[Offline METHOD] Step-by-Step Offer Web Design and Hosting Using my EPIC twist - $100k+

[ardley216]

[Offline METHOD] Step-by-Step Offer Web Design and Hosting Using my EPIC twist - $100k+
​

So the basic idea is doing some nice basic web design (using themes) offering hosting as an upsell, which you have probably heard a 100 times before.. But I have a unique twist which one company is currently offering and I can see they are making HUGE bank from it.
So let me tell you how this sparked an awesome idea any can implement with a little work.. So I was browsing through my emails and I clicked on a Groupon email, and saw web design offered for 12, marked down from 191. It was clear to me right there and then, what these guys were doing.. I clicked onto it.. and saw more than 400 sales in 24 hours. I went to his website and saw they offer hosting from 15 per month!! So wanted to crunch some numbers...

400 sales @ 12 a pop = 4800 (in 24 hours)
Groupon takes 50% of that (bastards...) = 2400 initial income (not too bad)
Hosting @ 15 per month for one year = 72,000
Minus free domain costs: 2400 (oh would you look at that.... Same as the previous profit..)
Time dedicated per client 1 hour, mainly help and support.
So, just from this ONE ad, 72k profit... now multiply that by 10... on all the clone sites as well!

So let me give you a rough step by step on how you can replicate this.

1. You are going to need a hosting website where you will run your business from. You will need to choose a business name and domain. As you are offering design as the hook, you may want to choose a design orientated business name, but also bare in mind you are also offering hosting. It might be an idea to localise yourself and target the audience to your local area, but overall it is up to you.

2. Once you have a cool domain/business name, you will need to get reseller hosting, you can get some pretty cheap plans on hostgator, but they're a bit shit these days, I would say HostWinds is pretty good... Have a good look around, bare in mind you may be getting many many customers quite fast! Sign up to your preferred host (If I was a WF asshole I'd aff link you all haha)..

3. Ok, now we're going to set up the reseller account.. WHMCS is quite a large complicated piece of software, I set mine a few years back when I set up my own digital design company.. essentially you need to make sure you have your core packages (3 recommended) notification emails, payment settings, billing options, account settings, account types, package settings, and FAQ (copy some other hosting company, but it helps a lot). The WHMCS software is not directly related to your front end site, but you will want to link out to them. OR you can go for a WHMCS wordpress integrated theme like: http://themeforest.net/item/alaska-seo-whmcs-hosting-shop-business-theme/10068801 . Test out your system.. make sure everything works nicely, get your family to test it out, take some time over this.. you will want to look SLICK!

4. Ok, now lets get the site ready.. You will want something modern like WP theme and also mention the key hooks and some over-inflated design pricing... You are going to want to answer as many questions on the site before your potential customers even ask it.. Go google some nice sites that you feel represent what you want to be... rewrite their content, borrow some of their images.. Take some good time building your site, I would say 1 week dedicated 9-5 should be enough to get the basics sorted out... This can be outsourced if you wish, but for quality, do it yourself.

5. Ok now we are the point where we have domain, reseller system working, a pretty high converting site and every bit of info we need to convince any customers that you are totally legit (which of course you are...). Oh and also, its not a bad thing to be ‘new', its better to be honest about where you are, but have validity behind yourself, looking honest will help... Ok back to the setup.. We are now going to prepare the offer... Take time time to research all the local deal sites, there's many many, and probably lots in your local area that you may not know about... Make a list of them all and find out how you need to make offers for them.

6. Once you have done your research, you will probably have found out the costs, I know Groupon take about 50% of the sale value and you must discount at least 30% ( I think).. So you must now work out your pricing.. You will probably offer free domain and free 3 months hosting (with credit card details entered so you can get the forgetful people staying on..).. Lets assume you priced your mid package at $15 per month, 3 months hosting + domain= $60 cost to you.. lets pretend your design is charged at $500 or something.. So total value of hosting domain and design = $560. For the groupon deal we want to recoup the cost of domain only. So we will price is at roughly $25 or $30 for full site ‘design' (templates and contact form setup), 3 months free hosting and a free domain. You will get 9 months (minimum hosting after the 3 months free hosting) profiting by $135 per customer.

7. Put together a good sales pitch and imagery, bare in mind this is a female market who probably have little knowledge of any of this, so be prepared to do lots hand holding. It might be an idea to put female orientated bloggy type imagery, do a few tests to see which converts best. You are also going to need to nail clearly what is entailed in your service, its better to be clear (in the small print) about what you offer and how it works before they sign up, it will save you lots of time.

8. Ok next stage is getting your deals on the deal sites.. Groupon is quite a large target, they will liaise with you personally, so make sure you are fully professional and business minded. You may want to target the smaller deal sites before you target the big sites... This way you can iron out any issues before you start taking on BIG order numbers. I personally have not dealt with the deal sites, but I am sure they have a good system, look at their FAQ for more info... I would begin with staggered introduction, don't bite off more than you can chew - this sort of thing can easily explode and you will have toooo many sales!!

9. Ok, you've gone live!! Orders will begin to pour in, you are going to need to be ON IT! Have methods for you to deal with customer problems, questions, maybe VA this out, or spend all your time helping your customers. You are then going to need to give time scales on an automated basis, it would be highly useful to have a CRM you are comfortable with. I use Pipedrive... its awesome!! A simple tip I always use in my offline sales.. for TAT quote double the time what you expect, then do it in half the time!

10. Once you are comfortable with the order flow you can begin to outsource tasks for VA's, maybe employ someone to manage customer support.. you can then begin to target the bigger sites and upsell more products to your customers. This is an easily scalable and passive income method which has been used by other customers...

11. So lastly.... How rich will you be? On average lets say you get 10 customers a day over a 6 month period.. That is 180 customers.. You will need to build simple wordpress sites for all of them.. this takes a couple of hours at most.


Costs:
Customer domains: 180 * $15
Reseller hosting: $300
CRM: $60
Themeforest Theme: $60
Deal site costs: 180 * $15
TOTAL: $5,820

INCOME:
Deal site Sales: $5400
Hosting income (9 months @ $15): $24,300

TOTAL PROFIT: $18,480
These figures are based on VERY low numbers. Bare in mind the business I saw doing this made 400 sales in 24 hours. If you achieve 1000 customers in 6 months you will get more than $130k profit!!!

So whats stopping you.. ??? DO IT!!!!! (now )

A little disclaimer, I have not done this exact model myself, I have however given away free websites in exchange for hosting, which still works nicely (not done for 3 years though). Also, please don't PM on this thread. Enjoy lots of money!!

Kind Regards

Daniel.

PS. DO NOT copy this without crediting me. you can use this, or even be a dick and make it into a Warrior shitty offer ebook CREDIT ME!

THANKS!!!

 

[King_James]

Great twist, thanks for sharing. How did you calculated the profit though?

 

[Boriss]

Groupon doesn't work for me, but I'll search for similar sites from my country. So basically all you have to do, is setup a site with WHMCS (buy reseller hosting), check for groupon sites and buy a spot on them, offering a discount for your web design and hosting?

 

[Darren9682]

Bare in mind groupon pay you in three lump sums over the course of 30/60 days (can't quite remember which) so unless you plan on keeping your new customers waiting and waiting you'll have to fork out the costs yourself for domains and outsourced webdesign until that money comes through.

Unless you plan on making the sites yourself in which case good luck doing 400+ sites.

I work with clients a lot and they always want change after change. So simply using a theme and hoping they like it wont cut it.

here is what I believe the deal is - http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/dealbank_en_gb/nodowntime-domains-1/56220641

 

[THUNDERELVI]

400+ clients are going to be a PAIN IN THE ASS! Especially clients which pay $50 max. for a website and expect the world for it. These are the worst ones.
You can start your business this way, but I suggest that later you charge clients $600 AT LEAST. And for every change charge a high amount per hour, like $30-50.
That way you won't be bothered much and customers will think twice before calling you every time of the day for any stupid change they want.

In my opinion, this business model is not worth it. Better have 10 customers at $600 each then 120 ones at $50 each.
Less headache, same profits, better customers!

 

[sysco32]

Restrictions: Domain registration is not included - Domain registration is a legal process that domain owners must do alone and pay directly

So actually the domain is not included.Which will push the profits more.great idea

 

[antichrist]

400+ clients are going to be a PAIN IN THE ASS! Especially clients which pay $50 max. for a website and expect the world for it. These are the worst ones.
You can start your business this way, but I suggest that later you charge clients $600 AT LEAST. And for every change charge a high amount per hour, like $30-50.
That way you won't be bothered much and customers will think twice before calling you every time of the day for any stupid change they want.

In my opinion, this business model is not worth it. Better have 10 customers at $600 each then 120 ones at $50 each.
Less headache, same profits, better customers!

You are missing the entire point! It is not about the initial lump some of money. Sure it is a pain in the ass, but after all your customers are taken care of, you rake in the hosting profits each and every month for years to come. Great share OP!

 

[ardley216]

400+ clients are going to be a PAIN IN THE ASS! Especially clients which pay $50 max. for a website and expect the world for it. These are the worst ones.
You can start your business this way, but I suggest that later you charge clients $600 AT LEAST. And for every change charge a high amount per hour, like $30-50.
That way you won't be bothered much and customers will think twice before calling you every time of the day for any stupid change they want.

In my opinion, this business model is not worth it. Better have 10 customers at $600 each then 120 ones at $50 each.
Less headache, same profits, better customers!

I would agree, so in that sense you can then twist this method.. make it about the custom design.. lets say.. you charge $1000 for design.. Give it for $500... you take $250... upsell them super supported hosting for $50 a month.. you make $850 a year from them... you may only get 10 clients per deal posted... Thats still $8.5k with less client work per deal posted.

I hope that helps

Bare in mind groupon pay you in three lump sums over the course of 30/60 days (can't quite remember which) so unless you plan on keeping your new customers waiting and waiting you'll have to fork out the costs yourself for domains and outsourced webdesign until that money comes through.

Unless you plan on making the sites yourself in which case good luck doing 400+ sites.

I work with clients a lot and they always want change after change. So simply using a theme and hoping they like it wont cut it.

here is what I believe the deal is - http://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/dealbank_en_gb/nodowntime-domains-1/56220641

Yeah thats the deal. like I said in my previous post you can change it up to make less sales, and bigger sale value.. One key thing I would say is that you'll wanna keep the sale price low as Groupon rapes you with their 50% fees. The income from that is NOT important. And yes it does take some investment, but these things always do.

There are website builders can that be white-labelled as well.

 

[tg01]

Simple but genius idea Daniel, the same could be rolled out with wowcher, amazon local, etc.

Aside I shall be in touch shortly for a new keyword idea.

 

[King_James]

400+ clients are going to be a PAIN IN THE ASS! Especially clients which pay $50 max. for a website and expect the world for it. These are the worst ones.
You can start your business this way, but I suggest that later you charge clients $600 AT LEAST. And for every change charge a high amount per hour, like $30-50.
That way you won't be bothered much and customers will think twice before calling you every time of the day for any stupid change they want.

In my opinion, this business model is not worth it. Better have 10 customers at $600 each then 120 ones at $50 each.
Less headache, same profits, better customers!

What? Customers thinking twice before calling you?!? Are you serious? What kind of sales person that would be, where his clients think twice before calling him?

Yeah, if you are an amateur then ok. But if you want to be a great, then no. Customers shouldn't think twice before calling you, they should think about you as a PROBLEM SOLVER, a person that they call and he takes care of everything, customers should have everything they want and need, and that's your job.
If a client it's a pain in the ass because he expects the world with a 50$ job, it's your problem, not his.
It's your job to educate them, it's your job to make sure they understand what they are getting so they don't become a pain in the ass.

And anyway, I would rather have 120 educated clients at 50$ each than 10 at 600$ each. If I have something new, I'll have 120 clients that already trust me and will buy, without having to bother to get 110 more clients.

 

[Aty]

Great method man, appreciate it.

 

[pokerjk]

Looks like they are not "designing" anything. They probably have some system so you can choose a theme and customize how you want.

Still, they are going to get hundreds of negative reviews after their "free" hosting period is up.

I know people should check this, but they wont, then they'll leave a negative review.

In my opinion this method is more hassle than its worth considering the man hours you'd have to put in. Outsource it I hear you say, good luck finding a reliable out sourcer that doesn't want paying a good wage.

 

[vandalais]

I'm just curious to how you handle support. This just seems like a support nightmare. We do something similar with a free WordPress install when you use our affiliate link. We use this as an opportunity to upsell customization. Our problem has been that cheap customers are the worst and need the most support.

 

[fullyniche]

Dani, As usual you're great man. Thanks for sharing Always you're my inspiration.

 

[KevinK]

hmmm... 10 customers a day @ 18 days is 180...

let me see... 6 months = 6*30 = 180 days * 10 cust / day = 1800 customers

looks like you slipped a zero, bro! **might want to fix it up for us... thanks**

11. So lastly?. How rich will you be? On average lets say you get 10 customers a day over a 6 month period.. That is 180 customers.. You will need to build simple wordpress sites for all of them.. this takes a couple of hours at most.

Bare in mind groupon pay you in three lump sums over the course of 30/60 days...

Thanks, Darren. I don't have $2,400 saved up for domain names.

And customer support for 1800 people? I'd rather build small.

Don't know who would want to wait 3 months to begin to start
making money when there are so many other options available.


Still... thanks op, but not for me right now. Maybe when I have
a lot of extra cash laying around and don't know what to do.

 

[mohsinmirza]

I saw a Lamborghini aventador at taco bell yesterday.. were it you o.p? lol

nice share though :|

 

[Shadexpwn]

Make sure you get a nice Bill Board ad placement or Restaurant ad injected onto the place mats or simply pay a business to host a big ass sign to allow people driving by an intersection to look at it.

If you want more just place yard signs all over the city you live in with product placements.

 

[Hajjopei]

Very nice and generous of you to show us...! I will definietely offer this over and over.... One can play with numbers in the front.... extra packages and upsells like crazy with this... Ok, earning from the folow up only, even with unfair methods is nothign new... But the main reason here is, at least I hope, to get the huge impact by groupon and other deal pages...

Got everythign in place... Just about the terms I wanna get clearer...
One will only earn really money, when the client buys the hosting or other upsells... so how can one force them to do and not start with:"Hey, here is my hosting account: Have fun installing my new site... "

And I also would craft packages, that make me earn from the moment they buy at groupon, I mean, I wouldnt copy that offer in the UK there a 100% and give three months free upfront and also wait till groupon pays so late... thats sounding stupid in my ears...


...
Wanna earn income directly...

 

[CementPizza]

This seems like an awesome idea! The only thing that would be slightly frustrating is that a Groupon/Living Social can take 3-6 months to go live. It would be nice if you could rinse and repeat this 2 or 3 times a month cause the money making potential would be huge but nonetheless there is a lot them for twists! Thanks!

 

[Aatrox]

Good stuff man, got a good twist out of it. Thanks for the share!