First of all, I owe a HUGE thank you to my fabulous Co-Author Kara for holding down the fort, and keeping this blog updated. While Kara was diligently posting to the blog, I was in the final planning stages of my wedding (that’s a nice way of saying I was having a panic attack), but now that the Big Day has come and gone, and I am fresh off my honeymoon, I’m ready to get back in the blogging saddle.
Planning a wedding has taught me at least three things: eloping isn’t a bad option, breathing into a paper bag is not cute, and seating charts are not for the faint of heart. But, since this isn’t a blog on how to recover gracefully from nervous breakdowns, let’s focus on a fourth: If you don’t have a solid internet presence, or dare I say none, you are missing out on a HUGE amount of business.
Having attended about 15 weddings in the past 3 years I started my planning process with a stack of recommendations: florists, caterers, venues, coordinators, hair stylists, make-up artists, photographers, bands, DJs…the list could go on. So, where do I start? Easy. I googled each and every one of them. Sadly, I was able to eliminate close to 60% of them based on zero to no Internet presence.
Then came the fun part: I delved deep into their social networks: I stalked Facebook pages, and Twitter streams, I perused Pinterest accounts, read reviews, read other reviews by those reviewers to make sure we had similar taste, studied online menues, scoured the Internet for pictures, dissected LinkedIn profiles, and at the end of it all I had a short list of vendors to call, and only a few restraining orders to deal with (kidding). This is how my generation makes buying decisions.
It’s not just B2C vendors that need to pay attention to their digital footprint. In fact,
on average nearly 60% of a typical purchasing decision by B2B customers—researching solutions, ranking options, setting requirements, benchmarking pricing, and so on—are made before ever having a conversation with a supplier. Harvard Business Review
I know, it’s not completely fair. Your DJ skills may make my great-grandfather swivel his titanium hips. Your product may end world hunger. But if someone looking online can’t figure that out after 10 minutes of searching…world hunger will continue, and great-grandpa will stick to his usual 2-step.
As a society, we have come to expect the information we want, the moment we dream it up. I can get a new pair of stilettos at my doorstep in less than 24 hours from Zappos. I can download movies, music and books in an instant. Your information as a business professional, needs to be just as easily accessible.
It doesn’t mean that referrals aren’t valuable, word-of-mouth is what got me that initial stack of cards in the first place, but to get your ideal potential client to pick up the phone you better have the online presence to back that referral up.