I Am Sending You A Smoke Signal

Tonight I am standing out on the side of a mountain trying to start a fire with a rock and a piece of wood. Why? Because I need to get a message to somebody through email and I couldn't find their email. I tried going to their social media page and that should have been the easy way. But guess what? There's no contact information. Apparently this person has a big CLOSED sign over their business and I missed it. I am confused. I met them at a networking meeting. I thought if they were out networking that meant they wanted business. Hmmmmm...

So my only choice is to stand out in the wind and try to make smoke signals or give up and use their competitor. Which should I do?

Where is your contact information?

Whenever I encounter this problem I ask myself two questions. Is this person trying to stop me from doing business with him? Or is this person lacking intelligence? I can't tell. I could make excuses for them and say, "Well maybe they are new to social media and they don't know how to do this." Yet, I am looking at a profile. They were smart enough to get it up with a picture. So why is there no contact info?

Are they afraid of privacy loss? Surely they know that thieves don't need their social media profile if they want that information. They already got it through a much more secure site or they read it from the Google satellite that peaks through your curtains and reads the mail off your kitchen table.

I have met people who thought that they should not put their contact information on their social media profiles. If they are employees, I understand their logic. They don't want to be contacted. The business that they work for is not important enough to them to put their phone number on their social media profile. They don't pay the bills for that business; they just get a check every two weeks. They get that check for doing a list of duties and taking phone calls may not one of those duties. I get it.

A business owner however should want business. They should have an OPEN sign over their life. There should be contact information on something, somewhere, that makes it easy for me to call them or at least call their office. Instead I have to give up in frustration and call their competitor. As a consumer you have only 30 seconds to give me what I want, or I am gone!

Don't be that guy. You're not just leaving money on the table you are dumping it in the garbage. There is no Yellow Pages anymore for a consumer to look up your number. If you don't make it obvious for us in the places where we hang out, we're going to find somebody else who's easier to get a hold of.

Don't assume that if you put it into the contact information spot on LinkedIn that I as a customer I'm going to be able to find it. What if I'm not a LinkedIn user? What if I just Googled your name and I saw a piece of your profile which convinced me you had the skills that I needed but because I am not a LinkedIn user I can't gain access to that contact information? Put your phone number and your email address in the top line of your summary. That way even people who Google you, who are not part of LinkedIn, can actually call you on their smartphone.

Keep it simple, and the phone will ring more often. Someday you will thank me for telling you this.

Oh by the way, I got tired and hungry while waiting for you to respond to my smoke signal so I've made fried eggs and now I am going to sleep. Your competitor says, "Hi, and thanks for the business." I talked to them while I was eating my eggs.