 26th that will have a coupon for my WSO I'll be releasing on Tuesday Dec. 30th plus I am lining up some other goodies as well so stay tuned.

Hackbridge- Hi Brian, I am actually using the paid version which ran me $25/yr that's about $2/mo NOT TO SHABBY. I love the service especially the reedit button. Thanks for the kind words, have a great holiday as well.

To your success,

John

Hi momwow- The Layman's Gun Shop video was shot on location at his store-good question-no I didn't use animoto, I used avsmedia's video editor to add the text to the video. The software only runs about $60 and it's a suite of tools.- I hope that helps.

guillopuyol- Guillermo-FANTASTIC- That's what I'm talking about- producing action, now you have an appointment on Friday!!! When you meet with the dealership-find out if they have a blog- if not explain what a blog is to them and how a blog is very much needed to compliment their website because of the seo aspect. Ask if they have a youtube video- if not why not? have you considered that? If not why not? Just keep asking questions- Talk less and listen more.

Hackbridge- Thanks Brian.

Just found out a local radio station is starting a "portal" of sorts - a coupon site for business owners - they'll advertise it and drive traffic to it on the radio and don't see how I can compete with that!

So don't think the portal model will work for me but there are certainly services I can offer to offline businesses.

Had some business cards printed, should be here any time now, am just going to go "cold calling in person" next week. Go to businesses, introduce myself and what I do, make appointments when I can, leave a card when I can't - maybe with a handwritten coupon of some sort on the back - and see what happens!

Posted by momwow

GopalG- I just checked out a recommendation from another warrior regarding onetruemedia.com and that looks as if that may be a better option than animoto, I'm trying out the service and will let you know my thoughts.

momwow- That's actually great news- THEY ARE NOT COMPETITION- they can be your friend. I have at least 5 seperate portals for the town of Lancaster pop. around 50k not including the local yellowpages online and some of my clients advertise in all of them. You can seperate yourself by providing your "personal touch" and being available for your clients should they have questions.

Also I still, unfortunately, to this day have no business cards. If companies ask me for a card I say that's how I'm able to offer you such a deal b/c my overhead is so low-LOL they usually chuckle at that point and I write the information on a piece of paper.

Lesley Hunter- You've got it, that's exactly the point. YOU are the personal touch, they don't have to press 1 for this or press 2 for that they can just pick up the phone and call, this morning one of my customers called to ask a question and he said

"Whoa, I didn't think you'd actually pick up the phone the day before Christmas, I was just going to leave a message."

He was pleasantly surprised, plus I helped him resolve his issue which was how to review one of his videos.

I hope that helps,

To Your Success,

John

Free Portal Templates - Was just looking and found this site. I can't comment on what it's like as I just found them. Hope it helps.

Free Templates Online - Your Free Web Templates Resource

Merry Christmas

Brian

Posted by Hackbridge

Brian, thanks for the tip.

If anyone is really scraping pennies to get started, and isn't a natural networker/maven/people person, but one of the hermit wannabes who wants to sit behind the computer, or is really nervous about going out to meet and work with people, I would discourage portal building for them.

First of all, it will take a long time to reach any income without doing what John is doing, and if you are ready to tackle that, then do it the way he did. Presell, then buy the Portal as soon as you can.

Choose your domain and put up a blog and load it up with good local info to build a head start for when you are ready.

But if you really need income right away, then just get good at one thing that portal builders could use, and sell it to them. That way you will get a much quicker path to some income, and get to work and learn with some successful people.

If the small cost (relative to the value) of the portals isn't a major obstacle, then don't hesitate.

A friend of mine who invests in real estate pointed out that the biggest mistake people make is underpaying for land to build on. They will build too far out or try to cut costs on the land they use, which is probably the single most important factor.

It's the same with a portal platform. Do some indexed page checks on the portals out there and see how many you get back. Google loves these Portal Domination sites.

In the long run it will be a trivial investment. Just Rick's time in setting these up is probably worth what he charges for the whole thing.

There is some set up time on your end to load the listing content, but Rick has some automation tools to speed that up. It can be easily outsourced (very low level work).

(If you are scraping for pennies, offer to do the content set up for portal owners - it takes almost no skill at anything).

But any portal system will require the setup time to load content, so again, why invest all that labor building "on the wrong side of the tracks."

Posted by thmark

thmark- Thanks Mike, I appreciated the conversation and your insights. You have a BRIGHT future working with the offline customers.

garovich-Thanks Gary, that's exactly write, they are more like an ocean that's very difficult to make a turn on a dime where as you're more of a U-Boat that can make changes and adaptions very quickly- take what may seem to be a disadvantage and make the disadvantage and asset-also way to take action!!!

clawHammer- Hi Glenn- Thanks for the post- The animoto is $30/yr for personal use and $249/yr for commercial use. I use the personal myself- here is the link- Animoto: Pricing

The only difference b/w the free and personal $30/yr use is that the free is limited to 30seconds the other is unlimited length so it's worth the $30/yr plus is you look up animoto and discount on google you can get a $5 discount, which is what I did so I only paid $25 for the year

momwow-Hi Diana-Merry Christmas to you, I hope you had a great holiday!!!
Your perception is the radio station will drive more traffic, there isn't anything to stop you from having the success of traffic yourself plus many of the businesses don't want the radio station they want someone they can feel comfortable with, a person who "speaks" their language. Use the fact that you are available to them if they need to ask a question etc.

Posted by JohnSpangler