Hi everyone,

I recently got an email from a friend named Chuck who was needing some advice for making money online. He actually sent me a list of questions about both online marketing and offline. (Some people call it offline gold, where you sell your internet marketing services to local businesses.)

I shared some very valuable info about both and thought you’d like to listen in on the answers… so here is the actual email:

See below! =]

On 7/15/09, Chuck wrote:

Mike thanks for the great offer. Let’s start off with a few questions and maybe that’s all I will need.

Just hit reply and answer by the question.

Do you make the bulk of your income in the “offline” business working with the small to medium businesses?

I have in the past. There is a lot of money to be made that way and I am actually in the process of setting that up. However, setting up ‘auto-pilot’ income is not as hard and has a better long term goal of more time.

Do you do more than what your WSO is offering?

(readers: my wso is my warrior special offer that teaches getting high rankings quickly on google).

Definitely. I have several products, plus I am an affiliate manager for a highly successful Internet Marketer and learn a ton from that experience.

Do you cold call these businesses?

The offline work that I am doing has a few techniques for contacting the businesses. Since I don’t like cold calling, I chose a few different ways to contact them. One is to have someone else (if you can partner with someone or hire someone) pass out flyers with a time sensitive offer. The other is to do a mailing to several businesses pointing them to a seminar where you’ll be teaching for free to a limited number of people.

Are they receptive or does it take some sales experience?

It’s not about sales experience. It’s about three things. If they like you, trust you and respect you (or think that you know what you’re doing) then you’re in. Most biz owners are frustrated and open to investing in something that looks solid. If you can explain what you do, it should produce several sales.

If you had to build an income of $1500 a month where would you start?

Believe it or not, $1500 is not that much, so I would invest in a graphic artist to create a squeeze page ($50 on the warriors forum) and get some plr (private label rights) products with give away rights and drive some traffic to that page. (Some free ways are with forums and articles with your signature pointing to your ‘free’ offer/website).

Once they sign up for the free stuff, show them a one time offer for a waaay more exciting offer, (like 5 times as much as the free stuff) for X number of dollars, (for example $20).

Then after they buy, you can promote other people’s products to them as an affiliate.

Btw, if you’re selling the oto for $20, you’d need to sell 75 a month or about 17 a week to make $1500 a month. However, if you market your list the right way, you should be able to get a bunch of affiliate sales as well.

(Readers: if you promoted www.1in90.com, you would only need 3 sales a month to reach Chuck’s goal of $1500 a month.)

What type of niches would you choose?

There are tons. You can pick professions, like chiropractor, dentist, insurance agents, restaraunts, photographers, etc.

How would you monetize them?

There are several ways, but here’s a few.

1. Consulting. Charge $150 per hour or $500 for a written custom traffic strategy that they can keep and implement after discussing it with you for an hour.

2. The traffic strategies services. (in other words you do it for them or outsource it).

3. Lead generation. Pick the niche, say chiropractors, make a squeezepage offering a free report in exchange for their name, phone, email. Then sell those leads to the chiropractor weekly via email for $30 each.

4. Web design. Outsource it for $300-$500 and add a zero for the clients price. =)

5. Hosting. Get an account at www.hostgatorplus.com for under $5 a month, then add the clients website to your account, (you can have as many as you want) and charge them $25 per month for hosting alone or $75 for hosting and up to two hours of maintenance/changes to their site. (be sure to mention that your hourly rate is $150)

Do you have a product that teaches the way you would do this?

6. I am in the process of putting one together. If you’d like, you can sign up for my free tools and tips at www.freetoolsandtips.com and once I have it ready, you’ll get an email telling you about it.

Thanks, Chuck

~Mike Cowles <><