My main business is working with offline businesses. Offline is not as simple as a lot of people make it out to be (handing out fliers will take up a lot of time and only leave you with paper cuts). You really need to be prepared to do a lot of work (or hire salespeople to do a lot of work) getting customers. Many business owners just don't get the whole online thing. As a consultant you're going to take a lot of time with owners.
Also, things are different in different areas. Some towns have been burned by this type of service already so it will take a lot of work to develop trust. There's a town nearby that has a graphic art school and they are inundated with students looking to earn an extra buck making a site for them. Many businesses owners won't understand why your service is more valuable than just getting a fancy site made.
I would not rely on fliers unless you just produce stellar copy, business owners are some of the most marketed to people, they've become immune to it. Cold calling is also an exercise in futility unless you've really developed a system. I know from my local clients that they get on average 7 calls a day from people marketing online services to them. It's rare that anyone seems to really understand how hard it is to be a business owner and really want to help them grow their business, so if you can do that you'll be golden. (Consult, don't sell.)
Also, you realize 99% of business owners aren't going to know what the heck SEO is don't you? Most of my clients are completely computer illiterate (most don't know the difference between the address bar and search bar on their browsers). So advertising SEO services is shooting yourself in the foot.
As for reports each month, all they're going to want to know is how many clients or prospects you got them. They don't care how much work you did and they don't care how many people saw their website. They want results, period. They'll plop down a lot of money with the yellow pages or on a radio spot or billboard, but they hesitate with internet marketing because they don't understand it. They don't understand why they can't just have a "business card" website. They're not marketers and don't understand marketing a site. The only way to prove to them that it's a worthwhile investment is to show them ROI (even though they're not getting ROI on other forms of advertising).
I'm lazy so I work strictly off of referrals and salespeople (that I pay an incredibly generous commission to). The best thing I ever did was do some free work for a very well connected non-profit in my area in exchange for referrals. Where I live the business owner community is very tight-knit and almost all b2b business here is done on referral. So, I recommend on building a great relationship will a business or non-profit that is deeply embedded in your local business community. Gaining that one client will gain you the rest without having to work for it.
Offline is great money, but it's not a simple "put up fliers, get calls, make a sale, outsource, profit, repeat" process. There are much more effective ways of getting clients than fliers. Even though we like to go on about how this is not a saturated niche, you got to realize what you're up against. I just saw a commercial yesterday for intuit.com saying that for $4.99 a month you get a website and customers find you, bull. You and I know that what we provide is really not even in the same league as intuit, but your customers are going to want to know why it's worth paying you when they can get a website for $4.99 a month from this company that says that's all it takes for customers to find you.
