- May 24, 2010
- 1,024
- 480
Never shared a full method here, so it's about time for me to do so. This is an offline method to sell websites to clients that I have been using for several years. Building websites is not exactly my cup of tea, but it made me some money, and also good leads and connections for selling SEO services later (which is what I do best). You DON'T need to be a web developer in order to do this, basic knowledge in wordpress and gimp is more than enough.
The basic idea is simple- instead of making cold calls with very low success rate in getting to a meeting with a potential client and building a website for him, we'll start by building the website. It is much easier to sell something that one can see instead of describing it, showing irrelevant examples and hoping the client gets where you're going.
So, this is it in a few simple steps-
Step 1 ? pick a niche
Since you're going to sell websites to businesses in your area, look for some professionals that have enough money to spend on a website, and that you have enough prospects in your area to sell to (like 20+). Doctors, dentists, beauty salons, spas, lawyers, accountants and many more can be good for that.
Step 2 ? build a generic website
Go to Themeforest and pick a good theme for the niche you selected, buy the theme or download it from somewhere. Buy a domain and hosting (my tip- search BHW for the latest coupons/discounts for both). Make the domain name something generic that will fit all of the prospects in the niche you selected.
Set up the domain and hosting, and install the theme. I personally like html5 themes better, but I guess wordpress can be much easier for beginners.
Replace the images on the theme with your own, you can use sxc[dot]hu for that, or just take some images from G00gle pictures and edit them a bit with gimp.
As for the homepage copy, just copy and paste good texts from competitors websites to a word document, and then make some changes, pick good titles and subtitles and put it all together. You can use Fiverr for proofreading of your final copy, make it look as professional as possible. Do it only for the homepage, all other pages can be "lorem ipsum" pages, just with the right links and the menu etc.
As for the logo, take the first prospect and your list and make a logo for him with his name in it (just the logo, don't use the name in the copy). Make a 'disallow all' robots.txt file so the site won't get indexed, just as a matter of safety?
Step 3 ? make the calls
Now make the call to the first prospect on the list, but this time allow yourself to be a bit more assertive than you're used to being. Instead of the regular conversation where you explain how it is important to have a website and how you're experienced with it and bla bla bla, let your potential client know that you have already built a website for him that he can actually see right now while you're talking, and that you can make all the necessary adjustments within a few days.
Step 4 ? finalize the sale
If your client is interested then congratulations, you've just banked!
Bill him one-time or monthly, whatever you used to be doing. Build another website in the same way and move on to the next client. If he's not interested, just edit the logo to the name of the next prospect on your list and call him in the same way using the same website.
This method actually helped me to move from conversion rate of 1:50 to around 1:10, which is a major improvement. The time spent on building the website is no more than the time you'll spend on making additional 40 cold calls (and in that case, you will eventually spend the same time building the website).
Hope that helped, if you have any questions please ask here and I'll answer them.
The basic idea is simple- instead of making cold calls with very low success rate in getting to a meeting with a potential client and building a website for him, we'll start by building the website. It is much easier to sell something that one can see instead of describing it, showing irrelevant examples and hoping the client gets where you're going.
So, this is it in a few simple steps-
Step 1 ? pick a niche
Since you're going to sell websites to businesses in your area, look for some professionals that have enough money to spend on a website, and that you have enough prospects in your area to sell to (like 20+). Doctors, dentists, beauty salons, spas, lawyers, accountants and many more can be good for that.
Step 2 ? build a generic website
Go to Themeforest and pick a good theme for the niche you selected, buy the theme or download it from somewhere. Buy a domain and hosting (my tip- search BHW for the latest coupons/discounts for both). Make the domain name something generic that will fit all of the prospects in the niche you selected.
Set up the domain and hosting, and install the theme. I personally like html5 themes better, but I guess wordpress can be much easier for beginners.
Replace the images on the theme with your own, you can use sxc[dot]hu for that, or just take some images from G00gle pictures and edit them a bit with gimp.
As for the homepage copy, just copy and paste good texts from competitors websites to a word document, and then make some changes, pick good titles and subtitles and put it all together. You can use Fiverr for proofreading of your final copy, make it look as professional as possible. Do it only for the homepage, all other pages can be "lorem ipsum" pages, just with the right links and the menu etc.
As for the logo, take the first prospect and your list and make a logo for him with his name in it (just the logo, don't use the name in the copy). Make a 'disallow all' robots.txt file so the site won't get indexed, just as a matter of safety?
Step 3 ? make the calls
Now make the call to the first prospect on the list, but this time allow yourself to be a bit more assertive than you're used to being. Instead of the regular conversation where you explain how it is important to have a website and how you're experienced with it and bla bla bla, let your potential client know that you have already built a website for him that he can actually see right now while you're talking, and that you can make all the necessary adjustments within a few days.
Step 4 ? finalize the sale
If your client is interested then congratulations, you've just banked!
Bill him one-time or monthly, whatever you used to be doing. Build another website in the same way and move on to the next client. If he's not interested, just edit the logo to the name of the next prospect on your list and call him in the same way using the same website.
This method actually helped me to move from conversion rate of 1:50 to around 1:10, which is a major improvement. The time spent on building the website is no more than the time you'll spend on making additional 40 cold calls (and in that case, you will eventually spend the same time building the website).
Hope that helped, if you have any questions please ask here and I'll answer them.
