Trying out 7878's ORM Mail Tactic

[netmoney1]

Thanks for the advice RightInTwo,
I've made a 3 page PDF (4 pages inc cover), it seems pretty well designed, very clean and persuasive.
I basically showed comparisons of their current search results on google vs the storelocator on their website.
The google search brings up a fraction of the stores.
I also found their average ratings on yellowpages, yelp, google + as well as educated them on the benefits and pricing.

Sent it out Friday evening and I am awaiting a response today (Hopefully one comes, that would be amazing).

We'll see what happens, I found the whole process after receiving their RFP sort of stressful but am happy I was able to pull it off and deliver.
Eager to seek out more opportunities like this one.

A tip to everyone from what i've learned so far - always take a shot, even if you feel like a little fish. If you find an issue a larger company has, do your due diligence and take action to solve it. Worst thing that can happen is you get ignored but even then you have that much more as experience.

What did you quote them for 80 locations? Hopefully you didn't sell yourself short. If you priced it right and land the deal you should be able to quite your full-time job and focus 100% of your time and effort on your own business. Good luck. Hope you nail it.

 

[H0BB5]

What did you quote them for 80 locations? Hopefully you didn't sell yourself short. If you priced it right and land the deal you should be able to quite your full-time job and focus 100% of your time and effort on your own business. Good luck. Hope you nail it.

I called an actual ORM business from the states and on the phone proposed the same sort of scenario to them to see how they would quote it.
I think I quoted quite fair with a few options.. no response yet however So maybe that's not a good sign.

 

[Thefisherman]

I'd also suggest being really careful with your "testimonials" - considering reviews is what you profess to assist with, when I google for eg. "Brixton Pub & Grill" and their ratings are 2.5/5 (yelp) and 3.6/10 (squaremeal) - it doesn't look promising or I google "Go Big Fitness" and the domain name is for sale - it looks fake.

You might be playing with fire in terms of those reviews. For instance, the one saying they have been using you for a year. A simple Whois search shows you just registered the domain on the 16th of this month - 4 days ago.

Business owners are smart. They WILL reverse search you. They will then assume you are 100% full of shit. Your letter will then go in the trash.

I would remove all those fake reviews. A quick whois wipes out any credibility instantly. Don't assume your potential customers are stupid - they are much smarter than you are giving them credit for...

Interesting thread, I see that the OP hasn't replied / commented on the above? Please do...

 

[RightInTwo]

Hey HOBB5, any update on your progress? Keep us posted!

 

[H0BB5]

Looks like it's time for an update:

A week after sending out mail to my initial list and I was still getting calls, albeit much further apart. I decided it was time for me to follow up with the letters and took a day off work to do so. I approached these follow-up calls with the assumption that these businesses didn't call back because they were not interested. This mentality gave me the freedom to try whatever I wanted with these calls; I'd try out my best Jordan Belfort impression, be aggressive, read scripts, etc.

I made a list of the most common objections and tried to answer them all before the businesses said no. I also developed methods to bypass "gatekeepers" easier and get right to the decision-makers of the businesses I was calling - talking to gatekeepers longer than you need to is a waste of time effort. My goals with the follow-ups were 1. Close a sale, 2. Schedule a meeting, and 3. Get an email. This meant if worse comes to worst, I'd at least be able to collect emails and list build. I was able to collect a bunch of emails and schedule a few meetings. Turning these no's into maybe's bumps our already-high response rate even higher. I'll give you guys more updates with these if I am able to convert them into sales.

Now I know you're all waiting to hear about the company with 80 locations. Sad news is that they said no. I called them back a week after I sent the proposal and they said our price (497 per month, per location) was too high. They continued to say that they had been fielding offers like this and the lowest was around $300..... per YEAR. I was shocked by this news, and a little offended. Was she trying to lowball me? I was already considering a lower price because of the sheer volume of stores they have but are you kidding me with that? What do you guys think I should do?

 

[oblivion19]

Yeah. Looks like either if she is low balling you or has got an offer from a company based in India. Let them know that you get what you pay for. And getting it done from people with half knowledge can ruin their efforts. Give examples of how mediocre companies get their work done automated and aggresively which actually harms the reputation.

 

[netmoney1]

What do you guys think I should do?

You need to do what makes sense for you...not anyone else. Taking on a client with 80 locations right away without any experience or real results yet might have been a huge recipe for disaster. If they honestly think that $300 per location per year can deliver results let them go with that company. They would be a nightmare to deal with.

This is just my opinion, but this is what I would do if I were you:

1. Find 3 local companies (that you can drive to and meet with) that have the absolute shittiest online reviews and reputation - I'm talking the WORST you can find.

2. Offer to give them 3 months of service for FREE. In return you want to use them as a case study in marketing materials and on landing pages.

Sure, it will require some work...but since they have so much shit even if you just clean it up a little they will look at it like you are a miracle worker.

Why do this?

1. After 3 months if you have proven to know what you are doing you have 3 clients that will now pay you.

2. You have real life examples to use in marketing materials and on landing pages.

A client is going to bite 1,000,000,000 times faster if you can say "Here, look at what we did for Joe's Pizza"

Clients are smart. They can smell bullshit testimonials....they want to see REAL results. Show them that and you can close a ridiculous higher percentage of prospects.

 

[originalposter]

I agree with netmoney1. If you're just starting out with zero experience and references, its hard to charge whatever others are charging. Sure you might have the talents and skills, but only you know and no one else. Its tough to convince prospects that you are better or 'on par' with others.

So what you need to do is to suck it up, and take any opportunities you can and build it up from there. The situation would be similar to finding your first 'real job' after graduation. You take any opportunity (even if it's internship) just to gain some field experience before you apply for a better job down the road.

Don't feel discourage because you have to work from the bottom. I was like that, and I believe so are many others here. It's part of the game.

Good luck

 

[BHopkins]

Do you think your time would be better spent sending out additional letters rather than following up with people you don't think are interested?

I can't think of anything I would do for $300 per year. That's $25 per month. If you spend an hour a month emailing them, you're already losing money.

 

[H0BB5]

You need to do what makes sense for you...not anyone else. Taking on a client with 80 locations right away without any experience or real results yet might have been a huge recipe for disaster. If they honestly think that $300 per location per year can deliver results let them go with that company. They would be a nightmare to deal with.

This is just my opinion, but this is what I would do if I were you:

1. Find 3 local companies (that you can drive to and meet with) that have the absolute shittiest online reviews and reputation - I'm talking the WORST you can find.

2. Offer to give them 3 months of service for FREE. In return you want to use them as a case study in marketing materials and on landing pages.

Sure, it will require some work...but since they have so much shit even if you just clean it up a little they will look at it like you are a miracle worker.

Why do this?

1. After 3 months if you have proven to know what you are doing you have 3 clients that will now pay you.

2. You have real life examples to use in marketing materials and on landing pages.

A client is going to bite 1,000,000,000 times faster if you can say "Here, look at what we did for Joe's Pizza"

Clients are smart. They can smell bullshit testimonials....they want to see REAL results. Show them that and you can close a ridiculous higher percentage of prospects.

Netmoney1, Thanks man. Great advice again. I'm definitely going to put this into motion.

Right now i'm currently at a crossroads of targeting larger companies that will have a bit of a budget for marketing or instead, targeting the smaller 'under-dog' style businesses.

The PDF I designed for the pitch with that larger business with multiple locations. I think it was really well done and now I have a template to use for future RFP's.
If any of this gets working I will upload the PSD file to the forum in a way to give back.

Your idea of building a portfolio first is definitely sound. I'll start researching which businesses or targets market to do this with and hopefully will be able to develop a relationship with a few that will be interested. Currently I am just finding the targeting hard.


Oh and a FYI for anyone who is following: When I did those call backs through the list I realized that a lot of the businesses that had poor reviews had actually SHUT DOWN or changed their names. So it really does show how crucial this can be for businesses. Having such poor consistent service online can really drive customers away. On the other hand, a fair number of them were quite rude on the phone before I had even started talking.. which makes it amazing to believe that they can still function as a business, but of course this will all catch up to them eventually.

 

[H0BB5]

Do you think your time would be better spent sending out additional letters rather than following up with people you don't think are interested?

I can't think of anything I would do for $300 per year. That's $25 per month. If you spend an hour a month emailing them, you're already losing money.

Absolutely. Going through the list was mainly just to call and see if they had received the letter and their thoughts on it. To learn what has turned them away or if they had even known about their reviews etc..
I found a good majority of the ones who did not contact me back had either:

A) not received the letter/directed to the wrong person
B) were indeed very rude and the reviews do gauge their service accurately.
C) had either shutdown or changed names (I wonder why..)

Overall it is not worth the time but I learned I need to find a better solution to getting the letter to the decision maker that doesn't slow down the list building process with a lot of background research.

and yeah, fuck that. The low ball offer will be a headache for them in the end, not worth the time or effort at all. Just a shame because Im pretty sure they were pretty receptive until they had 'received' this offer unless they're making that up.

I agree with netmoney1. If you're just starting out with zero experience and references, its hard to charge whatever others are charging. Sure you might have the talents and skills, but only you know and no one else. Its tough to convince prospects that you are better or 'on par' with others.

So what you need to do is to suck it up, and take any opportunities you can and build it up from there. The situation would be similar to finding your first 'real job' after graduation. You take any opportunity (even if it's internship) just to gain some field experience before you apply for a better job down the road.

Don't feel discourage because you have to work from the bottom. I was like that, and I believe so are many others here. It's part of the game.

Good luck

Very true.. that's definitely a good way to look at it.
I have to admit after the low ball quote I am feeling a bit discouraged on the method.
But I've had all of this success really just from sending out ONE batch. So of course there are plenty of fish out there.
Probably going to get back into it this week ( ive had to take about a week and a half off to focus on my main job )

 

[netmoney1]

Netmoney1, Thanks man. Great advice again. I'm definitely going to put this into motion.

Right now i'm currently at a crossroads of targeting larger companies that will have a bit of a budget for marketing or instead, targeting the smaller 'under-dog' style businesses.

The PDF I designed for the pitch with that larger business with multiple locations. I think it was really well done and now I have a template to use for future RFP's.
If any of this gets working I will upload the PSD file to the forum in a way to give back.

Your idea of building a portfolio first is definitely sound. I'll start researching which businesses or targets market to do this with and hopefully will be able to develop a relationship with a few that will be interested. Currently I am just finding the targeting hard.


Oh and a FYI for anyone who is following: When I did those call backs through the list I realized that a lot of the businesses that had poor reviews had actually SHUT DOWN or changed their names. So it really does show how crucial this can be for businesses. Having such poor consistent service online can really drive customers away. On the other hand, a fair number of them were quite rude on the phone before I had even started talking.. which makes it amazing to believe that they can still function as a business, but of course this will all catch up to them eventually.

Cool, good luck man. Just a friendly heads up...when a big companies mentions "RFP" 99.99999% of the time that means "we will pick the company with the lowest price"...

Words of advice...fuck RFP's. Go after companies that truly value the SERVICE you provide...not just the price.

You couldn't pay me enough to submit a bid to anyone that mentions RFP. You can sign 10 other businesses in the time you waste with their bullshit phone calls, meetings, conference calls and fucking ridiculous demands.

RFP = Run Fucking Phast

 

[H0BB5]

RFP = Run Fucking Phast

hahaha!

Yeah, trust me I know. I have to do RFP's at the agency I work at for some pretty large proposals.

But for happenstance that a company may be on the fence and isn't up for a short meeting, i've made this PDF.
The initial time invested was maybe 6 or so hours to lay it out/design it nicely and make it persuasive enough.

Now if I ever have future clients that request more info I can just swap their logos in, change a few of the stats and send it off ~ 15 mins work.

I would love to be in the position where I can sign 10 other businesses, but i'm not at your level yet, maybe my targeting is off.

Thanks again for the tips

 

[netmoney1]

hahaha!

Yeah, trust me I know. I have to do RFP's at the agency I work at for some pretty large proposals.

But for happenstance that a company may be on the fence and isn't up for a short meeting, i've made this PDF.
The initial time invested was maybe 6 or so hours to lay it out/design it nicely and make it persuasive enough.

Now if I ever have future clients that request more info I can just swap their logos in, change a few of the stats and send it off ~ 15 mins work.

I would love to be in the position where I can sign 10 other businesses, but i'm not at your level yet, maybe my targeting is off.

Thanks again for the tips

Your template is a good idea...just to throw something at the businesses that do request a RFP.

I've been working on one for a large web project...and it has been 60 days of back and forth. The other day they called and requested that I fly out because they wanted to have 1 2-day meeting with their final 5 companies. I told the woman to fuck off in the nicest way possible. Airfare and 2-night hotel, rental car, food, etc all had to come out of my pocket. So, $2K to pitch with 5 others.

Ignore me...I just hate the words RFP at the moment

 

[nobodyelsein]

This is very encouraging. RFPs / tenders are always a nightmare. They are a method of removing heart from business decisions and are only used to protect people who are weak decision makers.

 

[ShadyContent]

Are you sure it wasn't $300 a year for each location? That would be $24,000 a year from just that company. Once the script and site is running you really don't have to do anything other than sell them postcards as need also making profit.

 

[H0BB5]

Are you sure it wasn't $300 a year for each location? That would be $24,000 a year from just that company. Once the script and site is running you really don't have to do anything other than sell them postcards as need also making profit.

That was a long time ago. Yeah, $300 might be steep but you have to keep in mind that there is still 70+ locations for you to manage, get results for, and lots of leg work to set all of those locations up. This is just how I would have handled the situation. I could have probably taken it for much less but I wouldn't have been able to achieve any results or even feel good about the sale.

I've got a lot of updates recently and have actually been doing quite well. I tweaked some aspects of the process, learned a lot and have completely rebuilt the review system. I've been so busy lately I haven't had a chance to write an update.

Promise i'll do that soon for everyone.

Cheers!

 

[ShadyContent]

Please do i'm been following up on this.


By the way everyone should be calling each location first to confirm it's still open so you don't waste time or money finding out later they are closed.

 

[Keyboarding]

holy.fuck.

I love this dude. I've started up mid-april, no results yet. One guy on the fence and he prob won't jump. I can't believe the instant results you had, even though they didn't go anywhere.
It's hard to work on school work when I have this on the back of my mind.

I've sent out 60 letters, was about to follow up until I had the idea of practicing cold calling first. Started cold calling in a random city. 20 calls in since yesterday. Taking little breaks to text some girls, read up on Ari galper, re-fine my thought process, and read some more. Have a program by allan pease about to get into. Haven't looked into Jordan Belfort's as I was afraid it would be gimmicky & overused by now. It's a work in progress.

I think I'm going to run with netmoney's advice, talk to the guy^, if he declines I'll tell him I'll run this one for free as portfolio work.

tldr; this is inspiring. would be good to talk with you on skype sometime.

 

[ShadyContent]

I just hired someone to develop a Yelp scraper to find business with bad reviews. Should improve productivity a lot.