There’s a restaurant nearby that keeps very irregular hours.

I’ve headed there for supper with my kids more than once, only to find it closed at 5:00 in the evening even though it had been open hours earlier for lunch.

For the past year or so, this eatery has been teaching us that you never know when you’ll catch it open so we don’t bother with it very much since with two young children, when we head to a restaurant we need there to be something there to feed them.

Of course, there’s no website for this restaurant so you have to call ahead for the hours and with no recording that tells you the hours, you have to assume it’s closed if nobody answers. The only other option is to just show up and hope for the best. With so many other options around for dining, this really doesn’t cut it.

Yesterday we drove by this restaurant on our Father’s Day travels and noticed it was open at supper time! But guess what? The parking lot was empty. On Father’s Day. Arguably the busiest day on the calendar for restaurants.

My husband and I had a pretty good idea of why there was nobody there and it’s proof that you can be doing everything else right – good food, good service, good prices – but if you don’t make things as easy as possible for your customers (keeping regular, memorable hours, posting a menu/hours/specials on your website or Facebook page) then you’re not going to do well.

If you’re reading this and you have a business with no web presence, you need to get in the game.

Even if it’s a simple one-pager with your hours, your contact information and key services/products, that’s better than nothing. Facebook makes it easy with their “pages” feature. They’re free and can easily serve as a make shift website.

Always remember that people are searching for you online FIRST and if they can’t find you there, you do not exist. It’s as simple as that. Give the people what they want – the chance to scope you out from their computer before checking you out – and you’ll be golden.

Operating a local business and not having a web presence for it would be like looking at a lineup of qualified customers in front of your store and telling half of them to go away, that you don’t want their money. You wouldn’t do that. Would you?

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I love antiques. I really love them a lot. I love the smell of an antique shop and letting my mind wander to where some of the objects may have come from.

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I were driving along and passed a shop I wanted to check out to see if there was anything interesting inside (I have been there before and always find something cool).

Problem was, we couldn’t tell if it was open. (If you’re reading this in a reader, you might want to check out the actual blog to see the picture and get the full meaning here!)

Now…I don’t claim to be some marketing genius (okay sometimes I do) but this is clearly not a good move.

We stopped to take a picture and once we got closer we could see a dimmed out “Open” sign so we assumed they weren’t operating that day.

I’m not going to pick on this place too much. Obviously someone forgot to take down the open sign – or the closed sign – but we all do the same thing in our businesses in one way or another. It’s just not as obvious.

When you operate a business in this day and age, your website has a major role to play. Like it or not, people are looking for you online and unless you want your competitors to do better in your market than you, you have to cater to web surfers.

Website visitors have no attention span and they have a million options thanks to Google.com to find a better site than yours to get what they need. If you’re lucky enough to get them to your site in the first place, that’s great but you have to keep them there.

That means you have to:

• Have content optimized so web surfers can find you.
• Have content written in a “web-friendly” manner (with headings and  easily scannable copy)
• Keep your online information current, compelling and engaging.
• Narrow in on their pain points as much as possible.
• Make no assumptions.
• Tell them what to do.

See, you never know which page of your website a visitor is going to land on, so you have to give a piece of your story on every page, and make it clear what you want them to do. Should they contact you for more information? Should they visit your blog? Peruse your services?

You have to make it easy for people to do business with you because a web visitor’s attention span is not long enough for them to bother with you if they don’t have to. Lay out your information concisely and clearly because unlike a retail store where you can be assisting customers, your website content and navigation has to do it all.

Imagine how you would have felt if you were me, standing in front of a shop you wanted to visit but there was an open and closed sign in the window at the same time.

Now imagine someone visiting your website for the first time. They look at the “Welcome to our website” headline, the standard “hope you enjoy our website” content and are bored to death. You don’t stand out, they don’t know if you can solve their problem and the information you do provide doesn’t have any logical sequence to it.

Be engaging, be compelling and be clear and concise with your message. If you can’t do those things, hire a copywriter to do it for you

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Two weeks ago, I scheduled an appointment with an exterminator to get rid of a crop of big black ants. I’ve been using a natural, organic bait and it just doesn’t seem to be doing the trick for this particular type of ant.

I didn’t want to call an exterminator because I don’t like the thought of the harsh chemicals they use, but I figured that I just couldn’t share my house with these insects anymore, so I picked a name out of the yellow pages, checked them out online and made contact.

They responded via email, gave me a price and told me what day they would be coming…Thursday March 25.

On Tuesday they let me know that they had double booked and would be here Friday morning instead.

No big deal, I work from home, I told them.

So this morning (Friday) I’m checking my email and I have a message from the exterminator telling me they’d be here around 10 am and that me, my kids and my pets would have to be gone for a few hours during the treatment and a few hours afterwards.

That email was sent at 9:30pm last night.

My husband and I are sharing a car today, I work from home, I have two children under the age of 4 and an indoor cat.

Now, keep in mind that one of the email exchanges we had was about my concern about the chemicals that would be used as I have young children and an indoor cat and all I was told was the name of the chemical and that when applied by a professional it is very safe.

So why didn’t he tell me at that time that we would need to be gone during this process? Holy bad customer service, Batman!

I’ll tell you, this company has lost a customer. First the double-booking thing and then the no-notice thing. Maybe I didn’t ask the right questions, but I think someone in a business like this, while they likely assumed that I would know we’d have to leave the house for the day, should have a list of guidelines and information sent to their customers before they treat for whatever pest they’re going to be eliminating.

This man is clearly a solopreneur and he’s probably a very busy one. He should have a virtual assistant fielding his calls and emails. This person could systematically send an email with information to each customer to avoid this problem, which must have led to some loss of business. I can’t be the only one who can’t pick up and leave at the drop of a hat!

I’m sure we all make assumptions in our businesses, but it’s a dangerous thing to do.

This guy obviously assumes that everyone knows they have to be gone while he’s treating, but he’s wrong. I didn’t know and I’m really smart.

Could you be doing something like this in your line of work?

I know I’ve done it. I’ve assumed before that when I start writing optimized content for someone that they will know what keywords they want me to optimize for. Not always the case.

Part of my job as a writer and part of Buddy’s job as an exterminator, is to educate our clients. Whether we like it or not, it’s important that we explain our process before we start.

I suggest you sit down with a piece of paper and a pen then write down your process from start to finish. Write down everything no matter how obvious it should be.

I mean, if you’re a painter, don’t assume that someone will know they need to take down the old wallpaper before you show up to paint.

Identify the gaps, the items that you should be discussing with your clients before you start work, and document them. Put together an information sheet…something that you can send to people before they work with you.

If the exterminator had done that, I’d be packing up my things now and headed to Nanny’s house for the weekend. But he didn’t, so instead I’m sitting here angry, writing this blog post, preparing to wipe down all of the old ant bait and put down some fresh.

I’m going to take my chances with the ants because I think I might end up better off than with all those chemicals anyway. At least for now. And if I do decide to call an exterminator it will be somebody different. Call me crazy, but when I’m leaving my house with a stranger in it for hours with harsh chemicals I want someone I can trust. And sorry, but two strikes is more than enough to be out in a game like this.

Moral of the story…never make assumptions about what your customers know or don’t know because you will be proven wrong at some point! Bet on it.

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I barbecued hamburgers for lunch today and as my two-year-old and I sat and enjoyed our meal, her cheerful chatter filled the air. Usually she makes up little songs or talks about her outfit, but today she picked up the mustard bottle and said something quite profound.

She said, “Mommy, what shape is this?”

I told her it was an hourglass shape.

She thought about that for a second and said, “I think it should be shaped like a hamburger.”

I looked at her in awe. My two-year-old seems to be a young branding and marketing expert.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If all of us could look at the world with the same sense of creativity, wonder and openness to new ideas as a small child, business would be very different.

Brainstorming is a favorite activity of mine. I love to exercise my creativity and I think that is a pretty solid benefit to my copywriting clients.

I sit down sometimes with a pad of paper and a pen and just write down ideas. I make lists of words that will resonate with my target market and try to think up possible package ideas or new services I could offer.

My little girls are very creative and my youngest suggesting that a bottle of mustard should be in the shape of a hamburger is one example how they like thinking up new ideas.

Is there a hamburger-shaped mustard bottle in your business?

I don’t think my daughter is ready to launch her own business yet, so you can’t call on her to help you. But you can do the same thing for yourself!

All you need is an open mind and a clean piece of paper. Write down some ideas and expand on them. Don’t worry about being perfect. Don’t worry if they don’t make sense. A two-year-old doesn’t care about that. They just say things that their little minds create. Try it. You might be surprised at what youcome up with!

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I put a lot of brain power into creativity. I live, breathe, eat and sleep creative ideas. So much of my heart and soul is poured into developing intelligent, snappy, fresh and creative ideas that it truly enrages me when I see someone ripping off someone else’s creative idea and passing it off as their own.

Plagiarism is low, people. I know for a fact that nobody would stand up and argue that fact and I bet I’d have a hard time finding someone who would admit to being a plagiarizer. That’s because they would not be popular.

Dictionary.com defines plagiarism as:

“the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”

You caught that, right? Plagiarism does not just apply to content, but taking someone else’s idea and passing it off as yours also counts. And do you know what plagiarism is?

Blatant theft.

When someone takes someone else’s idea and claims to have been the one who thought it up, well…that person doesn’t realize how small this world really is. That person is also not flattering the original concept creator. I can assure you that the person who had the idea in the first place is pissed off.

People. Stop taking other people’s ideas. It isn’t cool and you will be caught and your reputation will be in the toilet. Trust me. Karma is real and what goes around comes around.

If you can’t come up with a creative idea, nobody is going to fault you for that. Seek help. Call me! I help entrepreneurs with their creative brainstorming and I have enough creativity for both of us and some to spare.

It’s way more satisfying to come up with something on your own than it is to steal someone else’s intellectual property. Plus it’s way more legal.

If you contract me as your creative consultant and you pay me to come up with your ideas, I won’t tell anyone. We can pretend those ideas are yours. Part of your payment goes towards keeping my mouth shut.

So there you have it. You know how I (and anyone else who invests time and energy into creative thought) feel about plagiarism. People who do it suck. Don’t go there. Any money you invest in hiring someone to help with your creative needs will cost less than the damage done to your reputation in the long run when you’re caught.

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