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The BIG offline lie.

By Arthur Webster of Old School Smarts

As internet marketers get more and more desperate to find some way of making money online (98% don't) the lies become almost background noise.

The biggest lie of all is that small local businesses need web sites and SEO with auto responders, lead capture pages and an email marketing programme.

While these will probably do no harm to the business by themselves, they could in the long term.

Email marketing as taught to and by internet marketers is both intrusive and counter productive.

SEO does absolutely nothing for the local business. Forget all the rubbish about people finding you on the web - if your market is local THEY KNOW WHERE YOUR PHYSICAL PRSENCE IS and will find you.

As for a web site, what possible use is that? If you are a local business your customers and potential customers will find you and see the actual products that you have for sale. A web page can be very useful but you don't need one of these all singing and all dancing navigation nightmares that are foisted upon far too many local businesses.

The really frightening thing that worries me is that far too many internet marketers take advantage of the fact that many small businesses are set up with the owner having little real knowledge of how to make his business pay. Let's face it, few of them are accountants. Thanks to this general lack of knowledge, many small business owners actually believe that making $2,000 on a $1,000 spend is good business.

NO IT ISN'T - unless you are the person who took the $1,000.

To spend $1,000 a small business making 10% net needs to have gross takings of $10,000. In other words, the $1,000 spend in this case represents an $8,000 LOSS!

Very few small businesses make 10% net (excluding sole traders).

Learn how to save a local business money and then sell him the process and accept your payment out of the REAL SAVINGS that you will make for him. Be that one person who enters his premises and leaves without asking for a single dollar that you can prove he will get back within a month together with the rest of the savings.

If you save $1,000 for a business making a net profit of 10% you will effectively give him an additional $10,000 in gross takings.

Will the business owner be grateful? Will he spread the word about your wonderful but very elementary system?

I know that internet marketers don't want to save money for their clients because all of those that I have given my 16,000 word ebook to have refused to continue using the process after (listen very carefully) proving that it works by making money!

How sad is that?

(No. The ebook is not available anywhere - this is an opinion NOT an ad!)

Contributor's Note

I just know someone is going to say "Ah, but I needed a plumber and found him online" - but how many real people will turn on their computer to search for a plumber? If they have an emergency, they know who to ask or go straight to their local directory. If they don't have an emergency, why would they look for one?

PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE

My Local Gazette for Costa del Sol
Local news for Costa del Sol
www.costadelsol.mylocalgazette.com

I agree 100% I don't and won't charge someone for making a website for them. I show them how to do it for free and empower them to build it themselves.

Most of the local business I have gotten from my websites is someone who stumbled upon it by accident. Many of those are people who I never would have reached any other way.

I had one person in England find my website who shared it with his mother in Canada who called me about buying my services for her son who lived in Seattle for a Christmas present.

The global reach of the internet is both a blessing and a curse. I'm sure Coin Pizza would be delighted to receive orders from Russia, USA and Japan.

Well, if you have a product that can be bought off-line, and you are a local business, I think it depends on the product and what your goals are - also if if you have a large enough company, you can try and create the website with internal talent. This is frequently done. It's always a crap shoot when you hire outside "consultants". This should be avoided unless you know that that outside company has a good rep.

To a very minor degree I agree with you but, in all honesty, a local business does not need a web site and will seldom benefit from having one.

A local business that thinks it NEEDS a web site also NEEDS to learn just a little about who its' customers are, where they live, what they buy and why they do or don't buy it from them.

Internet marketers need to be just a little bit honest and find out how many people use their computer as the first port of call when looking for a supplier. Only people who are in front of a computer all day will sometimes do this because they have a habit of searching on the web. The average shopper won't switch on the computer axcept as a last resort.

Not surprisingly, eBay shoppers will always look online - but that is the only place they can look.

Michael A. Muehleisen May 2, 2010 15:46

Very good article, Arthur. Why WOULD a local business need a website? It's just more expense on a low income, really.
Cheers
Jean

snakesmum May 2, 2010 19:05

It has been reported that many people do their shopping research on the internet,Arthur. With the decline in the telephone book yellow pages, where will customers find your business? Every business or service is not located on the drive-by route of the customer. Don't you think that an informational website would serve a purpose?
Thank you for sharing.
Best wishes.
Frederick

Hi, Frederick,
The reports of searching the web for suppliers generally is in the context of distance purchasing. Holidays and car hires, for example, are often booked online but the sad thing is that if you are a car hire company in Coin, it really doesn't matter how good your web site is because the multi-nationals will ensure that you cannot compete in the search engines. (The sponsored ads might irritate internet marketers but real people see them as the best results for their search - after all, they are at the top of the list!)

A web page can certainly serve a purpose but, when it comes to local business, it simply detracts from the efforts of the business to cultivate its direct relationships with the local population.

(Incidentally, many potential local buyers are probably put off searching the internet nowadays. If they want to find the local supplier of a purple widget, do they really benefit from seeing ten pages of review sites for purple widgets?)

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