Bringing local businesses online

I've read quite a bit in this forum and I like what I read. There was a lot of positive energy but also a lot of bragging I suppose. Anyway I'm planning on bringing a few businesses in my area online. I'm sure they don't know anything about the Internet what so ever. It's the execution of my plan that I need your opinion about, because I'm concerned and insecure about the feasability / viability of the whole idea.

I'm planning on charging for every single thing I can think of. Starting with the website (wordpress system)

• >= ? 850 for a simple thing
• more advanced >= 1500
• ... just trying not to go too low

I'll get some nice looking themes and I'll sell those as "the website" they have dreamed of all their lives. Then I'll upsell the hell out of them with

• hosting
• domainnames (which I get via very cheap reseller account)
• plugins/features which won't cost me a dime
• adding to google places, etc...

The problem is that it really doesn't add up all that much. I mean even if I get to sell a site of ? 2000 and a domain/hosting/maintenance pack of ? 49/month, that's not really what I had hoped for. The village I live is a small village with not too many businesses and the surrounding villages are also not quite populated so I won't get a lot of customers. I'm aiming for ? xx.xxx / month but I suspect that getting 2 clients per month over here would already be a job well done. With 2 clients per month I'd collect a silly 24*49=?1176/month residual income after a whole year.

This means I'd have to work for 10 years to get near the ? 10.000 mark, provided that not a single client ever stops the maintenance/hosting deal. Moreover, I don't suppose that the hairdressers, sandwich shops, contractors etc... would need 10 years of heavy duty maintenance on their site, let alone a SEO optimisation of ? 300 /month.

Am I too pessimistic about all this or are there things that I'm missing here? Any ideas about other stuff to upsell would also be great, in fact, this would be the main question to you guys: how do you increase your monthly residual/passive/recurring (whatever you call it) income? Also, how to convince the "cheaper" clients of paying big bucks for a website. I don't really have any huge companies here in the neighbourhood.

I'm really willing to try this thing. I already set up a business website, designed business cards, set up a reseller account, pre-designed 2 websites for potential clients (one of which I have already sent a preview of the site; no prices mentioned), so I'm really going to DO THIS, but some good advice from the veterans and even the noobs here would be awesome!

You're sure they don't know anything about the internet whatsoever? I think that is a little optimistic but if that's what you think fair enough. It sounds like those prices might be a little high especially for small businesses as you've explained. It seems like you're worried also about there not being a big enough market for you to make money from. Bare in my mind that you don't have to just target your own 'local' businesses, look up businesses in the surrounding villages maybe in a newspaper or telephone directory and contact these people through phone or email.

I think you're too optimistic
If I was running a hair dress salon I wouldn't buy 300/mo SEO packages, what for? The town is already small which means low profit margin, not many clients, etc.

I dont think buisnesses in a 10 church 5 pub village could give a damn about websites and seo. Maybe expand your horizons to the next big town/city/region .

This is a good business idea, you can upsell social media services to those businesses to make your check bigger.

Your numbers are not realistic. Also you're trying to sell them something they probably don't need. Not even once you mentioned how you are going to help them.

Have you done any research about their needs and pains? Talk to a few business owners and discover what they need, then you can offer something that is gonna really help them.

You want to squeeze as much money as possible without providing anything of value, and that's not gonna fly in a small town.

Good luck.

Move out of your "village" and work on stuff in bigger metro areas.

Th.anks for your opinions. I fear indeed that the market isn't big enough to really make a reasonable pr0fit in this industry. Indeed I want to squeeze as much out of my clients as possible, because as a business, that is exactly the correct mindset to have, as that's what keeps the ball rolling. As somebody suggested, I wouldn't bother about the needs of my clients but that is absolutely wrong. I do indeed bring value to the customer, but I'm afraid they won't perceive it valuable because they don't know the power of the Internet and marketing in general.

I exactly know how to help them with co.mmercial ideas (because they also don't know anything about that either!!!). I already have a co.mmercial job right now. I currently s.ell stuff to people to help them solve a specific problem in a niche market, but I do it for a "boss" and if I can make him r1ch, I could as well put my efforts in establishing and growing my own business, albeit a completely different market. This is a very old fashioned town, most small companies don't have websites or online exposure over here... they have ugly 4ss businesscards (if they even have them at all) -- I could redo them and include their website l1nk..., their shops sometimes seem HIDDEN in plain view... Last time I even had a flyer in my mai.lbox which talked about the opening of a new business, but there were no contact details included; no add.ress, telephone, etc... OMG these n00bs need me, I'm sure they do!

A lot of work for "imago management" projects as you can see, but I fear they won't have the c4sh either to support my quality and gradiose overhauls... Also the consensus seems to be that these small companies don't need SEO. I also kind of suspect that to be true, sadly... that leaves me with the question: how to generate a recurring income in this business, apart from hosting fees which add up to nothing?

Moving out to bigger cities isn't an option but scanning the yellow pages is already on my todo list, thanks.

To Imperial.444: I always wondered about "social media services". I mean I can add facebook like, twitter, google+ buttons etc... to their website. How much would something like that be worth? What else is included in these "social media services" actually?

Hey th.anks for your feedback people, really appreciate this, looking forward to more insights.


edit: sorry for the weird typing but somehow my message kept being blocked by the moderation system so I had to improvise.

My advice would be to continue to refine and polish your skills, both with what your are offering to your clients, and to your pitch, how you are trying to sell your services. If you don't give up, and continuously keep learning when you are struggling and seek help in those problem areas (such as how to sell, or how to provide your service), then you will eventually have success.

Don't charge so much. No company is going to spend that much without a decent portfolio to look at. Start small, then work at getting bigger clients.. But don't deter them with prices that are too high.

I would opt to run a local area online directory that covers your surrounding villages with basic listings. Then charge a monthly fee for enhanced listings, added photos, reputation management etc. When your directory gets large enough, you might consider a print directory.

HTH

Glenn