Thinking of hitting up local businesses that don't have websites.

Get in bed with your chamber of commerce. If you're going to do one free service for anyone, hook them up with a site redesign or something. Put on your "A"game for them and earn their trust. If you got presentation skills, go to a chamber event and slap chop your shit. If you're not a presenter, get the chamber president to make an announcement of your service and exclusive deal to chamber members and have you're handout available at the door or something.

This way you are operating within a circle of trust and are more apt to get customers to engage vs cold calling. Also, members who actively participate with their chambers are serious about their business. Your lead quality is improved 10-fold and you can hit up a good number in one shot.

If not the chambers, hit up the other business associations for targeted markets. Look at your state's SBA and tourism/publicity websites - should be links to all of those there. Hitting up these memberships is going to reduce (not eliminate) the amount of stupid in the equation. It then all comes down to whether you suck or not. You still have to differentiate your services above all others before you.
 


Get in bed with your chamber of commerce. If you're going to do one free service for anyone, hook them up with a site redesign or something. Put on your "A"game for them and earn their trust. If you got presentation skills, go to a chamber event and slap chop your shit. If you're not a presenter, get the chamber president to make an announcement of your service and exclusive deal to chamber members and have you're handout available at the door or something.

This way you are operating within a circle of trust and are more apt to get customers to engage vs cold calling. Also, members who actively participate with their chambers are serious about their business. Your lead quality is improved 10-fold and you can hit up a good number in one shot.

If not the chambers, hit up the other business associations for targeted markets. Look at your state's SBA and tourism/publicity websites - should be links to all of those there. Hitting up these memberships is going to reduce (not eliminate) the amount of stupid in the equation. It then all comes down to whether you suck or not. You still have to differentiate your services above all others before you.

BNI is another good one. Just be ready for 7am meetings and monthly dues...
 
I love how you think its going to be like shooting fish in a barrel....they have no website now....you think they'll be psyched to have some crappy website for a few hundred bucks until you find out they want a picasso and it costs you 6 months of your time to get this $300 client out of your hair.