I’ve been going to the same barber for the past 14 yrs. in NYC.  We had a strong relationship and I never had to find a replacement for him.    For the past year though, my work has kept me in Central NJ, and as such I haven’t been able to visit my barber.  I did not have a recommendation from a trusted source to rely on, so all I was able to do was research the business online. I performed a quick Google search and although I was able to find a few listings of barbershops on Yelp and through Google plus, I was surprised to only find one barbershop with an online presence.

No matter how small the business and how far removed it may be from technology, an online presence is critical to the exposure and generation of new leads for that business.     I was able to build up a comfort level with this business because I was able to spend some time on their website, learning about their service offerings and their employees.   The convenience of this far outweighs the little amount of time I would’ve had with a person on the phone at any business I would call.   I am sure that the majority of people prefer this method of researching businesses as well, especially with the instance access an internet enabled mobile device gives them.

The cost of putting up a website is only a few hundred dollars, and you can have it up and running in a few hours.   Sites such as iPage, GoDaddy and Yahoo! Small Business make it very easy to setup and host a website.  WordPress offers many free and easy to use templates (and some premium ones for a nominal fee) to build your website.  You can get assistance  from 3rd party sources by visiting ELance or 99Designs.  A simple cost breakdown to set up a website is:

• Website hosting and domain name registration – ~$50 to host a website and register a domain name*
• WordPress theme – free for the basic template, $30-$100 for a premium theme.
• Set up time – A couple of hours to customize the template to your liking and adding content about your organization to it
• 3rd Party services for website build (optional) – Less than $500, depending on the vendor you choose.

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You can have a complete website built and hosted for less than $600, and within a few hours.  There’s really no excuse not to do this.   I’m positive that the investment would pay itself off in a few months, if not sooner.

While getting my haircut, the barber told me that they had only been in business for about seven months, and the majority of their new business is being driven via their online presence.   Their online presence got me in the door.  All in all, I was there for about 30 minutes, got top notch customer service and a great haircut.  Their website got me in their door, their service will make me a repeat customer.

The barbershop is called Razorsharp.  Check them out if you’re in the area.  I highly recommend them.

Key Takeaways:

• Having an online presence, no matter how small the business, is critical to gain exposure in today’s age.
• Setting up an online presence has never been cheaper/easier.
• While an online presence will get customers through your doors, you still need to produce a great product to get them to come back.

 

* The $50 price tag is based on the latest offerings on iPage.com and may be different when you perform your research.