Do you practice what you preach?

I talk with medium and small business owners every week and they often tell me they believe in only doing business with other small businesses-like them.  I would estimate about 50% really do practice what they preach while the other 50% do it when it’s convenient or saves them money.  Many of our current clients fall in the 50% that really does choose local business-even if it costs them more. 

They do this because they know they’re getting better service, a superior product and supporting other small businesses  important to them.  Now the other 50% will use a local business IF it’s to their benefit so if a company comes by with a cheaper price, they are quick to jump ship as all they are interested in is saving money.

We really do judge a business by their website

A few years ago we needed to have some work done on our car.  We found many websites (some good, some bad) and ended up calling several companies-ones with both good and bad websites.

We debated over who to go with and we actually ruled out an auto shop even though the owner seemed knowledgeable about our vehicle and their price was cheaper.  The reason? Their  website was bad-it was outdated and didn’t have much information.

Standing by our values add credibility

For us, it was a matter of credibility.  After all, how could we tell prospects and clients that people judge them by their website when we used a company with a bad website?  Even though we know there are many great companies out there who provide quality services/products BUT have a terrible website, we decided to make a conscious choice to go with a business who clearly understood the role their website plays in their business.

From that day forward, we have only ever considered doing business with companies that have a good website as we know they understand the importance of their website and (as we preach every day) they care enough about their business and their customers to invest money into their website.

Hiring a professional to get it done right

Here’s another example-during the selling process, I’ve heard many business owners caution potential customers against doing it yourself or using a person who isn’t experienced as it can have a bad outcome.  They are selling their experience as the reason to choose them for the service/product as they will do a better job.

Now, these same business owners who were just preaching that you need to use a professional to get the job done right, decided to hire a friend or relative to build them a website OR decided to do it themselves.  See the problem?  If you want to go the DIY route that’s fine, BUT don’t use the “you need to hire a professional” IF you don’t follow the same rule yourself.

After all, if you really believed a professional will do the best job, why wouldn’t you hire one to build website?  Isn’t it worth the investment?  There’s no wrong and right way but as a small business owner, I believe you need to practice what you preach when conducting business.