Anyone genuinely considered an offline business?

I'm wondering if anyone here has considered starting/has owned an offline business? All SEO experts/media buying companies focusing on offline business would go out of business if their work didn't turn a profit for the company paying them. Would it not be a more profitable idea for that SEO expert or online advertising agency to start their own company and spend 100% of their time promoting that? I understand that there are inherent risks involved, much greater than those for trading services for money, and a much larger initial investment for a brick and mortar store, but the reward would surely be much greater. E.g. start a local bakery, geotarget those in your area with facebook ads or top ranking for local bakery searches, bring in a large customer base and earn enough to build another bakery in another suburb and continue expanding.

Not a lot of substance to this post - I know, sorry, but I'd really love some opinions from anyone out there who's been involved or if I'm just stupidly missing some blatantly obvious aspect.

Did you just say offline business is profitable?

if you are a SEO expert I would personally look at how much customers you where able to get for your clients and if you haven't done any big projects I would just search for a company that you can help promote and if that ends up working great start a business on your own and promote it. (so my opinions don't start a offline business and think you can make it profitable with ads)

i dont now the only good thing about offline is that you only ship products one way and you get "free visitors" every day. Downside is upfront cost,running cost, time that needs to be spent managing it. stocking. That and you dont have time to learn anything about marketing and shit nah fuck that : P

Your post is great, and I think turning online success into an offline business often can be a great idea. But online and offline businesses are two very different thing, be sure you have what it takes. Also, an offline business probably will need all your time, chance of success increases greatly when going for it a 100%.

A partnership could often be a better solution. You get to focus your time on what you know you are good at...

Why wouldn't you diversify your businesses?

I built and sold computers. I was one of the first in my home town to do so, 30 years ago. Did it until the mid 1990's when I went online. Today it would be impossible to sell computers without being online and offline, probably 50% 50%. I have friends who still sell PC's, now the gaming scene is all the rage, you build super PC's that compare to big servers. I'm totally out of the hardware loop though, I'm 100% online now.

Having said that, this week a friend of mine said he was gona close his online biz and to open a burger joint. I asked him WTF you gonna flip burgers. He said yeah at least I won't stress up all the time and I'll see real people instead of computers only. So everyone has their story.

Just my 2 cents about whatever this is about.