Jason Hasselkus

For the small business owner, getting your name out there is probably the most important business decision one makes. Yes the name of your business is important, however whether you have the best name in the world or not, it doesn’t mean Jack if people can’t find you. So then the question becomes, where do I advertise my business. This answer use to be… The Yellow Pages.
As I looked into this for my own business, I started to wonder if more people actually pick up this big book or if they would rather turn their computers on and do a search. So I put this up to the parent test to see what they would say. Their answer:

I’ll go to google and type in whatever I want

So there it was, the answer I had feared and the answer I had needed. Basically what they were telling me, was that all that money I wasted making sure my name was in the Yellow Pages, didn’t mean squat.
After thinking this over for bit, I decided to do what any business owner would do, and go through the my balance sheets. Yup, there it was in plain view, I had yet to get a good quality lead from the big yellow book, in contrast to the many emails I answer from my websites. In fact the best advertising technique I have is my business card. I can talk to someone and offer them this card much easier than telling them the website and phone number to call. It’s all there for them already all they have to do is not loose it. Another thing I learned, is that your business card should represent exactly what it is that your are trying to sell. So for me if I’m trying to sell T-Shirts with really cool designs, then I need to make sure my business card brings that message home. My first business card didn’t. I just had the name of the business a little of what we did and then all the contact information. It wasn’t one of those cards that you keep because it’s so appealing. I have since changed my cards and the response has been much better. I even give them to friends so they have one to give someone incase they are ever in the position to give one to a potential client.
Which brings me to my very next point. When I get a client, I want to treat them like a friend, not some person that’s going to help me pay my credit card bills. I’ve worked for companies that haven’t always treated clients like this and the results were predictable. The way I look at it is this - If I don’t want to keep my friends, I’m going to be lonely and I couldn’t really call them friends. Well the same goes for clients, if I can’t call them friends then they are going to go someplace else, and I don’t want that because like any relationship you have to work at it, I want them to depend on me.
Your probably asking yourself… “What is this all about? Well that’s a very good question, but for me it’s been a learning process in how to market your business. Since I mostly run internet stores, it’s much more advantagous to market online (google adsense, adwords, yahoo marketing), than it is in the traditional sense (Yellow Book, weekly mailers). Although for the right type of business, I still think the Yellow Pages are essential. I couldn’t see myself doing a google search for plumber or an eye doctor, but I could find myself looking for someone that does home remodeling. I guess it all just depends on where your target market sits. Meaning if the people buying your stuff work with computers and are more apt to shop from their computer, either at work or at home, you have to market in that areana. If by chance you sell something that someone would actually look for in the Yellow Pages, then you have to be in it. But from my experience, nobody is looking for custom printing in the Yellow Pages. At least not in my area.