The Cost of Indifference

I really enjoy riding pretty much anything that has 2 wheels on it.  And, if you can believe it, I love summer time in Arizona.  The Sun comes up so early in the morning, and I have the opportunity to get on one of my bikes and ride around doing some thinking.  This morning during my ride I had a thought come to me.  I tend to experience quite a lot of indifference as far as marketing for small and mid size companies.  Having indifference as far as marketing for your company goes tends to be quite costly.  I'll show you what I mean with a few examples.

1)  Nearly every single company that cares even the slightest about marketing has a website created.  However, it seems that most think the mere fact of owning a website is all they need.  Business owners need to realize WHY they have their site in the first place.  It isn't enough to just have a static online brochure that your clients can take a look at.  The purpose of your website should be to increase web traffic, generate more leads, and get you permission to market so that you can bring in lots and lots of new business.  If your website is just sitting there, static, and no one knows that it even exists or how to find it, what good is it?  Not having any purpose tends to be a costly thing, and quite often thats a result of being indifferent.

2)Recently I told a friend of mine that she should meet with us about doing a redesign for her site since she recently started her own law practice.  The site she currently has up looks as though the person who designed it couldn't care at all about her brand and proper positioning.  This type of thing makes her new law firm look bad because when visitors to the site look at it they probably going to think to themselves, "Well, this site is pretty lame looking.  I guess the people who own it don't care enough to bother getting a quality site designed.  I wonder if this is also how they practice law?"  Don't misunderstand me here; I'm not saying people are going to walk up to you and tell you that your site sucks or that your flyers/brochures are lousy, but they will be thinking it to themselves.  And that is costly.

3)  I have a friend who is a golf professional of the world-class variety (as opposed to those other varieties, of course).  All day long he works hard teaching others.  His website that he has in place looks fantastic.  However, there's no eCommerce on it.  He has no blog set up on it.  He has absolutely no way to convert his website's visitors into a paying customer without them sending him an email or calling him up.  The majority of people who have Golf as a career tend to trade their time for money.  This is also true with consultants.  What you should do is setup a website that can incorporate a strategy to help generate more revenue without having to bother getting out of bed.  No teaching.  No consulting.  Once again, this is a result of being indifferent.

Please, every single business owner and savvy entrepreneur out there, avoid indifference.  Run away from it at all costs.  It costs you too much money.  Build your sites with a stated purpose.  Love your brand and the image you're projecting to potential customers.  Operate your company with integrity.  And, of course, do and be your best so you can outshine your competition.