Trying out 7878's ORM Mail Tactic

netmoney1 said:

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...

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At first, I thought "very cool", as I had just come across the 7878 thread and was wondering who else gave it a try.

Saw your repclean.ca site, but have you heeded netmoney1's advice?

After searching for the testimonial business' website ("business name Canada"), only found flawed possibles. 1) Hotel is in India - corporate website show properties in Middle East and India; 2) Nostalgia Studios - only one close is Studio Nostalgia - wrong spelling and order of words; 3) Brixton's Pub exists, but not "Brixton's Pub and Grill"; 4) Nothing under "Go Big Fitness".

Maybe these are all buried on the second or later page in the SERPs.

Nice website, but unless I'm missing something, seems you either will have a credibility problem in drumming up new business if prospects only scratch the surface (in which case, you'd best hyperlink their websites, otherwise you are losing prospects and you don't know it), or you are leaving a crap load of money on the table as these guys need serious SEO (in which case you need to extend your offering - and get new testimonials to support that aspect).

netmoney1 said:

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.

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Been there in my other IRL experience (competing via RFPs).

As a noob to SEO, don't know how applicable, but two ways to look at this, IMHO:

1) Indicator of their spend. These people might be willing to spend big bucks because they seem to think it is worth that amount of your time and money. Five is a bit too much (makes it seem like they don't know what they want and are "fishing" vs looking for lowball), but I might have asked them that if they down select to two (or three tops!) it is worthwhile - puts onus on them.

Were they willing to say who were the competitors? Most should be - if they want a good relationship, they should - nothing ethically wrong with that (just don't trash the competition). The field is big, but maybe you know them, or you can research them and figure out a differentiator. OTOH, "no bidding" is a good way to let your competitors eat an unprofitable contract.

2) Opportunity for consulting service. Are they experts in this? How are they making a decision, if not? Seems like they might be able to use some expertise in vetting services. Not sure us noobs can pull it off, but seems like a nice profit center for an experienced guy like you netmoney!

Does this make sense for SEO? Would like to know.

If so, too late for this one, but maybe in future?

Please share what you have been up selling. Also could you share your contract or the original one you used before editing it Lastly are you singing a minimum year or do you have deals that are for a smaller term?

Hey, thanks for the update. Actually I'm trying out 7878s method too. I send out 50 letters 1,5 weeks ago. Received 2 calls. Not a bad response rate. Out of those 2 calls I scheduled a meeting with one. Will meet next week. The other one wanted me to delete his negative reviews and wasn't interested in anything else, so his loss I guess. After one week went past I followed up on those 50 letters. Tbh this is a fucking annoying thing to do, but I did it.

I focused on restaurants... the problem here is that most of them are pretty busy. It's a pretty tough act to even talk to the business owner. Many of them were not interested or didn't have the time. But I was also lucky and another one was interested and we were meeting today. The meeting was pretty fucked up, he came about 30 minutes too late and was totally stressed and fucked up. Also he wasn't interested in the service because he only wanted me to delete the old reviews. He didn't believe in the "review funnel" system.

Well, nevermind. Lets see how the meeting next week will go. For 50 letters its nevertheless a pretty good response rate, considering normal cold mailing averages a response rate < 1%.

I thought about pricing 97€ / month, but for a 12 months contract. If they only want a 6 months contract they gotta pay 127€ / month.
I first of all wanna get confident with this business model, thats why I'm charging these amounts first.

Any ideas, tips, hints?

1% is the lowest rate I have seen, (however it's still good, now you can tweak and do even better ) but are you sure you are following the method correct? I have seen up to 20% and 5-10% seems to be the norm form all the post I have read. Also most are charging $300+ and you should get in the mindset of doing the same any business with bad reviews is going to lose a lot of potential clients. The service you are offering is easily worth $500+/month for just about any business. REMEMBER It's better to have 5 clients paying $500 a month, then 25 clients paying $100. You make the same money and do a lot less work and the cheaper a client is the more problems they almost always have.

I believe it depends on how you present and how much value your service can truly contribute to the bottom line. That's what will determine the price. You can charge $5,000 per month and help the company to make additional $50,000, thats a good ROI for the company and that $5,000 is well deserved. If you charge $5,000 per month and dont have any numbers to show, then good luck.

I have talked to many ORM individuals and most struggle because all they think is making big bucks right from the start. It's true that 5 clients paying $500 a month is better than 25 paying $100 a month. But I think this concept would only make sense if you are 100% confident that those 5 clients will be with you for long-term, and will be offering you great opportunities ahead.

Otherwise, if you're just starting out, handling 25 x $100 clients would probably get you more opportunities ahead, and give you the experience you need to advance further in this industry. The ultimate goal is still less # of clients, and more $$$ ones, but jumping from zero to hero only happens in WSO ventures.

originalposter said:

I believe it depends on how you present and how much value your service can truly contribute to the bottom line. That's what will determine the price. You can charge $5,000 per month and help the company to make additional $50,000, thats a good ROI for the company and that $5,000 is well deserved. If you charge $5,000 per month and dont have any numbers to show, then good luck.

I have talked to many ORM individuals and most struggle because all they think is making big bucks right from the start. It's true that 5 clients paying $500 a month is better than 25 paying $100 a month. But I think this concept would only make sense if you are 100% confident that those 5 clients will be with you for long-term, and will be offering you great opportunities ahead.

Otherwise, if you're just starting out, handling 25 x $100 clients would probably get you more opportunities ahead, and give you the experience you need to advance further in this industry. The ultimate goal is still less # of clients, and more $$$ ones, but jumping from zero to hero only happens in WSO ventures.

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I would honestly recommend anyone who is reading this thread to follow originalposter's advice. After trying this out for the last couple months I have learned this lesson the hard way and back it 100%.

I do have a few clients at $100/month, but I do not really recommend this price.
Actually, one of them is a client I really regret taking on. He is very rude, abrasive, and has basically black mailed us with threatening to leave bad reviews on my social media if it doesn't work; as well as constantly saying "you work for me now". Awful.

I would recommend the $200-$250 price range. It took me a long time to come to that number. I can't speak for all countries/locations. This is just the price that works best for me and my confidence level.
I do have some incentives that I have added to close the sales and basically disarm any sort of negativity they have.
I will share some of these methods in the future after I have fully tested them out.

Right now everything is organized chaos, but in a good way. Lots of experimenting.


Cheers!

H0BB5 said:

I would honestly recommend anyone who is reading this thread to follow originalposter's advice. After trying this out for the last couple months I have learned this lesson the hard way and back it 100%.

I do have a few clients at $100/month, but I do not really recommend this price.
Actually, one of them is a client I really regret taking on. He is very rude, abrasive, and has basically black mailed us with threatening to leave bad reviews on my social media if it doesn't work; as well as constantly saying "you work for me now". Awful.

I would recommend the $200-$250 price range. It took me a long time to come to that number. I can't speak for all countries/locations. This is just the price that works best for me and my confidence level.
I do have some incentives that I have added to close the sales and basically disarm any sort of negativity they have.
I will share some of these methods in the future after I have fully tested them out.

Right now everything is organized chaos, but in a good way. Lots of experimenting.


Cheers!

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Hang in there dude, this is the adopt and adapt crowd and threads like yours helps out everyone. We all graduate to higher levels of seo in both skills and what we get paid. Don't let clients fuck with you like that. Let them do what they want to do, your a internet marketing right? 99% of people use the web for info and stuff.

I'm asking for $499 it leaves room to give deals to those that have an issue with it. Also, If they don't like the $499 I'll do $250-$300 and tell them look I'll do $300 but let's agree to $499 the first month and then $300 thereafter.

Are you guys including cards/flyers in your monthly price or do you charge them as needed?

ShadyContent said:

I'm asking for $499 it leaves room to give deals to those that have an issue with it. Also, If they don't like the $499 I'll do $250-$300 and tell them look I'll do $300 but let's agree to $499 the first month and then $300 thereafter.

Are you guys including cards/flyers in your monthly price or do you charge them as needed?

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It can vary. I'm sure you read, and if you didn't read takticals thread here, the required reading. Never sell your self short. Hit em high, wait a few days to deal...

b1step-ahead said:

It can vary. I'm sure you read, and if you didn't read takticals thread here, the required reading. Never sell your self short. Hit em high, wait a few days to deal...

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To be fair, that depends what your financial situation is. Most start ups (with limited funding) do not have the luxury to wait out like this. Positive cashflow is a major concern and factor in order to survive or for expansion.

While I agree that "never sell yourself short" is good advice, but that's only if your skills and talent are recognized. Otherwise, there are dozens of so-called 'experts/gurus/ninjas' everywhere (you get the idea) - why would they pick YOU over them?

Hence, before you quote, make sure you ask yourself 'why am i worth $XXXX over your competitor', or the absolute minimum you will accept the job for. There are several scenarios where you can quote higher than others - for example;

1. You have a good reputation
2. You have a unique service or platform that are exclusive to you only
3. Well... you could be a smooth talker and can close just about any deals (I sure hope you are)

Otherwise, if you're just starting out, calculate the total cost it would take you to get the job done + % profit (reasonable), and get things running.

Just because 7878 and Taktical can charge $1000+ per contract, doesnt mean you can. Also depends on location, experience, network, reputation etc.

Do what you are comfortable with, and focus on building your own business!

Bus Stop / Bus Shelter Ads: Range of $150 - $600 for small to medium size markets and $3,000 to $6,500 for high-income areas -- per ad per 4 week period.An effective size campaign on a popular station could cost $500 per week in small town - See more at: http://fitsmallbusiness.com/radio-advertising-costs/#sthash.ClEkIiDV.dpufcomfortable

originalposter said:

To be fair, that depends what your financial situation is. Most start ups (with limited funding) do not have the luxury to wait out like this. Positive cashflow is a major concern and factor in order to survive or for expansion.

While I agree that "never sell yourself short" is good advice, but that's only if your skills and talent are recognized. Otherwise, there are dozens of so-called 'experts/gurus/ninjas' everywhere (you get the idea) - why would they pick YOU over them?

Hence, before you quote, make sure you ask yourself 'why am i worth $XXXX over your competitor', or the absolute minimum you will accept the job for. There are several scenarios where you can quote higher than others - for example;

1. You have a good reputation
2. You have a unique service or platform that are exclusive to you only
3. Well... you could be a smooth talker and can close just about any deals (I sure hope you are)

Otherwise, if you're just starting out, calculate the total cost it would take you to get the job done + % profit (reasonable), and get things running.

Just because 7878 and Taktical can charge $1000+ per contract, doesnt mean you can. Also depends on location, experience, network, reputation etc.

Do what you are comfortable with, and focus on building your own business!

Click to expand...

I agree 110% you have to be comfortable with what your selling or they can tell and the deal can fall through. Don't undervalue the service you are offering this system can make the clients you work for a lot of money if you don't believe that look into other types of marketing and the cost associated with them. Billboards cost 1,000s a month. Many keywords on ad words cost $10.00+ (50 click $500) a click. An effective size campaign on a popular radio station could cost $500 per week in small-town. TV ads cost even more. Bus Stop / Bus Shelter Ads: Range of $150 - $600 for small to medium size markets and $3,000 to $6,500 for high-income areas -- per ad per 4-week period. These are all types of things people are buying so always keep in mind business people are use to spending money and expect to.

ShadyContent said:

Bus Stop / Bus Shelter Ads: Range of $150 - $600 for small to medium size markets and $3,000 to $6,500 for high-income areas -- per ad per 4 week period.An effective size campaign on a popular station could cost $500 per week in small town - See more at: http://fitsmallbusiness.com/radio-advertising-costs/#sthash.ClEkIiDV.dpufcomfortable


I agree 110% you have to be comfortable with what your selling or they can tell and the deal can fall through. Don't undervalue the service you are offering this system can make the clients you work for a lot of money if you don't believe that look into other types of marketing and the cost associated with them. Billboards cost 1,000s a month. Many keywords on ad words cost $10.00+ (50 click $500) a click. An effective size campaign on a popular radio station could cost $500 per week in small-town. TV ads cost even more. Bus Stop / Bus Shelter Ads: Range of $150 - $600 for small to medium size markets and $3,000 to $6,500 for high-income areas -- per ad per 4-week period. These are all types of things people are buying so always keep in mind business people are use to spending money and expect to.

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Great baseline of comparison. Thanks!

Coming from school of hard knocks, IRL (though not SEO/IM, should still relate), a few points...

Agree with originalposter...Reputation and uniqueness are the biggest hurdles. Having been on the other side purchasing services, those can be overcome IF a GREAT value proposition can be effectively demonstrated. This takes preparation and salesmanship.

If you don't have rep or uniques behind you, expect your ratio of NOs to be much higher (vs what you may find a year later, when you can send your prospects to REAL and happy references). Until then, you cannot give the prospect a reason to have the littlest of doubt.

For example, it is almost certain (if they are smart) they will search for and check out your website - one sniff of BS, and they are GONE. Also, your website should be an extension of your sales pitch - how does it support what you are telling clients? If the message is disjointed (vs consistent), they are GONE. That's just two aspects of many to consider.

In dealing with those with low ratings on Yelp, one problem is that they are there for a reason. No way you can fix their online rep if their business thoroughly sucks. Gotta filter out those guys before pitching them, by doing your homework - increasing your YES ratio. Maybe all you need to do is drive by, or google street walk their business, to see what it looks like? Just one simple task might save you a bunch of work.

On pricing, it has to match your value prop. High price for high value, low price for low value. "Low value" here, doesn't mean poor quality. It is "value to your client". If your service only delivers $2K per month of new business, maybe $250 is too high (e.g. if their profit margin is 20%, you would be asking for 63% of their profit before taxes, etc.!). It takes homework before hand to find the sweet spot of clients.

You have to decide if that price point is profitable for you, or if you are going to get something of value out of it (e.g. reference, experience). And, you ought to have this well understood before you engage / negotiate with the client.

Hope this helps!

originalposter said:

To be fair, that depends what your financial situation is. Most start ups (with limited funding) do not have the luxury to wait out like this. Positive cashflow is a major concern and factor in order to survive or for expansion.

While I agree that "never sell yourself short" is good advice, but that's only if your skills and talent are recognized. Otherwise, there are dozens of so-called 'experts/gurus/ninjas' everywhere (you get the idea) - why would they pick YOU over them?

Hence, before you quote, make sure you ask yourself 'why am i worth $XXXX over your competitor', or the absolute minimum you will accept the job for. There are several scenarios where you can quote higher than others - for example;

1. You have a good reputation
2. You have a unique service or platform that are exclusive to you only
3. Well... you could be a smooth talker and can close just about any deals (I sure hope you are)

Otherwise, if you're just starting out, calculate the total cost it would take you to get the job done + % profit (reasonable), and get things running.

Just because 7878 and Taktical can charge $1000+ per contract, doesnt mean you can. Also depends on location, experience, network, reputation etc.

Do what you are comfortable with, and focus on building your own business!

Click to expand...

I agree with your saying for the most part. If it's a race to who is the cheapest, that's not a race i recommend to be in. I did a informal study 3 years ago, I actually called up, emailed, talked to in person 100 business owners. Something like 80% would pay for seo services if it was 300 or less a month. Out of that 80% that said that, 50% already had seo services for under $300 a month. I lost the numbers for the rest of the questions, but when asked what are you getting for that $300, most didn't know or didn't know if it was helping. The moral of the story is, you can basically offer low cost seo services for under $300 and not do a single thing, or offer premium services and charge premium prices. Both have it's pro's and con's.

b1step-ahead said:

I agree with your saying for the most part. If it's a race to who is the cheapest, that's not a race i recommend to be in. I did a informal study 3 years ago, I actually called up, emailed, talked to in person 100 business owners. Something like 80% would pay for seo services if it was 300 or less a month. Out of that 80% that said that, 50% already had seo services for under $300 a month. I lost the numbers for the rest of the questions, but when asked what are you getting for that $300, most didn't know or didn't know if it was helping. The moral of the story is, you can basically offer low cost seo services for under $300 and not do a single thing, or offer premium services and charge premium prices. Both have it's pro's and con's.

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With all due respect, i never mention being the cheapest but of course, not overly expensive at the start, just because you are an expert (and people dont know that). Slowly build your clientele and reputation for yourself. After that, you can pretty much charge whatever you want.

Hi guys, it's been a crazy few months. Things are running very smoothly at this point. I have employees working at the office to deal with printing out batches to send. I also have salespeople attending the meetings to sell our funnel.

It feels like we've worked the whole system down to a science. We're up to 20 clients with more on the way. The salespeople are actually a few friends I have in another province that I trained through Skype.

We also changed up our pricing structure because we used to offer surveying as part of the ORM system. We found that higher rated businesses like that, but it also paved way for cheaper clients to ask for no surveys and a cheaper price tag. This is contrary to what I heard from people in my network that told me I was charging too little for my services. I took all this into consideration and created a speedy, UI/UX friendly funnel system that has been "flying off the shelves". You can see the funnel here: http://imgur.com/a/7mTUc

Between the stories I've heard on BHW as well as my experiences in Toronto and the rest of Canada, I really think the system applies universally. One problem I've actually encountered is that I personally had too many clients at one point. I tried to organize them all by playing around with a few CRM systems, but none of them stood out. Currently I'm in the process of making our team a back end to monitor leads/client progress.

I'm always interested in bouncing off ideas with people doing ORM and I've met a lot of great BHW users since starting, feel free to add my Skype: dylzilla

One thing I always wondered about this method is the cards that get given out to the clients. Do you include this in your pricing?Do you keep sending the business X amount of cards per month or something?

Hey everybody!


It’s been a while, eh? I just wanted to give you guys an update to bring my journey around full circle. Since my last post, I quit my job to do this full-time; I currently serve a bunch of individual locations and I am now shifting my efforts to creating orm strategies for franchises. I’ve learned a lot in the last 2 years and I want to use this post to help those who may be encountering the same problems I did.


1. Time is money, manage your time accordingly


Something I couldn’t stand in the beginning was how much time I put into finding leads and creating letters to send. I automated the process as soon as I could by developing my own Google Maps scraper. There are generic scrapers you can pay for online, but I wanted one that would find specific information I needed for my next step in automation: letters. I was able to export data from my scraper into an excel file which I then injected into a 7878-adapted letter template.





The next step was finding a way to automate the accompanying reviews page; this requires a little more work than the letters. First, you have to go to the business’s G+ page and copy their reviews (now located in Google Maps). I sorted them by “lowest score” and used Skitch to take screenshots. I created a template in Adobe InDesign that would autopopulate with my screenshots. I used a blank piece of paper to write things like “is this how you want to be represented” and “I can help”. I used a good printer to scan the second page onto the first page so that it looked like I handwrote these things on every single letter. I still had to go through the page and circle negative reviews but the process was much more efficient now. One more tip, spending a little more on thick paper goes a long way.





2. Be knowledgeable and confident in ORM


A lot of you starting out don’t have examples to show businesses. I would suggest doing heavy research to answer objections before they arise (https://www.justsell.com/the-8-objections/) Once you practice how to respond to objections enough, you will be able to sell the system pretty easily. I used to have a cheat sheet of ORM stats and a script I used as a guideline for follow-up calls. Use the forgetting curve to understand when to make follow-up calls and emails. Assuming I don’t close the client on the spot, I usually send an email the next day, a call within the week, and emails the following week, 2 weeks and a month.


3. Believe in the service


I went from thinking this method was an easy way to make money, to really believing in helping the businesses I serve. I tried a lot of options for funnel software but they all felt outdated to me. I developed my own funnel because I have a background in design. I shared it with some of you before and we’ve all better conversion rates because of it. Whenever you sell something, make sure you’d use it first.


4. Be ready for sales


I started this method without a funnel or process for how to handle clients after I’ve signed them. The first part is easy, find a white label solution that you like and make sure they’re prepared for random shit Google does with it’s rating system algorithms. Second has a few parts: have a solid contract, set up automatic payments, and keep all your transactions documented. I really mean keep all your cheques in order because I started this project thinking I was going to make a few extra bucks for beer money; I never knew I would grow this into a nation-wide company. Taxes are a bitch if you’re not ready so don’t fall behind! I personally use Freshbooks to keep everything neat.


Anyway, I didn’t expect this post to end up so long. I hope you guys learned something and if you have any questions, hit me up on skype: dylzilla i'm always game to talk shop and can add you to our ORM Skype group if interested.

Tonnes of thanks for the last post, gave me new motivation to move forward with this.