What? You Don't Know How To Do That?

I am sitting in airport lounge waiting for my connection and reading USA Today on the internet. As I lift my eyes from my computer, I gaze at my fellow travelers and notice, not unexpectedly, that all of them, including me, are plugged into their computers or tablets or smart phones.  

In this information crazed society, I watch one older well dressed gentleman, as he walks over to get some coffee, open his Motorola flip phone and begins to talk into it. I also watch people look at him as if he just crawled out from under a rock.  

If you haven't seen how fast technology is moving check out the recent battles between the Apple IPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy III.  It is almost hard to believe what these phones can do.  It’s Big Brother in the palm of your hand…whenever you want it.  And the people who have opted for one brand or the other have done so for their own very unique and special reasons.

It is amazing, to me, how we now seem to judge people by the technology they have? We expect our clients, peers and colleagues to have an up to the minute laptop or tablet; perhaps both. We expect them to have a smartphone where they can check email, text messages and retrieve files from anywhere on the planet.  

We expect them to know the weather, their calendar of meetings, how to create a 3 way phone call, how to even accept credit cards, how to access their favorite places to eat and drink, to be able to get sports scores and to have their airline boarding passes on their phone. and to do this seamlessly and instantly. Anything less plants a “negative” about them into our very judgmental psyche,

We also expect them to have Email, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin accounts; perhaps even a Pinterest account and a YouTube account so we can access them and they can access us in a multitude of ways.

And when they are unable to perform any electronic or digital task, our frustration meter skyrockets. “What you don't have or use this tool,” we say. “What are you, a  Neanderthal? C'mon man, get with the program; you're getting left behind,” we mutter under our breath...sometimes a little too loudly

But what is weird to me when I send emails to people in the industry I get x% to respond. When I send faxes, I get X% PLUS. 

This is equally true in other industries. I work with hardware stores, beverage outlets, and even restaurants who haven't quite caught up either and the percentage increases in responding to certain "old school" communication is almost identical

But what does that say about some of the people who are running these businesses? Are they so behind the "times?” Does their business and staff and service communicate that too? Does their marketing communicate that as well?

The answer, at least in my experience, is a resounding YES!

For those of you who are more familiar with faxes and landlines then emails, google and smart phones, stop what you are doing NOW and go find someone or some educational institution who can get you up and into the 21^st century as quickly as possible.  You may never know all the technical stuff and thats OK, but you must be able to ask intelligent questions about what particular aspects of this new media will do for you business.

It may be funny, but you are losing business by not knowing how to use these tools more effectively, especially if your competition is getting more and more knowledgeable about this every day.

More importantly, you're missing a lot of information for making better decisions.

Because today Marketing  IS Internet Marketing!!