Ready to launch Sept 1?

Surprise! I haven’t changed the business model in over three weeks!!

Instead, I feel I have things pretty well under control, and have refined the idea I mentioned in my last post to a point where I’m feeling pretty comfortable and confident.

It took some time, though. At first, I thinking I would just post deals, but couldn’t settle on pricing.

Then I had the idea of offering two separate things — a business listing and a deal promotion. But I still struggled with pricing and packaging. Should I charge for listings or make them free or maybe free for the first X number of businesses (I’m still thinking that some scarcity might be a good idea).

I had already had about 20 versions of my services page, but over the past 2 or 3 weeks, I’ve gone through a few more.

Here’s the latest:

BASIC

Reach to thousands of buyers in the Akron/Canton area every month.

• Facebook Advertising
• Business Directory Listing

Free!

PREMIUM

Take your business to the next level with our Promotion Machine.

• Facebook Advertising
• Business Directory Listing
• Promotion Machine

$99/month

ULTIMATE

Add Reputation Builder and you have everything you need to grow your business — on autopilot.

• Facebook Advertising
• Business Directory Listing
• Promotion Machine
• Reputation Builder

$199/month

Plus, I’m offering Email/SMS Blast and Birthday Offer Promotion separately.

I’m not entirely sure I’m done, though.

I debated about adding in something I called “Nurture Machine” or “No lead left behind” that would help save and nuture leads from virtually any source — telephone, email, website forms, social media, Google business, etc.

But I decided against it for now because it seems complicated to get it all set up and business owners trained.

I also looked at offering credit card processing services after coming across these guys: https://residualpayments.com/

But decided that was too complicated, too.

I will probably continue to seek and evaluate anything that can be easily added.

At first, I thought the tech aspect of this idea would be simple enough that I could do it myself.

Then I realized that coupon redemptions, with potentially hundreds or thousands of coupons — and allowing users to select more than one at a time — was not something I could set up on my own.

So I went to Upwork and that HighLevel community for help and found it became even more complicated as I wrote the job description — and then gradually refined and redefined it based my discussions with people who could potentially help me.

I was originally thinking that the bulk of the work would be done using the HighLevel platform with some integration with my WordPress site, but was having a really hard time finding anyone who really understood what I was trying to do, much less how to do it.

I chatted with several developers, and had Zoom meetings with several, and even hired or tried to hire about 4 or 5 of them, but for one reason or another, we were making no progress. In some cases, they didn’t have the understanding or skills. In others, they didn’t have the time.

Plus, I finally realized that HighLevel was not the best platform for this application. Instead I needed a WordPress expert who could work with the Twilio API. On top of that, he needed to have the time, not charge much, and have excellent command of the English lanquage.

But finding someone who satisfies all of these requirements is not a small feat. In fact, it requires a small miracle.

Nevertheless, I think I finally found the right guy — Pankil Joshi in India. He’s been working since Wednesday and so far I haven’t had second thoughts. Of course, he hasn’t really shown me anything yet, but I’m not seeing any red flags.

Meanwhile, in addition to refining the packaging and pricing, I’m also working on the website to get business listings and offer listings to look right.

One dilemma to figure out is how to make the website look like it’s got a lot of content when I have no business clients or offers to post.

I’ve decided to begin adding business listings, probably starting with the Green, Ohio area. I’ll just select businesses that fit the profile of my ideal clients and begin adding their information. If one of them visits the site and discovers they’re already there, I’ve added a “claim listing” button that allows them to claim it and make whatever changes they want.

I’ll also start adding Groupon deals to put some offers on the site. This is not a new idea. Of course, the real goal is to get businesses to pay to list their deals, but Groupon deals seemed like a good alternative.

One little issue with Groupon though — I had been an affiliate of theirs for several years, so listing their offers had the advantage of producing some income to help me get by until I had paying customers.

As fate would have it, however, they decided to discontinue their affiliate program in June. I can sign up again under Commission Junction, but they generally don’t like affiliates who have a new website or a minimal amount of traffic, so the likelihood of acceptance is not good at this point. Should be able to get in down the road, however.

Despite discontinuance of their affiliate program, I can still list their offers. At least it gives me some content. Of course, I run the danger of the offers expiring so I’ll have to monitor it.

Of course, the real plan is to get business owners to pay to list their offers and also take advantage of the other features. That will hopefully begin happening when I begin advertising on Facebook and Instagram.

Advertising is a scary thing for me. For some reason, I’m less apprehensive about spending $1000 on some training or software than I am about spending any money on advertising.

I hate the idea of spending money without receiving anything in return. Training and software feels a lot more tangible to me than advertising. In my mind, even $5 is too much to spend if I see no results. More than one of my ideas has been killed that way.

Of course, the reality is that you can’t expect immediate results with advertising. You really have to be in it long-term. You have to trust the process. When you have no money to spend, that requires a lot of confidence in your product.

Not sure I’m there yet.