I think thats subjective. When I used this approach and clients would ask me what happened with the “book” I just said that its taking longer than I thought it would and then give them a new deadline which was months away and by that time, they had forgotten it…

The thing is, I liken this method and various other ones that are based on lies as “white lies” that parents tell children to help them… So if you get a client through a lie and you truly help them, does it really matter if you lied about some book? Personally it doesnt matter to me…

So to answer you question, no it would not be unless you get caught, but then it depends on when you get caught… was it 1 month in? Then probably they will push you away. However if its like 6 months or more then all that would happen is they would get mad but thats it… they may piss and groan but they will still value the relationship you have with them.

I used to have severe problems with lying and being dishonest but I heard an asian woman once speak about deception and lying and how its viewed in the east and west. In the east, deception/lying is viewed as a given, its natural and they expect it and get concerned if you dont do it. If you ever look at animals, they also use deception, for example tigers have spots on their ears that look like eyes from afar… thats deception right there… or when raccoons feels threatened they stand up and make themselves look bigger to predators - thats also deception/lying… the point is, its natural to deceive/lie… however in the west (probably due to christianity) deception/lying is viewed as something thats morally negative and an absolute sin which is why we often feel ashamed, sick, and disgusted with ourselves when we do it. Anyway, after hearing her speak about this subject, I reflected and realised that its perfectly okay to do these activities to achieve my goals otherwise Im shooting myself in the foot… Im not sure if this will help, but its something to at least think about.

And thank you for thinking my methods to madness were creative. Let me know if there are any other questions you got.

Oh for sure, the only thing you need to do is modify the interview questions a bit. I usually start out with general easy to answet questions that even the dumbest owner could answer - the questions usually relate to trends and industry trends. I ask about 3 to 5 of these questions and then ask them these two crucial questions 1. “So how did you get into this business anyway?” And 2. “How do you currently feel about your marketing” and from that the interview takes a turn to where they are essentially selling themselves to me because of the questions.

The second question is tailored for me - im a marketer hence the how you feel about marketing - but if you arent a marketet then swap out marketing with relevant topic.

Also with the interview questions make sure to ask them essay questions not “Yes” and “No” questions.

Im interested if you found anything useful through my other comments and if so, what was it?

If you are giving iut cookis for free like agents, I wpulx say your best source of advertising is packaging instead of having them lay on a plate and having people walk around and pick-off one or two… instead, you should package those cookies in a custom made box that looks quite beautiful (not necessarily expensive) and have those boxes given out by agents to people just before they leave… this way the people get a free box of cookies that has all your details on it and if they really like it, they can easily find your business because they got the box. If you make the cookie box like the Danish Butter Cookie box (where a sewing kit usually goes after the cookies are done) then prospects will have a very difficult time getting rid of it… ALSO include a 1 to 3 page lettet inside those cookie boxes so that you have some way of communicating with those prospects and you can include upsells or other offers in that letter.

Someone mentioned daycares and old folk homes and I disagree with them because like they said that those places will only buy in bulk and for cheap (unless you find really prestigious ones) which is really bad business (although its a good alternative source of income and you may want to do it later on). Sure children and Old folk will probably be your highest consumers, but majority of children arent the primary buyers but the parents are and as for old folk, they are pretty valid customers.

You can also provide your cookie boxes for free to people who are hosting seminars and whatnot. Do the same as from above, get the cookie boxes with a 1 to 3 page sales letter inside distributed to attendees.

Inside your letter make sure to give 1 to 2 paragraphs telling people how the cookies are made, explain the process as this will give people a reason to buy your cookies over anyone else.

Since Christmas is coming up, if you have the ability to create “themed” cookies then you ought to make a few boxes with cookies oriented towards Christmas and then approach churches where you basically set up the same deal. Make sure that inside the letter you dont say anything bad about the religion or if you are an atheist or whatever, dont mention it, however if you are Christian or you came from a christian home, then do mention it because it creates a feeling of familiarity and a way to form a connection with those folk.

There is a story of a guy who would open up laundry and dry cleaning shops every year or two and would have those shops run profitably in less than 3 months amd he did this by “buying” peoples habits and I imagine the best way to sell cookies would probably be if you can make it a part of their everyday thing so here is what the dry cleaner guy did and hopefully you can draw inspiration from that and apply the same methods to your business with great results.

1. First thing he would do is run a “Just Opened” event where people basically got their stuff cleaned for free up to 50$…

2. Every customer that attended received a coupon that said “whatever you can fit into a black bin bag gets cleaned for free”

3. After that every person who attended then received a final coupon that said “25$ free cleaning”.

4. Finally, he would send out coupons that stated “gather the things you need cleaned, put them in a bag, and we will collect them and get them cleaned, and return them.”

Using all 4 of these tactics, in a month or two time he would successfully create a “habit” for people to visit and deal with his shop.

Anyway, I hope some of these ideas helped.

I read a lot of the comments and noticed that you get overloaded with information in regards to marketing and so I would like to recommend you Dan Kennedy NO B.S. books. Start with these two “Ultimate Sales Letter” and “Direct Response Marketing for Non Direct Businesses” - from these two you will get a very clear idea of what marketing is. There are basically 2 overarching categories of marketing 1. Traditional/Big Corp Marketing and 2. Direct Response Marketing.

Your focus should solely be on number 2 at the start before moving to number 1 otherwise you will get yourself confused. Essentially Direct Response Marketing is this: A product, a story, and an offer. The beauty of direct response makreting is that its trackable. For every piece of marketing you do in this field, you can accurately see what worked and what didnt by the sales number.

A few ideas to sell your product not involving marketing…

1. Approach businesses that sell complimentary products/services to yours and ask them if they would include your product as a free bonus for in their offers in exchange for % of profits they make using this deal. Yeah you will make less than if you sold it yourself, but you arent selling any so, nothing to complain about I guess. Anothet thing and more importantly, this way you get your product out and potentially will recieve new customers (worst case potential hot leads).

2. Since you sell baby stuff, you can contact people who work with pregnant women like yoga, newborn classes (where ppl teach you about newborns) and whatever else is there. So you contact those folk and tell them that for every product they sell, they get 50% of the profits…

3. Host “tupperware” type parties and sell your products there. This is a fairly simple and effective method of gaining sales and new customers. The run down of this idea is as follows - invite friends/acquitances to your home for a homeparty sale. Make sure that you explicitly state that there is going to be product pitching/selling involved and that there is going to be FREE alcohol and food (many ppl wont pass this up). This “bribe” is so effective that you can even get strangers who you have known for 5 minutes to agree attending your party. So you host the party, and first start with shittier products or products that you have no intention of actually getting sold. This way the folk will ease in and alcohol will hit in as well. So you do that with 2 shitty products and it should take you 30 to 45 mins. Now finally the 3 product which you have every intention of selling. Make sure your sales script is as best as it can be and make sure to devise some “theatrics” when revealing this product… then you just basically do a sales pitch. Dont wuss out on asking for the sale nor become wimpy/timid when speaking about that subject. Make sure to list the benefits/features and guarantee…

Whats also great about method 3 is that you can get others to join in with you and basically “work” under you.

I hope a few of these ideas helped. If you got any questions let me know.

Here is a “sneaky” approach that is guaranteed to get you responses like crazy.

The idea is simply pretend that you are writing a book on the industry, specifically your prospects niche, and ask them if they want to be featured in your book… my success rate with this approach was insanely high when considering the fact that this cold approaching/calling/emailing. It was around 77% if Im not mistaken.

Few things to note about this method.

1. To ensure that you are credible and legit, create an advertisement for your “book” and have that advertisement printed out as if it “appeared” in a newspaper or is going to “appear”.

2. Call up book shops and inform them that you would like them to host your book - the goal with this part is to get a confimation email from those places saying “Yes mr X, we agree to have your book, “insert title” in our stores.”

3. There was a third element but I forgot it atm, maybe will come back later to fill it in when I remember… but the first 2 should suffice.

Gameplan - now you take both of those materials, the confimation letter and the newspaper ad and mail it directly to your prospects with a letter basically stating “hey im X and I do Y. Im writing a book that soon to be hosted by Z. As you can see Ive included the newspaper ad thats going to be ran in New York Times on Saturday 19, March, 2024. You have received this letter because I would like to extend an invitation for you to appear in my bool if you desire. Just call my phone numbet to book an appointment.” Thats basically the essence of what the letter should say.

Now for the interview - you want to start off by asking relevant questions to what your “book” is about before moving on to the real questions that you want to ask… or alternatively, you can just make the interview all about questions for the “book” and then follow up with a “hey I really enjoyed your thoughts on X. Im eager to hear your thoughts on . Are you free on …?”

Always and I mean always state that interview will last shorter than reality. So if it lasts 30 mins in reality, say that it only lasts 23 mins or 17…

Anyway, this method has been pure gold for me and it should work for you as well as long as you follow these steps. When I first did this, I didnt even have number 1 and 2, yet I still had decent results, but having those two definitely increased my interview rate tremendously.

If you got any questions about this method feel free to ask away.

Selling 50 shirts is nowhere near equivalent to owning a business. When I was 14 I ran homework services in school and I made a killing (at least to a 14 year old). I mentioned this because running my own homework “business” was nothing close to actually running a business and its very likely that its the same for you. With that in mind, instead of taking a loan out, you ought to either seriously study marketing, sales and business, or find a mentor who will help/guide you, or work alongisde someone who is doing similar to what you are doing now but on a bigger scale… this way you can learn from them.

Alternatively, if you find yourself a stubborn individual who will not be resisted by anyone and are deadset on getting that loan, here is an alternative which is by far safer.

Find clothing manufactures and ask them to create X amount of product for a “testing” phase. Then tell them that if you sell X amount in Y amount of time, the manufacturer will receive all the profits for this (bar the shipping/handling). In exchange for this, they have to agree that if the tests proves succesful and the manufacturer is satisfied with the results, they will produce the next batch of product (say 1k clothes) and will only receive payment after the item is sold… This is basically how you elimante the need for loans (on a small to medium scale). One thing to note with this approach is that in the last part of the plan, the “will only receive payment after item is sold” you should give them highet profits to ensure the highest chance of them accepting this deal. So for example, say you pay 1$ for 1 piece of clothing from manufacturer. Well to make sure they accept your offer, increase their profits, say from 1$ to 1.15$ or 1.30$ or 1.5$ and so on… sure you may profit less, but at least you arent in debt and are safely running your shop, which in my opinion is by far better and more appealing… also, if you increase the profits the manufacturer receives, its highly likely that they will offer you additional benefits that may come in handy, or they will create better deals for you, or perhaps introduce you to other people who can help you, or many other things…

I have personally used this approach countless times and even once had a car gifted to me by a individual who was in a business relationship with me that started through this approach. So, yeah, this approach is valid and very effective. If you got questions let me hear them.

Yeah I did this at the start of my career when I was dead broke and could barely afford rent. In 6 months I think I made 300k if Im not mistaken. What I did was find small and obscure physical newsletters in the health field that had advertising space or werent capitalising on advertising others productsin their newsletter and contacted about 70 and got I think 17 people onboard with testing. Then I went to a supplement company and offered them free advertising space to customers who are prone to buy their stuff in exchange for % of profits. Around 12 to 14 of those newsletters sold the supplements successfully whilst the rest didnt work out and so I offered them alternative products they could sell… yeah all in all, I made about 300k because of this.

At the start it takes a while to get a hang of how to construct these deals, you may get burned once or twice before you fix your contract, but all in all, once you have done around 5 to 10 deals, its smooth sailing.

Few things to be aware of is that such deals arent everlasting sadly. You will get bought out from your contract quite frequently after a period of initial success (6 to 12 months usually cause it takes a while for people to understand the potential and they underestimate results). Its not always going to work where you get pay from both sides (majority of time you will have to introduce both parties to each other after the initial testing phase of your idea).

Challenge landing an audience with the right person at both companies? Personally, I havent done encountered such challenges, but I assume that would be a problem if you are trying to get big companies - but small to medium sized, its usually quite easy.

Another thing to take into consideration with this route is that there is incredibly little information surrounding this topic that is valid. Many “theorists” but very little info from guys who have done and are sharing their knowledge. I only know one credible source and thats Jay Abraham.

If you got problems or questions specifically about outreaching and pitching prospects then ask away and I will answer.

Best way by far is in-person interviews/meetings. From surveys you usually dont get the real answers you desire (most of the time, it always depends on the goal of the survey). When in-person you can press the other person to give the answers you seek whilst on paper you cant…

The thing with surveys is that the answers you get are very basic and short which provides usually very little insight or arent actionable. And many times when someone answers a question on a survey, they usually had other things to say about it or comment and you cant get those without being in person.

So in all, in-person interviews, do about 50 to 100, and you probably have enough market research.

Thats my 2 cents.

Become a middleman/connector. Requires very little investment and profits vary widely. In a years time and with 3 deals, you can easily be making 200k and up.

Whats required of you is finding 2 companies who sell complimentary products to each other and then connecting those two companies through you. This way you get paid by both sides… at the start thats pretty much all you require and still make a massive bank… The thing with this option is that it sounds almost too simple and “easy” to work when compared to othet routes and most people just dont do it because it seems fake, but the reality is that it works and that its as simple as it is…

Frequent communication is one of the top overall long term priorities you should have to accomplish the goal you desire… the more effective you want it to be the higher the cost its going to be in the short term… start with email newsletters, add a free monthly newsletter/magalogue and send it to your customers, and finally a paid newsletter as well…

Ways to get their info/email/mail… the contest idea is swell as mentioned by another redditor, here are a few more: create a report/informational product that is both offline and online and that is highly desireable by the customer and they can recieve it in exchange for their email/mail (for online email, for offline email and mail). To give it to them offline, have it close to the till and then offer it to everybody at the start/end of a transaction… an idea for what the info product could be “10 trending winter outfits for stressed out moms who just want to look fabulous” and when spring comes, just switch the “winter” to “spring”. You can have such seasonal reports to give out and other ones as well. Say you get many goths and moms coming to your store, well you could have one info product designed for goths and one info product designed for moms, the only thing that matters is that you then create 2 separate email lists and create separate email follow ups on them…

Next up create a “wall of fame”… have like multiple categories for it as well like “Best Customer” “Best Referer” “Highest Spenditure” “Client of the Month” “Client of the Season” “Client of the Year” and so on… i wouldnt have any more than 3 but I would definitely start with “Best something” and “Best Referer”… people like to be recognized for their patronage and by having a wall of fame you are doing just that (best source = streamers, nearly all of them have a “highest donors” section and you will notice that many of those highest donors are also the most frequent donors as well).

I dont know if you are doing this already, but try to get to know the customers that come in to your store. And your staff should be doing this as well (which probably means you will have to supervise them).

I would also create a “first time customer voucher” where they basically get like 25$ to 50$ free for the first time a customet buys from you, but in exchange for that vouchet the customer had to give email/mail/birthday/name. With that info, you can send personalised birthday cards alongside “birthday offers”. Here is a very cool and ingenious trick I learned from a brilliant marketer who ran her own flower and card shop. For birthdays and valentine’s days (and other primarly romantic and special events) she would send a letter/card to the significant other of targeted customer and ask them how much they would he willing to give their spouse for a birthday gift card… I love this, its genuinely one of the most brilliant and original ideas I have learned and I have implemented this exact idea in my own business, its truly amazing.

Create and make sure that your customers are aware that your business is a referral business. You do this through your marketing and advertising. However, you can easily solicit referrals from customers by simply asking them. This is best done when the customet just bought, its even more potent if you just gave them a voucher or discount or something. However, there its important that you dont just say “would you refer someone?” And leave it there. For best results, the conversation should look something like this: “Ms. X, as you are aware, our store runs on referrals from valued and loyal clients such as yourself. With this in mind, who are the 3 people you know that you would refer to my shop” “thats great Ms. X. Let me write down their names and phone numbers so that I can reach out to them…” Basically it should look like that. Yeah it may be awkward the first few times and some customers may feel weird about it, but all in all, it works. Also when speaking to customers, please dont refer to them as a customer, but instead as something more prestiged or important like “Valued Client” “Important Patron” etc…

I have many, many more ways to ensure repeat customer patronage but this post is already long so I will stop there. If you got questions regarding some of the ideas presented, ask and I will elaborate/explain further if required.

This comment isnt going to give you a direct answer, but in case you dont get any good ones, I suggest you scout out companies who are in a similar spot like you - like the size of company, how many products they ship internationally per week/month/year - contact those companies and ask them for their opinion. Shouldnt take you longer than a day or two and I believe most people will answers gladly and happily.

I have seen so many of these “web agency” “web builder” posts saying that they offer really cheap prices and thats a major problem.

In a marketplace where there are squarespace and other websites for really cheap services that you offer, why are you competing on “price”? Its the equivalent of a retailer conpeting on price against walmart… gonna lose 99% of the time.

Being cheap is not good for you. Cheap has negative inherent associations attached to it like: worse quality, expectations of results are really low, less trustworthy, scammy, impersonal, etc…

You need to stand out and the easiest way is to simply look at the average price what everyone is offering and slap a 0 on top of it, 15$ = 150$…

Also, if you go cheap, realise that you will require 10x more clients than if you go expensive. It would seem much smarter in the start to get 5 clients paying 150$ than 50 clients paying you 15$… afterwards when you want to scale you can start looking at other options.

Onto prospects. Best prospects are the one who have already bought… with that in mind, prospects who have bought already, many of them are dissatisfied with what they are receiving but arent aware of a better alternative and will switch if presented with one. So a good way to land clients is by finding companies/entrepreneurs who use shitty website hosters/builders and contact them… alternatively, you can attempt to contact those companies and pay for their “unsubscribed” list (customers who left/switched) and then start contacting those people (btw, the more recent the unsubscribed the prospect the higher the chance it is that you will convert them).

With offers - I would switch your main offer with a “secondary” offer. What I mean by this is instead of offering what you do already as the main offer, instead make the main offer things you would do for them on the backend/once the website and hosting is built for them… it may look like “get 4 additional landing pages built for testing and 5th as a placeholder” or something like that… on top of that, add guarantees as well - at this point Im not aware of any guarantees offered by website hosters so a simple money back guarantee would work splendidly well in theory… also an “obscure” but a very relevant factor to good offers is adding a “reason why” a prospect should buy from you - funnily, the reasons why dont always have to be logical.

The good thing thats going for you is that you are somewhat “niched” as to not doing any e-commerce. If I were you, I would niche down even further like only offering to build websites for pet companies who are ran by families… it just make you seem more of a specialist (builds trust) and justifies a high price.

Anyway, hope this gives you some direction since its never easy to provide help in a simple post.

I would add and test a form of takeaway selling in your process.

Whenever the prospect writes to you or asks a quote, instead of asnwering straight away or within a few minutes, have them receive informational materials that further sell them on you and in about a day reply to their question.

Here is why you ought to try this: if you reply instantly/within few minutes, you may come off desperate/needy and it may be repelling some good leads…

As for pricing problem - you can tackle this multiple ways, one of which is just accepting that those leads/prospects werent going to be good ones and its better off without them and solely focus on the current ones you attract and developing your backend for those customers… alternatively, you can always say to those prospects that you specialise in helping people whose main concern is their budget, and then you figure out a way later on how to compensate… OR if you suspect most of your customers main concern is price then you can give a 10-20% higher quote than normal, and then say that since the customer is first time, you will add a 10 to 20% discount and basically get paid the same you would have.

With offers there are hundred ways you can slice and dice them and if you can provide me with what you already offer/how you offer it, then I can give you some alternative ideas you can toy around with…

Also, has this been a problem in the past or recently? Did this problem start 6 months ago when you switched/hired a new marketing agency or in-house marketer or changed your marketing strategy? Maybe thats the problem…

Do you know where your current best leads are coming from? Are there multiple sources or does one source produce the highest quality leads? Or maybe its that your best leads come from one source and the rest of the sources draw in unqualified leads or bad ones which may be hurting your “real” conversion rates which may be producing below satisfactory results. Maybe this is the problem…

To be honest, the problem may be all of the listed and more, or it can only be single thing, but its quite hard togive you help without actually knowing what the majority of your current process is.

With the sales objection, you can try a few things… ask them “why”, once they reply say you understand and then lead back into the sales pitch… or you can say “well thats perfect because I specialise helping couple who have cocerns about their budget” and then go back into the sales pitch… whats more, you can add a few pressure tactics as well when presenting the offer - deadline (its a must in every sale)… you can always say that the person can pay but if their spouse has any obejctions/problems and wants a refund, you can give a refund without starting anything (this depends on how confident you are in selling their spouse now). Here is how it can look: “I understand that you need to talk to your spouse before making this decision and thats perfect because I specialise in helping couples who have budget concerns and thats why I have this one-time offer where you can pay now for 15% less and if your spouse believes that you’ve made an error or that you need a refund, you will get it no questions asked…” and if someone agrees to this, you should hand out reading materials for free to those “customers” and have them bring it home/show it to their spouse so that they dont have to sell you to their spouse but instead its your materials that are selling them.

Anyway, these are a few ideas.

If you have determined who your best prospects are then you can do the following - host seminars/webinars/teleseminars for free and lead generate by yourself as well while you wait. Seminars are the highest converting ones. To lead generate that, call up list brokers or people who own media/newsletters/magazines where your best prospecrs lie and either rent a list or ask them to send a letter of your own crafting to their subscribers in exchange for % of profits from every sale you get through them. To entice people to come on your seminar/webinar/teleseminar use a powerful lead magnet that would be of extremely high interest to your best prospects - i.e. if real estate agents are your prospects “Get more clients by working less hours”…

Or, you can create a big beautiful box of stuff that includes free reports, testimonials, case studies, personalised trinkets, and more, and mail that physical box to your best prospects with the inclusion of a sales letter and a preface letter. Its guaranteed to be read since nobody ever has sent them a big box of stuff, especially if it includes a personlised trinket. A great preface letter you can copy is Gary Halberts 1 dollar bill letter.

Why lead generate while you are paying people to do that for you? Because you can correctly assess and determine whether their efforts produce good results or if they are below satisfactory and it may perhaps be that your own efforts yield much better results.

On to other things. If you havent, you should begin developing a thorough backend. This includes other offers/products/services you can upsell to your clients. One easy one is a physical newsletter. Once you acquire themcas clients, you can then upsell them on a subscription to a newsletter. What that newsletter should be? The answer is in whoever you best prospects are and what commonalities, pains, interests, problems and so on, they all share… other things in the backend include also developing retention models. Just because you deliver results doenst mean they will keep you as a client. With this in mind, consider figuring out how to keep your clients from leaving and then implementing that whilst you have them. Furthermore, as your list of clients will grow, you will want to figure out where and to whom you can rent your own list out to. This will yield extra profits. Also, develop informational products and partner up with other folk to sell those informational products, or coaching or consulting.

These are a few things you can do whilst you wait.