We got a phone call this morning from a friendly old chap named Bill.

He owns a local Stamford, Connecticut website design company.

He was referred to us from a friend, one of our SEO clients.

Bill works mainly for start-up mom and pop shops, businesses just getting started that need a simple site.

Bill asked us point blank, “Hey, can you guys help me dominate my competition?”

We thought it was funny how he used that word “dominate” because our Marketing Manager, Richard Cagney, gave a speech at a Manhattan SEO conference last year about how to “dominate” your online competition.

So we pulled out the speech and read him the highlights right over the phone. Kind of goofy, but we had fun and he enjoyed the free consultation too.

The speech basically said that anyone can make millions starting and running their own successful business, online or offline, if they knew one simple trick.

Actually, online or offline isn’t really a determining factor because they are both just communication mediums. It’s really more in the marketing angle that you take which will determine whether you are successful or not. And that’s the trick.

The marketing angle we’re talking about is, first and foremost, you have to learn how to sell yourself. This is of the utmost importance because if you do it properly, then you will attract customers to you automatically.

Everyone wants to work with the best—-plain and simple.

Everyone would rather work with Stamford, Connecticut’s best realtor or doctor.

Everyone wants to go to the city’s best marketing firm or plastic surgeon.

Everyone wants to invest their money with the best financial planner in CT.

Everyone wants to eat at the best restaurants, and have the best fitness trainers.

You see, when you’re looked upon as “the best,” your prices are no longer relevant. You can charge twice as much as your competition.

Do you think Donald Trump regularly slashes his prices to compete with the mainstream market in order to make the deal? Does Mercedes? Of course they don’t!

Now, if you think you’re good, even VERY good, but perhaps not “the best,” then in fact that doesn’t matter as much as you might think it does.

You don’t really need to be “the absolute best,” because that is just relative and stems from opinion—whether it’s the opinion of your customers, or your opinion of yourself!

One way to “sell yourself,” and position yourself as “the best,” is to give without want. This simply means giving away valuable high-quality information to your target market.

When you do this, you are positioning yourself in your industry.

So, with this in mind, we told Bill that he should start writing articles describing “tips” on how to build a good website for cheap or perhaps explain the “top mistakes” people make when selecting an affordable Stamford, CT website design company.

We then suggested he optimize these articles with the right keywords (“Stamford, CT website design company” and “Connecticut web design company,” for example) and then submit them to all of the web article submission resource sites.

Now, when someone searches using Bill’s keywords, his articles rank high, providing readers with valuable information and suggestions.

Bill then mentioned he wanted to send potential clients a physical ad in the mail. He wanted advice on that.

We told him that if we were planning to do something like that we would not promote our prices or rates as the lead-in to the piece.

We might mention these in the ad (as many people may be interested in purchasing that day and would want to know the prices) but they wouldn’t be the primary focus.

Rather, we would promote our online Newsletter or perhaps some kind of FREE “Ten Top Tips For Small Businesses Who Need A Good Website For Cheap” Report.

The key is to sell “insider information” on the front end, which puts your company into the “sphere of influence” of your prospects. Doing so, you position yourself as the “go-to team.” Eventually you can sell your product or service on the backend.

We know that local small business owners are always looking for good information on a local Stamford, CT web design company that will keep them abreast of technology and help them make the best decision they can.

If Bill becomes the author of this information and links his articles to his website, then he automatically positions himself as the local expert in the arena. This will land him the calls.

Now, you may notice that we gave Bill this 100% free lead generation strategy right over the phone. Lots of marketing firms charge high fees for a consultation like this—but we gave it to Bill for free.

Make no mistake about it, he was grateful to us for all the free information we gave him. So grateful that he wanted to pay us to perform keyword research, write optimized content-rich articles for him, and post them online for him for the next 3 months. Bill also wanted 3 Press Releases.

Even better, he said that many of his clients—local Stamford, Connecticut business owners—wanted SEO services, and have asked him recently if he knows anybody he might recommend.

We told Bill we would provide him with top references from half-a-dozen SEO clients we are working with right now, all local, if he wanted to recommend us. He said absolutely.

See the value that giving away free information holds in business?