Time to Get Off Your A**, It’s a Commitment Post
Why is everyone more excited to get customers from around the globe than from around the bend?
I’m not objecting to far-flung clients, for me or for you. Of course not. Especially not if you were just about to shoot me an email. 
I’ve got a thought, though. Is “global” the new word for “not ready to commit fully”? The way “home business” used to mean “not committed to job-hunting”?
What is “I’ll take customers from anywhere”? Is there something wrong with taking customers from your home town, state, or region? Is it a fear of coming in contact with customers face-to-face? Is it fear of specializing?
Because if it is, then commit. Shout out loud, in your own backyard, about your business. Local is the new global, and we small business owners are poised to re-take our communities if we’d just stop shying away from f2f.
Get people you know (I mean “know,” as in “are acquainted with in the real world”) to sound the trumpets for you. They’ll do it best, because they care. And you? Get out. Especially you work-from-home entrepreneurs who are always saying how isolating your work is. Find local clients—take a meeting with them—and get out of the house!
Let the mega-companies fight over global business in this lurching and wrenching economy. Do what they can’t do, my small-business-owner friends, and do it well.
Shake hands.
Can you think of one move you could make this week to promote your business locally? Please share in the comments, so others can use our ideas in their own home towns!
Grow and be well,
Kelly Erickson
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30 September 2008, 9:14 am
Oh, Kelly, I do understand, and I’m all about supporting local businesses, but it can’t work for me. I tried it. I joined a business networking group in town, I handed out business cards, I talked to people. But Belleville is a small town, and mostly I met up with people who didn’t consider my service essential or interesting. Maybe my approach was wrong. Maybe most of them don’t write and are practically illiterate. Maybe.
“Get people you know (I mean “know,” as in “are acquainted with in the real world”) to sound the trumpets for you. They’ll do it best, because they care.” Actually, for me, it’s the ones I’ve come to know online who care most and most genuinely. I’m disappointed, but it’s the truth. My friends and people I know around here really actually couldn’t care less about EditQuest. This is a town of shift workers, fast food restaurants, and trades like construction and landscaping. Toronto, however, would be another story!!
Nevertheless, I’m going to put an ad in my phone book as well as contact the surrounding writers’ groups. Someone must love fantasy and have a dream to be published!!
steph’s last blog post…EditQuest at your Service
30 September 2008, 9:47 am
Steph,
You make an interesting case, but let me ask you this (to play Kelly’s advocate): what makes other people’s small towns seem filled with hidden clients, as opposed to your own?
Find the writers’ groups and the book clubs. Remember many readers are writers. But don’t just join: volunteer to speak, maybe taking apart a book or taking about the publishing process or some such. Don’t sell you, sell the dream.
Expand your definition of local: as I said, town, or even region. For your purposes, I’d be thinking about as far as it takes to get to one or two Chapters stores. Let a big company do your thinking about where the readers and writers are.
Maybe do something tremendously traditional and therefore frowned upon in 2.0-ville, like take out a weekly ad in the book review section of the local paper. Ads take time, so do a size you can keep up weekly. Quitting after once or twice is useless. Use it to drive people to your FREE eBook. Newspaper readers see the word free first, just like web readers.
I’m just thinking quickly here, because you seem so instantly down on the idea, and I know many folks are, but my point with this post is that I think there’s a lot that people are missing by taking the “I can’t” approach.
Not saying you’re wrong, either… just wondering if there may be more for you to think about than at first it seems.
Regards,
Kelly
30 September 2008, 9:52 am
Kelly, ouch that hurt! However, call me crazy but I am a fan of pain that leads to growth. I moved to Michigan from Southern California and started my business in this foreign land. I initially did the local thing and then abandoned it for global. Lately, I’ve been feeling like a heel for not committing to this place. It is time for me to learn the lay of the land and the strange customs here because like it or not it’s my hood. Thanks for the pain!
Karen Swim’s last blog post…Climbing the Rough Side of the Mountain
30 September 2008, 11:09 am
Karen,
It’s medicine I myself must take more often, and I know how it hurts. (And helps!) I was inspired to write it by a contact from a local company resolutely refusing to look out of their own windows, but keyboards are so convenient I’m afraid it’s starting to apply to us all!
Glad you liked.
Until later,
Kelly
30 September 2008, 12:57 pm
@Kelly @Steph - um, I used to live in Belleville (and my eldest still does). I’m with Steph and her market simply is not there. Trust me, it ain’t! If she wants a local market, she needs to move or change businesses. Know thy demographics! Fortunately, Steph can conduct business over the internet, so if she wishes to stay in Belleville for reasons other than work, she can.
Urban Panther’s last blog post…Airport shenanigans
30 September 2008, 1:07 pm
I tend to define local as within my state, region rather than specific town, province. Not too familiar with Belleville (Ontario, Canada right) but is there opportunity if you push the borders out a bit? Also remember that as with jobs, it’s not who you know but who they know. Those townies may not be your market but they may know people who know people.
I would also say that in some respect local can mean your country! I have done lots of work internationally but no concentrated focus on the US.
30 September 2008, 2:01 pm
Kelly,
Were you evesdropping in our house yesterday? I was JUST having this conversation with my husband yesterday as I was explaining to him why I am designing a three-fold brochure for use in our local area. He was puzzled. He was like- you have a web-site- you don’t need paper.
No. I live in a VERY small town where the demagraphics don’t even log on to the net yet. A lot of our local businesses are just now starting to uses computers and small websites so I have to be able to hand them something in the medium that they are comfortable with. Then they can take that home and type in the website if they want too. If not, they have read about me in the medium they are comfortable with.
I think the majority of what I want to do will be local at first. Especially with speaking egangements, workshops and classes. I have no problem building a local business.
Steph,
Some of the places I will be working with is through my park district, the local colleges and the libraries in my areas. In addition to that, I will be building through my networks in the real estate industry, The hair design industry, child care and the fitness industries- all areas I have taught and worked in before.
Can you go back into your past work and and do some teaching or presenting of some useful topics that will get your name out in front of the public? You never know who has a book hiding in their sock drawer.
Wendi Kelly’s last blog post…Cleaning Closets
30 September 2008, 3:41 pm
Panther,
Again, let’s push those borders back a bit. How far to a Chapters? So that’s where I’d draw my circle, if that were my small town. Believe me, I understand the frustration of looking just outside the tiny-town window and seeing what you think are dull stares, but with a pair of binoculars (and thinking creatively about the people in and near the town, as Karen says), it can be well worth exploring for many people who haven’t given it a chance before.
Karen,
Yeah. Like you said.
Wendi,
Ah, yes, the mighty but downtrodden brochure. Getting a mention in a post later this week.
Do you know I run into people who don’t even have a business card? So are you saying that you *never* want to introduce yourself in the flesh to *anyone* as a professional and have there be a chance of them remembering you? That gets me.
Reaching out in real life may not work, depending on the approach and the energy someone gives it. As the old saying goes, the only thing that’s certain is that it won’t work if you *don’t* try! I hope your brochures help you work those local contacts.
Ahem. I’ll take the bug out of the dining room, now that you’ve caught me.
Until later,
Kelly
30 September 2008, 5:22 pm
I was just thinking about this today! I drove past a new website design business downtown, and thought, “I wonder who writes their content? Maybe I should stop in and introduce myself.” Why didn’t I? I looked in the rearview mirror and found the baby had left a glob of peanut butter on the side of my head. Maybe another day….
Jamie Simmerman’s last blog post…Pick the Brain of Harrison McLeod of Men With Pens
30 September 2008, 6:05 pm
Jamie,
Clean the gob, introduce yourself later this week, and come on back and tell us how it went. I love peanut-butter-free success stories, lol.
Later,
Kelly
30 September 2008, 7:46 pm
@Kelly
Speaking from the other point of view…what if the local businesses DON’T WANT YOU as a customer?
Yet another example, just a few weekends ago, I tried to eat breakfast at a local restaurant. It was 11:20, I made sure I got there on time, as I know they stop serving breakfast after noon.
(Which itself is totally retarded….there are TWO other restaurants (literally only a few hundred yards away) that will serve Breakfast till 3:00-4:00.
Well, suprise, suprise. Crappy Restaurant #1 changed the rules…NOW they don’t serve breakfast after 11:00 AM.
She had already poured my coffee, but shrugged, and wouldn’t serve me eggs and bacon.
(I mean…COME ON!!! Who ever heard of breakfast hours like this…on a SATURDAY?).
What’s a poor Friar to do?
(Except quietly walk out, and not come back…!)
I swear…these people DON’T WANT TO SUCCEED!
Friar’s last blog post…Travels with the Bear: Poland, this time!
30 September 2008, 9:27 pm
Friar,
I swear you could do MCE channel 2 some days. Great little rant.
(Whaddya want breakfast at 3 in the afternoon for? Out moose huntin’ too late the night before?)
We’ve talked about illogical, self-serving hours here before, but you nailed it. Do these businesses want to succeed, or to train customers? That isn’t how it works, folks.
Reminds me of the hardware store in the teeny-weeny town next to where my parents own their motel. On the weekends when I’m up there, I’m usually trying to help them get big-picture projects done. Last visit, we were redoing their office, wrapping the walls in shelving for their extensive collection of videos for loaning to guests. Very nice work, when finished.
Before it was finished, we ran out of wall anchors, or screws, or some little piddly thing. On Sunday, at 12:30pm. I get my car keys and start to head down to the hardware store.
My mother stopped me as I pulled out. “They’re closed,” she says. I pull back in. “Closed on a Sunday?” Grumble, grumble. “No, just that they’re only open for two hours.”
“Oh, okay, so what? They open at 1?”
“Nope. They closed at 11.”
On a Sunday. They’re open from 9 to 11 am.
1. Who wants to go the the hardware store at 9 on Sunday morning?
2. Why bother opening, for only two hours?
Classic case of trying to train the customer. Short-term thinking. WIth any competition—as you have with two other places to go for breakfast—their business heads down the toilet. With their weird hours and even weirder selection, my father said he’d rather drive 25 minutes to Big City to the Big Box Home Improvement Center, just so he doesn’t have to put up with the hassle. UNbelievable!
What’s a poor Friar to do? Umm, learn to make eggs? He he. Nah, I like to get out on the weekends too. Let someone else serve me my breakfast. I feel for you, really. Go to the other places, and rant here.
Until later,
Kelly
30 September 2008, 9:27 pm
Ooh. Long comment.
30 September 2008, 10:58 pm
@Kelly
NINE till 11:00?
(If my Dad were alive, he’d say: “DUHHHH…Bzzzz! TILT!”).
Are you SURE the owners of the hardware store didn’t used to live in Splat Creek?
(As for making my own eggs instead…NoNoNoNOOOO!!! That defeats the whole purpose!
I look forward to my Saturday ritual..the one breakfast of the week, where I grab a booth, eat my cardiac eggs and bacon, read the paper, and work on the NY Times Crossword puzzle.
I will NOT let the crappy restaurant ruin that for me!
(I’ll just go to the slightly-less crappy restaurant down the road!).
Friar’s last blog post…Dear Solar System
1 October 2008, 6:48 am
Friar,
Yep. Sometimes when you talk about Splat Creek I’m sure you’re mocking the Vermont town my parents live next to (they live on the NYS side, pop. 50 or something, so there’s nothing on their side to mock). Definite twin cities.
On the other hand, both their diners are very good, though I don’t go in for breakfast at three so I couldn’t vouch for that.
Later,
Kelly
1 October 2008, 10:53 am
@Kelly You’ve never been to Belleville. *grin*
Urban Panther’s last blog post…
1 October 2008, 7:47 pm
Kelly,
I didn’t make it back to comment here until now - thought-provoking post, to say the least. I read it and thought, “I swear she’s talking to me again”. I took an old business idea I had (well, modified an old business, sort of), and fused it with a newer idea I have had for a while, and I think I have a pretty good idea that I can beta test here in Splat Creek - no competition here (heck, no competition on Planet Earth that I have been able to find, for my idea - and the market is *big*) - no competition, and the market is in a sort of fishbowl, meaning whatever I tell them, they will believe… muahahahahaha!
(*goes back into secret laboratory*)
-Brett
Brett Legree’s last blog post…still doing crazy things…
1 October 2008, 8:55 pm
The way “home business” used to mean “not committed to job-hunting”?
*points up and laughs*
*pokes Brett back into the secret lab*
Amy Derby’s last blog post…Mercury is in Retrograde (and this post has very little to do with writing except that I am writing it)
1 October 2008, 8:59 pm
Ack! I’ve been poked!
Brett Legree’s last blog post…still doing crazy things…
1 October 2008, 9:37 pm
Ooh, secret labs, poking, craziness… sounds very good!
Seriously, Brett, I like the sound of that. Keep working, Dr. Frankenstein.
Amy, keep poking. The monster will be built soon, I can tell.
1 October 2008, 9:51 pm
A couple of the prototype monsters are undergoing stress testing in the labs right now
Brett Legree’s last blog post…still doing crazy things…