"Prove To Me That The Internet Matters"

Today, we got a phone call from a potential customer, who had been recommended by another customer. I took one look at his site and was fairly certain that he had paid no attention to SEO, had no analytics, and had no calls to action.

“So,” he challenged me, “Why should I use your company?”  Well, I answered, maybe you shouldn’t use our company. I don’t recommend that everyone spend their money without having strong goals. Maybe you should start by telling me what your needs are.

The man on the other end of the phone said that all his company’s sales had been face-to-face or by referral up until now.  They had a little site, but did they really need to spend money? Did I know if people really found his type of services through the internet?  In fact, his needs weren’t so much SEO or PPC or GA or GWO.  He needed to be persuaded that those alphabet soup of internet services and tools were worthy of his budget dollars.

It is one thing to sell someone on the value of, say,  Google Analytics.  It is something else entirely to take someone who doesn’t have a strategic or emotional commitment to the work we do and convince them to spend their money there. I guess that’s a game I don’t want to play.  I feel like, you decide that you care on your own time, them come to us (or to another consulting company.) Consulting on the Internet is hard enough when your point of contact is committed (because s/he may have other priorities, may have to answer to his/her boss, may get moved around the organization.) Imagine how hard it would be if the person writing the checks really isn’t sure that the Internet matters.
Robbin