As a nineteen year old college student with no time or interest to get some crappy part time job, I recently decided to give internet marketing game a try. After failing miserably at (giving up on) making adsense blogs, I figured I would take a look in the offline section and see what its all about.

After almost immediately realizing the potential in offline marketing, I've recently put my findings and research to work and even developed my own method of somewhat manipulating prospects in my favor. I don't think I'd consider it entirely black hat, though, so I'll call it a grey hat method instead.

Social Engineering is commonly defined as manipulating people performing certain actions or divulging information. I hope after reading that sentence that you instantly realized how such an idea can be twisted into your favor when it comes to dealing with potential clients.

The letter that I'm including in this thread is the first attempt I made to get a client via mailing. I will point out the truths and falsehoods of the letter to give a better understanding of how I applied a social engineering method to it.

Oh, and yes.. you better believe that I decided to make my first attempt on the very business that I pay rent to; my apartment complex.

Dear {Name},

This is James {Last Name}; I live right next door to you at 1246 in the {Apartment name} Apartment complex. As you know I’m currently attending college at Ivy Tech, and I am actually now in the process of starting my own business. Before I officially startup my own business, though, I feel that I have to do a great deal of research in not only business itself, but also the line of work I plan on doing. In the interest of taking up as little of your time as possible, I’ll get right to it. I would like to know if I can talk with you at some point, whether it is over the phone or in person, about who deals with the advertising management here at {Apartment name}. I’m looking to discuss different areas of advertising with them as a way to gain some knowledge that I can’t necessarily obtain through research alone. If you will do this for me, please give me a call at {Phone Number} whenever you have a few minutes that you’re willing to spare. I don’t want you to feel like this has to be today or even tomorrow. I have a rather hefty load of research that I will be doing over the coming weeks, so please do not feel obligated to do this at an inconvenience to you. I appreciate you taking the time to read this and I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you.

James.

P.S
I won’t randomly approach you about this if I see you on the way in from the office or anything like that, so if you see me I don’t want you to get nervous.

What I did here is not only address the fact that I'm a college student (which can seem more interesting to the prospect rather than a letter that has corporate agenda written all over it), but also immediately dove into bring up that I'm trying to start a business. The reason why I did this first is because by linking it with the college student ploy, I've managed to lower the possibility of the prospect being suspicious of hidden agendas. (as opposed to if I had mentioned it after making it seem like I may be trying to sell something.) Instead of thinking "Oh, its just another sales letter" the prospect has been geared more towards thinking "wow, starting a business as a college student?" Setting up a situation that would provoke this potential change in their though process is often referred to as pretexting. Or as I like to call it, "the plug".

Now this is where I like to further push the though process behind the plug a little deeper. I've colored these portions orange because these are mainly the "smoke and mirrors" portions of the letter that are aimed at presenting yourself in a way that is merely aimed at impressing the prospect enough to set yourself apart from many competitors, but not so much to the point that you'll come off as fake. Now the reason why these sections aren't just red is because that while the statements being made are aimed to impress, they are also true statements that I've just thrown some verbal glitter on.

Here comes the portion that will likely turn some people away from this method; the lie. Any one of you who read the red sentence should know that I have no interest in talking to them just to gain a little bit of knowledge. We all know that the second I got into the meeting that I had to throw my game face on and present myself in a way that wouldn't instantly give away the idea that I'm there to make a sale. Don't worry, I'll explain how that was done next.

This is where I would normally leave a hook for my prospect but in this case, because it happened to be my next door neighbor, I decided to just leave a humorous comment. Now by hook I typically mean a link to some free content on my site. I use a great rebrandable document that discusses more in-depth the world of online reviews, and why having negative reviews can be greatly hurting their customer base.

So, as no surprise (considering I literally happen to live next door to one of the lower-end managers of the apartments; the person who the letter was to) I got a call back and they gladly told me who I should talk to. I mean why not? As far as she knows, I'm just attempting to conduct some insider research.

Skipping ahead to the meeting (I don't want to bore you with the process of getting the meeting as it was very similar to the method used in this letter, just in a phone call and to the person whom I really needed to be talking to.) I was all ready to go. I had my figures memorized, my documents prepared, and I looked the part with a NICE button-down shirt, slacks, and dress shoes.

(The reason behind avoiding the whole suit and tie approach is simply because I need to preserve the idea that I'm a motivated college student and not some weasel type of businessman trying to sell a product by presenting a facade.)

The documents I had prepared were the same ones I would have included if I were to send out the full package with the letter. Included was printouts of any high to semi-high PR review sites (Google places, Yahoo local, and apartment ratings in this case) and the Google search results which lead me to said pages. Now the idea behind how I needed to present the documents was simple, but the delivery is what will either make or break this attempt. Basically you will want to convince them (in a casual but serious manner) that by presenting them these figures that you are merely using them as an example and are simply looking for feedback on your approach.

The reaction I got out of this was mixture of negative and positive, but both aspects work in our favors at this stage of the game. The positive was mainly the shock and awe factor behind me, with them knowing that I'm a full-time college student, taking the time to do this research on their business just so I can get some feedback on my (as far as they know) "mock-up" business model. The negative aspect was that they were stunned to see some of the things being said online, not only about their business, but about one of them personally as well. (oh and it was a doozy.)

So after I explained to them VERY briefly about what online reputation management is (never once mentioning that I think they need it as I've already managed to push that point with the "example" review pages) and as I was getting prepared to make my casual conclusion to the meeting, without even needing to prompt it the head apartment manager point blank said to me "Hey, you never mentioned anything about pricing. What does this type of service go for?"

After discussing few memorized figures about what my competitors would likely charge and mentioning that I plan on charging less than they will in order to present the idea that I'm not doing this to get rich, but to simply put myself through college by doing something more fulfilling than flipping burgers; I pretty much had them eating out of the palm of my hand.

In an idle discussion that occurred during the meeting, I also made it a point to present my stance on how the laziness, lack of respect, and complacency displayed by a vast majority of the knuckleheads of my generation (known as Generation "X") has made it tough for me to get my foot in the door with other clients just because they assume that I'm guilty by association. For whatever reason, those from previous generations love, and I mean LOVE, to see a younger person who seems to share similar opinions about today's youth as they do.

So I hope that this slightly darker, but not quite black hat method for us younger guys and gals to exploit the negative connotations about our generation in a way that blows the prospects away. I also don't doubt that such type of social engineering could easily work for those who aren't as young as they used to be. That just means they have to apply some of that extra wisdom they've gained through the years towards twisting this method to work for them.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I always love to hear about others' success around here on BHW so I figured it was time to share a success of my own.

For whatever reason, those from previous generations love, and I mean LOVE, to see a younger person who seems to share similar opinions about today's youth as they do.

I know, I'm always like...kids these days...damnit, no work ethic....with their damned itunes, and their rap music, and their pants down to their knees. This is the naughty secret I ploy to make sales....

Anyway, I found your post intelligent, and interesting from a sales stand-point, but from also a rapport building and down to earth take on things.

All in all, nice read, thanks for taking the time to post this, I may consider giving this route a try.

Cheers!

this was a great post. im 20 and in college too and ive thought about marketing offline like this.

how long have you been marketing yourself like this

well this is actually a new implementation to my strategy arsenal. I will definitely post about it more and more as I practice the method for prospects who aren't the people I pay for living space.

Nice work pieking. Just letting you know you better edit your phone number out of the letter in your post cuz all sorts of noobs will be calling you/texting you on this method rather than PMing LOL... Unless its to rejection hotline or something like that then it would be hilarious!

haha wow.. of all the things to miss. thanks a lot for pointing that out man.

Thanks for this share! Unfortunately the thanks button isn't showing up for me, I'm not sure why.
Regardless, I'm 18 and a freshman in college, I just sent out 10 letters to restaurants in the area yesterday,
and I find your method to be enlightening, if the cold-mailing tactic doesn't prove to garner the success rate
that I was hoping for, I will most definitely utilize your method! Thanks again!

Cool method I will be following this thread. I too am a college student 19. Funny thing is I was looking for a place to stay next year and actually researching apartments and seen this one complex with horrible reviews (2 stars!), perfect for rep management. I want to get started but I don't think I have the "essentials", do any of you college guys have office space, business name, business address?
Edit: Oh OP I see you said you were researching before you start. That is a clever way to gain trust & capital.

Have to say man...my hat is off to you. Props for this. Young age is big turndown for most business owners (from my experience)

When I was designing websites for a good living in highschool I would actually tell my clients that I'm just a "representative". I told them my dad was the one designing the websites. For 3 years ALL of my clients thought I was just some kid out doing the dirty work for his dad. They never knew I was the one taking their money

This is a very good strategy for young entrepreneurs like us.

And for the record...I don't see this as blackhat/greyhat at all. It's just an innovative strategy that gives us the edge.

" It's just an innovative strategy that gives us an edge. "


^this is how casinos are run^ :P

You couldn't have just supplied the manager apartment leads through classifieds?

Originally Posted by RTM77

You couldn't have just supplied the manager apartment leads through classifieds?

I can't pitch classifieds as well as I can pitch what I do. surprised that you would resurrect this thread for that.