Heavy Is The Head That Wears The Crown - My Path

I've been on BHW for a few years now and it seems like forever since I've either posted something meaningful or since I've done anything on the interwebs as it is. With that being said I now have more responsibilities then I could have ever cared to imagine and even more of a desire to get back into the IM world and leave corporate america. Now with that being said the question becomes what is it that I am looking to accomplish with this journey. Well I want to start an boutique marketing agency. Not an SEO agency although that will obviously be part of it but I want to get back to the roots of marketing and that means both off line and online. What are my targets and what are my goals? Those are the questions that I am looking to answer here. This isn't going to be a breakdown of what to do and how to do it when it comes to the world of SEO. There are many people that already know how to do that and to be perfectly honest I've built into the cost of my services to have some performed by outside companies (I AM NOT LOOKING FOR OFFERS FOR SERVICES). So here we go.

Today - June 14th, 2016

Call Center
Today is the first day that I am working with an outside call center to call leads that I've pulled from Google My Business. These are leads that have not verified their Google Business page and leads that we are hoping to covert to one of three packages:

Bronze - $199 plus $99/month
Gold - $499 plus $249/month
Platinum - $5000 plus month fee

I've given them over 1000 leads in different markets across different states so that I can start data mining the ones that will covert the best after our initial test.

The goal for TODAY is to have ONE sale. That's it. One measly sale as a proof of concept. As the call center is on a commission basis I have spent no money on this so far. Yay.

The call center will be the primary focus of sales until we have narrowed down a niche. Once this happens I will data mine for that specific niche into all fifty states. Right now we are doing a test in CA and NY for three different categories. These categories are specific to each rep in the sense that the rep feels that they can related better to them and hopefully this means more/better conversions.

Also I am looking into purchasing a list(s) in order to continue have leads for the sales floor in addition to what I data mine from Google.

Targets

June 14th - One Sale
June 14th - June 19th - 5 Sales
End of June - 25 Sales

Goals

Set up MailChimp - I currently have a cold list of 1500 emails of unverified Google Business to send to. - End of June

Direct Mail - I would like to mail out a postcard to all the leads that I have and drive them to an offer to set up a FREE call for an extensive marketing review with suggestions on how to move forward or at least some type of offer that is similar to that. - End of July

I will be updating this thread on a weekly basis. My goal is to keep a record of what I'm doing and what is/isn't working and how I'm overcoming various obstacles.

Good luck mate, sounds like a great plan! Obviously you put some thought into it and you are hardworking!

Very interesting journey. I'm looking forward to finding out how well your leads convert!

Just a quick update so you can understand some of the trial and tribulations. First:

Call Center
Well you get what you pay for is always an expression that I've understood. Buy something once and buy it for life is usually my motto. The call center that I am using is obviously not a large firm and to be perfectly honest it is owned by a friend of mine that scaled it down in order to focus on other ventures after her largest client left. What that left us with was customer service reps attempting to be sales reps which to be perfectly honest never works out well. With that said we have paused the campaign till Saturday in order for her to finish her main focus on a project she is working on now. Very frustrating but hopefully this is just a small hicup and we can move past it.

Also she has hired an outside rep that will be visiting business in his travel area making face to face sales. I pulled him a list of 200 leads for the niches he picked and he has set three appointments.

So let's say that our first target is a giant failure but a lesson learned. I even through an additional cash bonus of $100 to the first person that got a sale and that didn't help at all. Grr.

I've decided to continue working with her as I feel that she will get her shit together and we can move forward together.

Interesting.. Good luck buddy.

Good luck buddy...

Looking into list brokers. Anyone out there know of good ones? Not fly by night broker's either. gainful.io was recommend but I don't know how legitimate they are?

Well the saying you get what you pay for is very true. I didn't pay a single thing for the sales floor and I got exactly nothing.

I've spoken with three sales floors. Ranging in price from 1k to 5k. Neither really jumped out at me. I struggle with them not being a partner or anything along those lines. You are just buying time. If you don't get anywhere then there are way to many variables why you are not succeeding and frankly on a bootstrap budget that isn't effective use of dollars.

I am sending out a direct mail campaign to several different niches to see what is the most profitable. Also blatantly stealing from 7878 I am sending it with dice. I've created the second mail piece as well that will be received about three days after the first. I'm debating between sending a key or something with it as well. Maybe a small flashlight? I haven't decided yet.

Still haven't decided on an outside sales floor.

In the mean time I've mailed out 25 letters with dice using a sales letter. Hopefully this has an impact. I've already written the second letter in the series and that will be sent out on Tuesday, this mail piece has a key in it. The third mail piece will be a postcard that I am printing at home. My home printer wouldn't print on the 110lb paper but my work printer seems to be handling the job. I'm thinking for the postcard I will say something along the lines of, I gave you dice to stop gambling with your marketing and the keys to success, why haven't you called? Who knows. Maybe something corny will get a response.

I also mailed out a local letter. Front and back. And basically says that I will come and do consulting for them, free, or over the phone. I am going to be following them up with a postcard next week as well.

Third and final mailing - I will be sending out a postcard only to about 250 people. This postcard is the first piece that will touch them.

I am testing out four different postcards with different messages to see which one has the most impact.

Also I think I found a new source for leads, however it's expensive and allows five people to bid on the project. Not sure just yet if it is worth the cost. I'm inclined to jump in feet first and see what happens.

The final thing that I am working on is I am using Screaming Frog and I have a buddy who is very familiar with Word and Excel and he's trying to take the data so it will autofill into a report that I can just enter in my notes and submit them and it will print out a formated "pretty" report to mail to businesses/send out as part of the marketing.

The grind continues.

Following....looks like you have the right take on it.

So far, no phone calls. Hmm. But the postcard gets mailed out tomorrow for local business and the letter with a key in it gets mailed out as well.

I have ordered 6 different things on fiverr. 1 was a voice over for the two videos on the sales page and the other five were for testimonials. They should be done this week as well. I am going to be pritning out more post cards as well. My goal is to print and mail out 100 postcards every week. Right now I am testing yellow card stock. When I use up all of this I will purchase white, and then I'm thinking green. Not sure just yet. Either way. No response. Ugh.

Best of luck on your goals mate!

Yesterday was the first day that I sent out the postcards and the second letter to the 25 dice letters. This letter contains a key.

So far I have not gotten a call or a sign up. Disappointing.

WOO HOO! First sale. $19.

Here's the results of the mailings so far:

25 dice letters/ 25 key letters/ Ugly Postcard - Nothing. Not a single call.

90 Postcards - 2 Optins - 1 Buyer

2.22% optin and 50% buy rate - I laugh at these numbers because the sample size is so small.

New Mailing:

100 more postcards sent out on Thursday

Good Luck Bro. xD