What is Drop Servicing?
For the last few decades, vast technological development has given us many opportunities. One of those is more choice to earn income from the internet. Online shopping and drop shipping are no longer strange terms for society. But how about drop servicing? Drop servicing is one of popular business models that anybody can do.
What does drop servicing mean? Drop servicing has the exact definition with dropshipping business model. However, the difference is in the offered object. In dropshipping, a drop shipper will act as a broker for certain goods purchased by customers through them. Drop servicing, on the other hand, involves selling particular services someone else does. A drop servicer will outsource service from freelancers and act as a middleman for the client. Many also used the term white-label services to describe drop servicing business. The drop servicing agent’s job is to handle sales and marketing. The hired freelancer ought to deliver a high-quality service for the assigned client.
The main similarity between drop shipping and drop servicing is buying a service or products for less and selling them for more. The price difference between both is profit for the drop servicing agent.
Drop servicing can offer many advantages for business owners, freelancers, and clients. A drop servicing business does not cost massive capital for a business owner or the one who runs a drop servicing agency. You could start as low as zero investment or basically for free. However, the drop-servicing business may become more saturated because of low entry requirements: the more saturated a market, the more challenging competition for its players. You also do not need a particular educational background to start a drop servicing agency. Marketing and sales are the only skills required when running a drop servicing agency. You also should be familiar with your services, but a specific background is not necessary.
For freelancers, finding a client who will work directly with them is very hard in this competitive market. But on the other hand, finding a drop servicing agency is more accessible than bidding for a job in a freelance marketplace. Although the pay will be lower than your own charged price, you can always have a couple of orders from the agency as your extra income.
For clients, drop service is a convenient solution for their hassles. Clients do not need to spend hours looking for a suitable freelancer for their tasks. They also do not need to test the freelancer or negotiate the price. As a middleman or broker, a drop servicing agency will handle all these matters. Hence, it will save their time and resources while still getting a high-quality service for their task.
However, running a drop servicing agency also has its disadvantages. You need to be the one who carefully selects the service provider or freelancer. There is a possibility the hired freelancer will not fulfill the contract and does not meet the given deadline. The freelancer may become unresponsive; hence you must find a replacement in a short time. A general rule of thumb for most drop servicing agencies is to give service providers a shorter period for finishing their tasks than the client’s deadline. Doing this allows you to have additional buffer time if something is not working out according to plan.
Running a drop servicing agency also means you will be the one who receives negative feedback from dissatisfied customers. The negative reviews will have a significant impact on your further business. Hence, the agency owner must meticulously check every freelancer, reviewing their skills or portfolio and even testing or interviewing them if needed.
Choosing the right freelancer is the main task a drop servicing agent should adequately do. In any case, selecting a high-paid freelancer will be the best option to guarantee client satisfaction. However, the higher charged fee they give, the less money you could take as profit. Indeed, there are many freelancers with various payment ranges you can hire. The cheaper one, usually a newbie, is not necessarily a bad freelancer nor has a low quality compared to the more expensive one. However, these newbies will also raise their fees and increase their skills and experience. The other who offers a lower price is probably finishing the task with the bare minimum effort. Hiring these types of freelancers will impact client satisfaction and business reputation.
Drop Servicing Ideas in 2022
Starting a drop servicing agency equals with beginning a business. You should find services you will be offering to your clients. Some services are in high demand and best provided in your agency. Some of those services are:
- Digital Marketing. We can not only rely on hard-selling old-school marketing styles in this digital era. Companies should also include digital marketing strategies for an effective marketing campaign. Digital marketing requires its experts to apply online and digital-based marketing strategies. Due to its high demand, most drop-servicing agencies offer digital marketing as one of their services. Some of the digital marketing services you can choose from are lead generation, Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Content Marketing, and many more.
- Programming. As one of the advanced high-paid jobs, programming is not for everyone. Because programming needs a specialty and proper knowledge, it is often hard to be one. Running a drop servicing agency can allow you to offer this service even though you do not know how to code. You can add niches to programming services: Plugin Creation, App Development, Web Programming, or even Chatbots for online platforms.
- Graphic Design. Every business knows good design is necessary to build brand identity and awareness. However, designing something is not an easy task for everyone. A good design should solve specific problems through visuals. Because of this, a graphic designing job is a high-demand service you can offer. Some of the services in this niche are Logos, Flyers, Branding, Business cards, and plenty more.
- Writing. Good content is essential for every business to build its online presence. Writing niche is not only limited to blog post writing. You can offer plenty of writing services, such as sales copy, copywriting, translation, proofreading, and others. In terms of writing, wordsmith skill is required to craft perfect content for business. Hence this service is climbing as one of those high-demand services.
- Small Business. The service in this niche is usually categorized as day-to-day tasks in every industry. Small business owners usually would rather pay someone else to finish it so they can focus their time on building their business. Some infamous services usually offered in the niche are data entry, virtual assistant, bookkeeping, market research, and accounting.
- Animation and Video Creation. 65% of people are visual learners, and about 90% of the information transmitted into our brains comes in graphical form. Thus, transforming a bunch of data and information into exciting videos is an integral part of online marketing. Services in this niche usually involve creating engaging videos or animations to tell a specific story or aim at certain goals. Services you can offer in this niche include short video ads, editing, and visual effects.
- Music and Audio. This service usually comes hand in hand with video editing services. You can add services such as voice-over, mixing and mastering, sound effects, and others. Even though you do not need to have a skill in this field, you should at least know how it works. You must be able to determine if the job is executed correctly by the hired freelancer.
How to Find Clients For Dropservicing?
You should find your first client after starting and deciding your business niche. There are various ways to find your clients, free and paid. Some way to find clients without costing any money is through Upwork. You need to create a freelance account in Upwork. The most challenging part is you need a long time to build a reputation and get the first client. However, Upwork is filled with thousands of people needing certain services. So, it is an endless market for you. It is also essential to look professional when communicating with your client. Professionalism will boost your credibility and increase the chance of getting hired.
The other method is by joining a forum. Public forums like Quora usually have a massive amount of posts and visitors. It also takes a long time to build a reputation in Quora. You must be active in the forum by answering relevant questions about your niche. You should at least become one of the top authors to get considerable exposure from it. The process is simply signing up and creating a free Quora account. You should also write your bio professionally and be active in related forums. It might not be the best way to pitch to any clients, but having constant exposure can also lead to any reach from potential clients in the same forum.
One of the oldest digital marketing tools, and probably still the most effective, is reaching clients through email. A few steps to start cold email outreach are identifying your target audience, extracting their emails, and sending them a professional proposal. This proposal usually included your interest to works with them and the services you offered. How can you extract an email address? Sites like hunter.io can help you find email addresses from websites. Google Maps is also helpful for finding nearby services that need your assistance, such as small businesses. CRM software such as MailChimp is another excellent way to reach potential clients. After sending your first cold email, you should keep tabs on the potential client.
You can also use paid methods to boost client awareness of your business. Most online businesses usually use internet advertising to reach potential customers. You can use this method to advertise your drop servicing agency. Google Ads is a powerful tool because it targets your ad to people who type specific keywords in Google Search. Although considered more expensive, Google Ads is an effective internet advertising method. Google Ads leads a person who faces a particular problem to the solution they are trying to find
Drop servicing is a business model you can start immediately without any capital investment. There are also plenty of ways to find new clients and service providers for your services. Some also used organic traffic to drive clients to their sites by utilizing SEO-boosted posts. Like every entrepreneur, it is crucial for you never to give up and diligently work on your agency’s reputation. Hence, you can have one satisfied client after another.
