Source Jockey

This post is a bit technical in nature, but if you’re wondering about what I do for a living, this might give you a little insight into how I approach potential business.  I also want YOUR business.

I’ve been stepping up the networking lately in an effort to increase my workload.  In addition to the usual goal of “getting more business”, this has had a couple interesting benefits I hadn’t really thought of initially.  I get to learn more about other people’s businesses, I see how people view the web site business as a whole, and I gain understanding on what might be the tipping point into spending money on a web site.

Learning about other peoples’ businesses is actually very important.  In the end, it’s generally about making money.  But how some people do it is very different from others.  I’ve noticed that a lot of people at these mixers tend to be very proactive–they follow up, they act on almost every lead, and they do whatever it takes to close a deal.  At the same time, there are those who believe in the “if you build it, they will come” concept.  It’s almost a sense of self-entitlement.  Showing up is not 80% of the task–really, it’s both 0% and 100%…  If you don’t show up at all, not showing up guarantees you won’t do any business.  At the same time, follow-through is supremely important.

As that goes, I look at every contact’s business card, and see whether or not they have or list a web site.  If they don’t, well, that’s a great contact for me–unless they don’t feel they need a web site at all.  Tonight, I spoke with a potential business contact, hell-bent on irrigating everyone’s asshole in the room (she’s a colon cleanser).  After exchanging cards, she said, “I don’t need a web site.  My industry has one, and I’m fine with that.  Plus, I have all the clients I need.”  My first thought was, gee, if you have all the clients you need, why are you out here looking for more assholes to tube up?  Instead, I said, “Gosh, if I do a Google search on your name, what am I going to find?”  She didn’t know.  Yikes.  If I decided to get a tube shoved up my butt, the first thing I would do would be to look for a web site…  The fact of the matter is that a web site is NOT a guarantee of anything.  Anyone can have a web site.  But it’s like a business card with as much information as you want.  She didn’t have one.  No tubes up the butt for me.

So what makes people want to have or redo their web site?  Usually, it’s the sense that they need something that they’re not getting from their current business plan.  The personal trainer I spoke to said she has a blog, and that seems good enough.  ”Is it?” I asked.  ”What if my company made a web site that helped track your clients’ goals while they were at home, or at work?  What if you could reach out to them on a regular basis and give them personalized tips?”  She apparently didn’t even think about the flexibility of web sites.  And maybe that’s the problem.  There’s this notion going around that web sites have to either be simple or too expensive for a small business.  That’s not the case.  They can be perfect solutions for any company of any size or type.  If you want something as simple as an online brochure about your business?  Easy.  Inexpensive.  You want a tracking system that will account for clients and customers, internal processes, and other proprietary actions?  Just ask.  We can do it.  Affordably.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 1:41 am and is filed under Theories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.