How I Went From 0 to 25K/mo With The Help Of This Strategy

Throughout my time of running an agency, I’ve tried just about every prospecting method you can imagine. From networking to content marketing and even paying people to hand out flyers – it all seemed to be just mediocre.

I truly believe that every prospecting method works. Your goal isn’t to find out “if something still works in 2016”. You can get new clients at family functions, but that doesn’t mean you should make Thanksgiving dinner your primary prospecting method.

Instead you want to measure both your return on time and return on investment. Which one you focus on more will be determined by your situation, if you’re starting out you have much more time to invest than dollars.

In this post I put together for Nathan and Income Bully,  I’ll walk you through one of the main marketing and client prospecting strategies we used to grow from 0 to 25k per month, and yes… it delivers a massive return on both time and investment.

It’s About Strategy Not Tactics

The problem with most courses or client attracting ideas is they are quick tactics with no real thought behind them. As I’ve grown my agency it’s become very clear that every successful marketing strategy we’ve used followed the exact same format:

• Send a piece of marketing content that positioned us very well

• Follow up on that marketing piece and have a conversation

• From there move into your sales process (this can be asking for a sale on the phone or booking a consultation/appointment for those of you selling high ticket services)

Now, there’s 2 main platforms we’ve used that followed those 3 steps and brought us our best results. In fact other consultants I work with have used these and seen incredible results from them as well, many closing 5 figure clients very quickly from them. Those 2 sources are direct mail and email marketing.

In this post I’ll focus on email because as I mentioned before, many people starting out simply don’t have a lot of money to invest in mailers or direct mail campaigns (although they can be incredibly affordable if done right). It’s important to understand that no matter what marketing strategy we use we’re targeting our ideal clients. For us, these are clients that:

• Are doing at least 1 million in sales each year
• Fall into the niche industry we work with (more on this later)

Note: It can be difficult to tell a company’s exact revenue, but a few key signs we look at are the assets and employees. If they have many employees, an office, trucks on the road, this means they have a lot of overhead and unless the business is hemorrhaging money their sales and revenues are probably in the 7 figure range.

Often times we’ll look at a company in Google Maps to view the office location and trucks. Here’s a Maps screen shot example of a business that we discovered had both a large office and many trucks on the road:

When starting out with email I’ll collect a list of a few hundred companies that have 1 million + in revenue (those of you in the U.S. can get this info for free at your library) and this data will also include the business owner’s name.

From there I’ll find a VA to collect the emails of these business owners for me. They won’t be able to collect all of them but if you find a quality worker they will be able to get a lot. These emails are worth MUCH more than a typical company email or even the email of your average business owner because of the quality of the business and total sales.

Here’s an Example of What the Data Will Look Like (with privacy protection)

These emails are then added into an autoresponder sequence where we look to add value for this business owner through content marketing. Setting up your content might take a day or 2 but if it’s done effectively, you’ll stand out from every other marketer pitching them services. Any way you can prove that you know about the market and can help drive results for that business you’ll be positioned in a positive light.

We have a lot of content lined up for 2016, enter your email to stay ahead of the competition!

Keep in mind, most of these business owners are receiving dozens of emails a week from SEO professionals pitching them hard. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s building exposure to their need for internet marketing. This is when you come in and position yourself as an expert and instead of trying to sell them on the first email, you provide real value that grabs their attention.

What are some different content pieces you can send?

• A report on the most common online marketing mistakes in that niche
• A case study of previous client’s you’ve worked with in that market (if you have one)
• A screen capture video of the issues holding back most companies in their market from online success
• A quick e-book on internet marketing lead generation for that niche

There are endless possibilities for content.

It’s also important to understand that many of these business owners won’t even go through the content. They may breeze through the pages and view small sections but the chances of them going through all of it are slim. That’s not a problem.

Following Up on Your Content

Most autoresponders allow you to view who opened your emails and engaged with your content. This information is gold. You’ll want to follow up with these people who clicked or opened your emails, the more times the better.

Below is an actual screen shot of what this looks like from within the Autoresponder:

You’ll notice some of these names have multiple opens. One of them even opened the email 12 times – this is exactly what we’re looking for. One of the sections I also highlighted in red is the Member Rating. Many autoresponders will rate your subscribers based on their interaction with your content. Your 4 star and 5 star prospects are the one’s worth paying attention to as they’re really happy with what you’re sending.

Feel free to call them and make an offer at any point, they may even know you by name when you call (this has happened more than once).

From there, cross reference the names and emails inside your autoresponder with the emails on the Business Data sheet mentioned earlier. From there get on the phone with them!

There’s a few key steps to following up on the phone that I’m going to outline. These have given us by far our best results when it comes to booking sales appointments.

• Always reference the content. Remember they may have only skimmed through it but they’ll remember that someone sent them something of value and that it’s targeted to their market.

• Always ask how their current website/online marketing campaign is going. This works great as it allows you to make an offer no matter what their response is. If it’s going poorly, or just okay, you can make an offer to show them where they can clean up their results. If it’s going very well you know their sold on online marketing and can show them more ways to build on what they have setup.

The most common answer will be, “we’re not sure”. Once again this works well for you because you can sell them on the idea of showing them where they’re going wrong and how they can save money.

• Finally, always try to get an appointment when on the phone. Many people will wait until they go through the content entirely or for a better time to get the appointment. Never wait. Always ask if they’re interested in learning about improving their campaign.

This strategy is extremely effective and affordable. It not only brings us quality leads very regularly but you’ll see long term leads and benefits coming in as well. The best part is you’re building an asset that you can email valuable content to whenever you want.

I can send an email to the thousands of business owners I have on my list any time I want. These are leads collected through this strategy, pay per click marketing and people opting in through our website newsletters. Before you know it you’ll have a huge list that looks forward to reading what you have to say.

Effective email marketing is one of the best strategies for both short spurts of income and long term leads that will reach out months and even years from now. I also highly recommend checking out Nathan’s guide to email marketing, he covers a lot of the basics that will get you started off on the right foot.

Final Thoughts

Before I close this post out, I want to note a couple important details:

• As I mentioned, this strategy is great for beginners but it brings less Return on Time and Investment than Direct Mail. In fact, nothing has even come close to Direct Mail when it comes to bringing on new clients.

• Always, always, always focus on a niche! Your marketing will gain traction much faster, you can charge more and you’ll even be able to increase your closing rates. Focusing on a niche has been one of our main reasons for growth.

Note from Nathan:

Ken has been a member of the Income Bully Mastermind Group (for those that have purchased the Ultimate Blueprint or Ice Cold Email Gold) and I’m glad he’s been able to share this with you all! Ken has his own blog called, “The Consulting Formula” which has content focused on agency growth and real world experience. He also has a full guide to his 6 Figure Direct Mail template. He mentioned it’s responsible for 7 high ticket clients in 19 days, definitely worth checking out!

Would you guys like to hear more from Ken? Have any questions, comments, or criticism? Let us know!