Hey all -

I am considering doing some consulting work for the auto repair industry based on my insurance background and also my readings on word of mouth marketing, lead generation, etc.

What I was thinking of doing was writing a book or a series of special reports that would establish me as an expert and then run an lead generating ad in a few of the trade magazines, giving it for free with the backend being consulting work or a course.

Also I would try and run an article in the magazine but not sure how successful that would be. I've also considered sending out lead generating postcards but that is cost prohibited. Finally I've thought about setting up a series of talks at the state groups and the national level but again not sure how well that would be.

I run a debt free business and could spend about 5k total to get this thing moving. Your thoughts or how would you do it?

TC

anyone, anyone?

No need for spending cash here. Write a book. Create a site, ( but first research the market ).

I presume you did that already. Write sales copy and write articles to drive traffic to your site.

Also, you can do videos, ppc to start the ball rollin.

Contact someone from this industry and offer your consultation for free and use that as a case study.

You can also do what you said after you did this above. .

That way you will be credible once the prospects see your sales page / optin page...

You get my point.

Hope this helps,
Hrvoje Livnjak

I'm not sure what the fascination is with spending $0 on marketing to drive business.

The fact is that you can write a book, you can write articles, you can do a lot of no or low cost stuff but the development of actual money-paying clients can be dreadfully slow using those methods. AND the worse part is that many times the clients that are generated from your book and your articles aren't worth dealing with. Trust me. I know.

I've written a book. I've written articles for Entrepreneur.com and the ugly truth behind doing things like that is that yes, you'll attract clients but your ability to choose what type of client is out the window when compared to using a laser-fine direct mail approach. Or at least drive leads from space ads placed within trade journals.

And if you're going to use a post card as an initial contact at least use a large-postcard where you can fit a lot of copy on it. Don't be a shortcake and use the 4x6's just to save a few cents on postage.

I'm betting that if you get one decent client out of a 100 that it will pay for you sending marketing pieces to the other 99.

Get Dan Kennedy's "Magnetic Marketing" package. Put together a marketing campaign like your life depended on it. Do a sequential mailing where the prospect gets a contact from you every couple of weeks.

Well my actual thought is not that he doesn't need to spend cash on his business. it would take him much faster with smart spending like you wrote Michael.

Just that my thought was on his question that for that kind he doesn't really need to spend cash on making stuff that i put up .

Hrvoje Livnjak

Hi guys and thanks for the advice. I was just going off what Dan Kennedy and others have said about positioning instead of prospecting, letting my customers find me. Plus I read a book called the Obvious expert and it laid out several steps on how to become an expert, be published, etc.

I have another small entertainment business that I run completely through postcarding and because the cost is low and the profit margin is high I don't want to be mailing out 30,000 postcards and losing my butt.

I know I know, start small, make the list pay for itself, etc, etc

Keep the advice coming.

I also thought about contacting the local chapter and state chapters around me and speak for free with some platform selling.

I guess I just have a ton of ideas and just need some direction