Why the Web Matters and Why it Matters Even MORE Today

 A $50,000 per month janitorial contract with a 22% gross profit that came off a web site hit got my attention. With all the competition for accounts like this one, I was shocked. I built one of the largest janitorial companies in the US without knocking on a single door but I was still shocked. 

I was the guy that licked 5,000 envelopes when computers were the size of trucks. I learned how direct marketing worked, was successful at it, and then spent the next 25 years listening to people telling me that it didn’t work. (It just did not work for them because they were doing it wrong). 

The first chance I got to run out and buy a computer I bit the bullet and spent more than the car I was driving at the time. Then there was a way to talk to other people with computers over phone lines. Once again, I was there, we could type with a keyboard, and it would show up on the screen of the person on the other end of the phone line. No pictures, no sound just very plain type that looked like what telegrams used to look like. This was before Al Gore invented the World Wide Web. 

Last weekend I spent some time getting hooked up to something called Tumblr. One of the big stars there is Jenna Marbles. She is also one of the stars of Web 2.0. Everyone my age will look at Jenna Marbles whining about the girls she hates, why her cat is better than a boyfriend, advice on how to avoid people that she doesn’t want to talk to and how to trick people into thinking you look good (which is strange coming from a very attractive young lady in her early 20s) and dismiss her completely. Here’s the deal though, Jenna invites you to then comment or tell her what you, the viewer thinks and people do. 

Do you have a computer? Have you ever sent or received an email? Have you walked into any Fortune 500 company to sell janitorial services? Face it, in 2011 if you do not use a computer then you might as well get rid of your telephone. Oh and while you are at it, get rid of that new fangled floor machine too and then you can go back to the “good old days” when floors were polished by attaching rags to your feet. So the bottom line is your computer is here to stay if you are in the janitorial business. The internet isn’t a fad either, it’s here to stay. 

Jenna Marbles matters and so does Web 2.0 and here is why. Al Gore’s wonderful invention of the Web was not worth very much to the average person. Do you know who were the first bunch of Joe Averages who it did matter too? The fans of the Grateful Dead were the first to use Gore’s invention for their own purposes. Stoned out Deadheads found out that there was something called Mosaic (the very first web browser) and they used Mosaic to organize each other. Deadheads traveled around in brightly painted VW vans, following their favorite band. Jenna Marbles’ twenty something very public angst is today’s permutation of those stoned out Deadhead’s partying.

To those of you who say I am stretching a point, try selling any of your services to any Fortune 500 company or any government agency without first going to their web site and filling out a vendor registration form. You can stand in the lobby for as long as you like handing business cards to a receptionist and if you are not a registered vendor you are wasting your time. 

You started out with a web site thinking all it is supposed to do, is to act like a brochure. You PUSHING out your message in the form of a electronic brochure and hoping someone that can sign a cleaning contract will see it and spend the time to read it. Web 2.0 is here and your web site is only one small piece of any serious company’s presence on the Web. If you want to grow and thrive in this new electronic landscape, I really hate to tell you this but you are going to have to learn what Jenna Marbles knows.

Now you will not be able to say you have not been warned because I just warned all of you.