Jeff For Local Marketing warns that infrastructure changes and tech shifts can make local businesses invisible to customers. He compares it to a town bypassed by a new highway. About 90% of local business owners don't realize this is already happening.
About 90% or more (speaker's workshop-based estimate).
What happens is you just don't exist.
And that's tragic because it takes away all your, all the work that you've done. So what I want to point out today is there's a few things that you need to do as a business owner to make sure you're ready. Now I want to give you an example here.
We've all seen this and we've heard about it where there's been this cute little town that we used to always go through the road, went through there, we love visiting it. And then all of a sudden the state comes in and put in this superhighway that's now a mile away from city center. Well, what happens? That city, it becomes forgotten because we zip past it at 70 or 80 miles an hour and we no longer go down Main street and see the cute little restaurant or the, the antique store or all these kind of things. And all of a sudden that, that business is no, or excuse me, that city has kind of, if you will, fallen off the map and it struggles. So they have to work extra hard to let the people know that while we're going down the highway at 70, 80 miles an hour, there's an opportunity to come and see them. Well, when that happens, imagine how challenging it is for a local business to get back on track. Now here's a stat that I picked up from being at a four hour workshop over the weekend on AI and this was part of the discussion that almost none, now when I hear almost none, let's say 90% or more of local businesses a have no idea this is coming. And it's not coming, it's here, it's happening today.
