The interception method

This is a little idea I have to monetize on a 'free service'

step 1. Advertise yourself as a free business advice company, set up the website(do some seo, duh), send off some emails etc etc. The idea being that the companies who sign up to your free service can ask you for advice on things like advertising etc etc

step 2. after building a bit of rapport with your new customers, you 'upgrade' them to another free service the 'cold call interceptor' so when these business get the cold calls that they hate so much, they give the caller your number and refer them to you as the 'person who deals with the advertising/marketing/whatever the call is about , for the business'

step 3. you then get to act as the middle man, e.g if the call is about setting up a website, you call/email the business saying it was a great call and really beneficial for them , but you will do it for cheaper for being a loyal customer same applies for SEO work, adwords, hell even phoneline contracts if you can make a mark up! (although make sure you have a solid contract in place if this is the case)

step 4. get them to recommend you to all their buddies in business. Continue to market yourselves for terms like 'cold call blocker' etc etc

step 5. as usual, rinse and repeat.

not only will this remove any hard sell that you may need to do to advertise your service, as they already trust you, but you can even say that they were calling about 'x' then went on to talk about 'y' and conveniently, you offer a cheaper/better version of 'y' which you would gladly set up for them

theres plenty of ways to monetize on this, even if its a service you cant provide, you can still skim a little off the top of whatever the salesperson is selling (tell them you have a few businesses that might be interested and can they do a discount/commision for you)

all you need is a phone line, maybe a toll free number and your golden.

even if you dont have the skills to snag what they are offering, outsource it on bhw or go and learn it!

job done
enjoy

NOKTURNAL

I think this is great advice.
Thanks for sharing it.

I'm really not sure about steps 2 & 3. That would be super labour intensive for you. I think it's better to provide a good service, maybe at a good discount, to businesses that are well connected. Get them to recommend you as part of the discount process, like a sort of unofficial affiliate set up.

I'd agree, it would be quite labour intensive, this method is sort of aimed at people who do web design etc from home, so they can take a few calls when they arent doing much.
alternatively, pay a receptionist minimum wage to answer the phone.
this idea was just a bare skeleton, for people to adapt and add to

someomne once posted quite ecently they tried to give away free money to get into their service and could not do it....sounds great in theory but i'll bet even trying to give away afree service will be met with resistance. Take them down to level 3....might help.

Thing is you can be pretty chilled out about trying to 'sell' a free service, just call up (for example) and say, look this is what i'm doing, its free to join and it requires no effort from you, this is how it will benefit you, do you want in?
people with sense will probably sign up, people who argue with you are not the kind of people you will want to deal with in the further steps anyway. It's basically creating warm leads, and getting chummy with your potential clients before you pitch them

I "own and operate" two associations for the niches I'm targeting. It's pretty easy to get them on my mailing list where I upsell all kinds of things, coaching, consulting, etc.

And the benefit is many of them will pay me for the pleasure of getting marketed to. I get $30 a year for one of them and $100/yr for the other. And almost all of that money is plowed back into direct mail that hits them up. Although with that said I'm fairly well grounded in the principles of Dan Kennedy so they are getting a good education and their moneys worth for sure.

Just a thought.

good theory, hard practice