Free Sellers Scheme

[raghav1059]

Hey, I wanted to ask , Has anyone actually been successfully on selling hosting using the Free Scheme?

[clivejo]

How do you define successful ??

Its definitely not a get rich quick scheme, and if you think its going to be, you will be extremely disappointed. If your in the business of providing good value, quality web hosting then yes, its very successful and it delivers great customer support, keeps software updated and introduces new features.

The web hosting business is VERY competitive and changes very quickly. RSP has been in this market for a LONG time compared to a lot of the competition out there. Web hosting does not sell itself. You have to offer extra services, find niche markets and proactively market your hosting business, only then will it become financially successful.

[doneritehosting]

As Master Clivejo says, there is alot of work to marketing the free program yet the free program takes away another set of headaches from setting up a bonifide cpanel reseller account. The wordpress themes are simply the cats meow (barring a couple of bugs being worked on) and can be modified for an individual look, content and custom seo. As far as the hosting services you would resell and the support provided to you and also to your clients by rsp, they are some of the best you will ever see and once you use hespia well you probably will never want to see cpanel again. Almost all the right tools are there if you are serious about your venture.

[iads]

Right now I can't live on it alone, but my customer base is growing, and I can see great potential in my marketing plan. Each year has been better then the year before it.

[doneritehosting]

right on iads

[raghav1059]

Cool, I'v launched the site on Saturday and been doing a lot of market advertising on forums, Facebook Adverts but no customers yet. Yes it's too early to get any decent customers but i'm a pa intent person ^^

iads, how do you advertise to get new clients to trust your site? becuase customers don't usually go to new sites as they are not trust able (i wouldn't myself) - if you don't want to tell me , it's fine ^^

It would be really awesome if there was some kind of 1 day trial or something

[iads]

I don't rely on internet traffic (believe it or not), I tried that for a couple of years and got limited results. To much competition. I focus locally, face-to-face sales, join real world business networks, get involved in your community, don't go for the hard sale all of the time, because you don't want people running when they see you coming.

I am not the greatest site builder so I charge $199.99 to set up and customize Wordpress sites, I've gotten pretty good at that. I tell them to get the hosting at my site, them I invoice then the remainder after they are satisfied with the site. They provide most of site wording and graphics. Using these methods we are only in competition if you live near me. You don't, do you? LOL :-)

[raghav1059]

haha United Kingdom?

[clivejo]

grrrr dont be coming stepping on my toes !!!!! Only joking, the more the merrier

But iads is right. A fully operational wordpress site is where the money is at. You need a bit of technical know how to get Wordpress to do what you want, but there are LOTS of tutorials on the net. Another way around the invoicing issue is that you could just take the cash, say £200 in your pocket and then order the services via your Resellers Panel at wholesale prices. Getting paid is quicker and much more fun

[clivejo]

Cool, I'v launched the site on Saturday and been doing a lot of market advertising on forums, Facebook Adverts but no customers yet. Yes it's too early to get any decent customers but i'm a pa intent person ^^

What you view as marketing, to other people could be viewed as spam. I'm sure the spammers who post on this forum think they are doing us a good deal with cheap sunglasses, drugs and whatever else they are trying to sell !! Be sure the forums and places you are targeting actually want and would benefit from what your offering. Otherwise it could backfire and drive customers away.

I would start local. Find a local business who you could 'help' by getting online. Explain the benefits of having a branded email address etc Maybe find a student who is studying web-design and work with them, sign them up as an affiliate! Maybe do them a deal, I give you very cheap (wholesale prices) hosting in return you put a link on your site advertizing my business "ie Local Business Ltd recommend hosting provider Raghav1059 Hosting" with your store hyper-linked.

[raghav1059]

Thanks for the advice! I'll surely try it out!

[raghav1059]

Would be nice to have 2 part's of support, One going to your white lableing service and another that contacts us directly if they want any personal help like setting up a e-commerce website

[iads]

Would be nice to have 2 part's of support, One going to your white lableing service and another that contacts us directly if they want any personal help like setting up a e-commerce website

You can customize your Reseller Site by adding a separate 800 number that get forwarded to you for site building. Something like : Site Building Hotline: 800.456.***x
You can use a service such as (Affiliate Link Notice): Kall8.biz for as little as $2.00 a month for an 800 number, that way you don't have to give out your home number.

[clivejo]

Would be nice to have 2 part's of support, One going to your white lableing service and another that contacts us directly if they want any personal help like setting up a e-commerce website

There is nothing to stop you offering your own support. In the plan builder you can select to support your own customers, see attached screen shot (this should disable the ticket system in the Control Panel). You could then install a ticketing system on your resellers site and do all of your own support how ever you decided. Maybe a live chat system, ticket or one-one telephone support. It would be up to you to open a reseller support ticket to RSP and resolve the problem on your clients behalf.

As iads has explained before. You could even look into an automated helpdesk system which could divert calls based on the selection from a menu. I have found that the RSP telephone support line is more geared towards sales. If you call it looking for technical support they tend to refer you to the ticketing system.

You could market yourself as a "local" hosting company and get yourself a local phone number, maybe Voice over IP (VoIP). You could then place this number in prominent position on your webstore and give your customer the feel that you are local and can be contacted easily. People will only buy from people they trust.

[clivejo]

Regarding a free local number. Now I know your in the UK I can offer you some advice on that. Check out www.sipgate.co.uk. This is a voice over IP service who give you a free UK geographical number. So say your in London, get yourself a 020 number. Set up VOIP software to come through via your PC or smartphone and then put the number on your website. You can then receive calls for free!! To make outgoing calls you would have to credit your Sipgate account (ie if you wanted to call someone back after they left you a message) but its pretty cheap at about 1.19p a minute to landlines and 9.9p to mobiles.

[raghav1059]

that seems smart! but what are the charges for the customer to phone that number?, same landline charges?

And thanks for all the help and support - there sure is instant help on the forum here!

[clivejo]

It is a "landline" number. Just like ringing your home land line number. Many telecom providers give free calls to land lines which makes them more attractive. You could get an 0845 number but these are more expensive for people to call. Many customers prefer to call land lines as sites like http://www.saynoto0870.com/ are very popular as people try to find alternative numbers to 0845 and of course the more expensive 0870. I did look into getting a 0800 free phone number but I dont see why I should pay for the call to give technical support!! In the end I settled on a local number which for me is 028 as I'm in N.Ireland.

If you did get a 0800 number for sales and then a regular number for tech support you will find customers will call you on the 0800 number and ask to be put through to Tech support!! People are cheeky like that!! But to be fair Id done it in the past too!

[Abner45]

I need to know, more about seller scheme program, I am little confuse about this, Please pm me details related to this.. Thanks.

[iads]

I think the "scheme" that he was talking about was the template to the ready made reseller store. At least that's how I understood it.

[clivejo]

The "scheme" is the Free Reseller program which enables anyone to resell domains, shared hosting, VPS, semi and dedicated servers, without having to spend money to purchase the resources first. Find out more here - http://www.resellerspanel.com/reseller-hosting/