Bob’s embarrassment was palpable. I almost wondered if my question had been presumptuous, but I really don’t think it had.
“Well, D.F.,” he said sheepishly, sort of hiding his face and fumbling with his hands, “we don’t have one.”
Don’t have one? How can you not have one? Every business in America has a website! And it’s not just businesses. Rural 4-H clubs have websites. Children have websites. I’ve even seen websites that supposedly belong to animals.
And he couldn’t even use the excuse that they’re just a small company—not that this would be a reasonable excuse—because they aren’t. They manufacture concrete blocks and sell them to construction contractors all over the country. They have a national sales force. They have a building!
I gather it’s a sensitive subject with Bob. Were you still in diapers at 5 years old? Did you still believe in Santa Claus when you were 9? Were you still having trouble learning to ride a bike when you were 10?
If you answered yes to any of the above, I think you can empathize with how Bob feels here. So even though I guess it’s none of my business, his not having a website would make it harder for me to do what he wants me to do for his company. (Why is too complicated to get into.) So there was no avoiding the dreaded question.
Why? Why, Bob? Why why why?
“Well, D.F. There’s no easy answer. I keep meaning to.”
Yeah. Leona Helmsley kept meaning to file her tax returns. “Should I do it today? Oh look! A squirrel! Now what was I thinking about maybe doing? It’ll come to me.”
Here’s the truth. It’s ugly and hard to face, but here it is. Bob is afraid. He’s never been much for those new-fangled computer things. He doesn’t know anyone who knows how to create a website. (At least that’s what he thinks. Most everyone can build a website. My 7-year-old can build one. Fairly cheap if you want to hire him.)
So Bob comes up with lots of excuses for not having a website. Here are some of my favorites:
I’ll be giving away information that helps my competition. This is my favorite silly excuse for doing nothing to promote one’s business. Too cheap to advertise? Too nervous to return a reporter’s call? We can’t have any exposure! It would tell our competition what we’re doing!
Like your competition doesn’t know what you do. They probably disguise themselves as contractors, order your products and send them to the lab for analysis. You didn’t notice when “Acme Corporation” bought exactly one concrete block from you and never paid the invoice, and you had to write it off three years ago?
Let me give you a clue about secrecy. It doesn’t exist. Everyone knows everything about everyone. Your “proprietary intellectual property” is being seen by millions of people on YouTube right now. The only thing you’re protecting is your flat sales.
We don’t have time to keep it updated. OK, not to minimize the potential value of an interesting, constantly updated website, but what do you think you need to do with it? If you have a picture of your sales manager on the site, and your sales manager is convicted of embezzlement and sent to prison for 20 years, remove the picture.
But it’s not like you need to write a daily blog, although I realize there are consultants who will tell you to do that very thing.
“Bob, if you want to optimize your website, you need to blog daily about concrete blocks! That will keep the concrete block enthusiasts coming to your site again and again!”
Bob hasn’t even finished a memo since 1979. How is he supposed to write a daily blog about cement blocks? Talk about making the perfect the enemy of the good. “I can’t have a website because I can’t write a daily blog, and without a daily blog I can’t have a website!” Hello circular logic.
What if hackers get into it? Bob, let me ask you a question. Do you even know what a hacker is? You don’t, do you? I didn’t think so. Do you know what a hacker would hack? Do you know what hacking is? You have no idea. This is just something you heard somewhere and you’re repeating it back like a squawking parrot.
“Bawk! Hackers! Bawk! Attack your website! Bawk!!!!!!”
You dope. Hackers attack stuff like banks so they can transfer millions into their offshore accounts without anyone knowing. What are they going to do with your concrete block site? Paint moustaches on your executive team?
Hackers. I am so rolling my eyes at you right now. The thing is, there’s one legitimate question Bob could be asking (but isn’t) that would imply a legitimate reason not to have a website: “Why do I need one?”
Let’s be honest. How many of us have websites just because everyone expects us to? It’s entirely possible your website is bringing you no business value whatsoever, but not having one would make you look like kind of a doofus.
How big a problem is it for your business if people think you’re a doofus? Depending on what you do, maybe not all that big. If you make concrete blocks, how smart do you have to be? I mean, Bob does OK at it. He’s no genius.
But he may be right in thinking that he doesn’t need a website and that his business would be no better off if he had one. It’s just that he’d save himself a lot of trouble if he’d say so boldly and confidently. Instead, his embarrassment and shame belie the fact that he really has no good reason.
If you own a company that has no website, I say get out your mimeograph machine and write someone a memo telling them to get on it! Oh, and send me a copy. The smell of that thing will bring back fond memories of when I was in second grade—a time when every other company’s website looked just like yours!
You doofus.
