Do You Really Need a Website?

This question may seem like a straw man I’m setting up for you, but it’s not.

I know an individual—I’ll call him Jack--who is an authority in his very specialized field. Having left corporate years ago, he’s a solopreneur consultant, doing what he loves as an independent owner of his business.

I know absolutely nothing about Jack’s specialized knowledge, but I know he’s an authority for one reason: I see his invoices and his numbers. (My firm prepares his financials.)

(By the way, your financials reveal whether you’re an authority in your field or not, but that’s another post for another day.)

Because I see the invoices Jack sends out to his clients, I see that he’s hired, for project after project, by the same clients. His new clients, when he can fit them in, come from a relationship who moved from an existing client firm to another one, or they come because of a referral from an existing client.

Jack’s firm name is the most un-marketing friendly name you can imagine—I can barely pronounce it. He has no logo. He has no website. Although Jack has a LinkedIn profile, he’s NEVER posted on LinkedIn. If you and I made a bet on the last time he’d even logged in to LinkedIn, I’d bet the over in a heartbeat. He has no other social media presence. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s never heard of Tik Tok or Clubhouse or SEO or sales funnels.

Jack would scream with laughter if I asked him about his personal brand.

When I asked him to come on my show and talk about his work, his response was “why do I need to do that?” (I was secretly relieved, by the way, because I’m not sure I’d know what to ask!) Needless to say, I haven’t wasted my breath asking him about my team helping him start his own podcast. He doesn’t need one.

In the eyes of a lot of marketers, he’s a mess who’s done absolutely nothing right, yet Jack enjoys an extraordinarily successful practice. So what gives?

Jack understands that relationships are what drives his business, and he’s doing what’s necessary, every day, to initiate and deepen those relationships.

Professional services providers, I’m not arguing that you need to take down your website or delete your LinkedIn account. Your marketing strategy is a continuum. It’s not a binary, all or none thing. Other than Jack and a few others like him I know, most professional services providers need a website and a great LinkedIn presence. These marketing tools are mandatory, not optional.

I’m using this extreme, real-life example, though, to make a strong recommendation: that you take a cold and rational look at not only how your clients find you, but how that happens in your industry generally.

There are a lot of marketing methods and tools available which are essential if you’re selling a mass market product like dog food. In that case, you need to worry about SEO and keywords and digital ads and where you rank on Google.

This just in, though: you’re not a can of dog food. You're a professional services provider.

Your business is driven largely, if not entirely, by relationships. Your website, social media, etc. exist for one reason: to confirm the recommendation which a live person has already made about you. You write blog or LinkedIn posts, articles for trade publications, or even a book for one reason: to confirm the depth of your expertise.

Sure, you may have a few folks stumble across your website or a social media channel and call you. Depending on your specialty, that could be a great way to get new clients. It also could be a way to generate cheapskate tire-kickers.

Better yet, you’ll have people who turn out to be great clients find you because they’ve been drawn in by your blog posts or articles. They taste what you’re serving up, and eventually they can’t stand it any longer: they get in touch and want to learn more about you and possibly hire you.

Before you dive headlong toward grabbing another marketing bauble which is being waved in front of you, think about how clients find you. Remind yourself who they are and where they hang out. Refresh yourself on what’s working in your marketing strategies and what isn’t. (You are tracking these things, right?)

Maybe, instead of falling victim to the bright shiny object in front of you, you need to do more of what you already know works.

For most services providers I know, that involves building and deepening relationships. Relationships move the revenue needle in their business.

So where are you falling short in relationship-building?

#relationships #professionalservices #businessdevelopment #marketing