Who would have thought in just 50 short years we would go from meeting and greeting people in the town square to meeting and greeting people hundreds of miles away – without anyone actually leaving home?

And, in that same short time, who would have thought we would go from buying the biggest newspaper or magazine display ads we could afford to stimulate traffic to our businesses to asking everyone we know what they’re doing to encourage their customers to write about their experiences with them in online directories?

The change is staggering. It’s enough to make my head spin all the way around!

And it’s not science fiction. It’s already happened. Elvis has left the building.

(According to Wikipedia, “Elvis has left the building!” was a phrase often used by public address announcers following Elvis Presley concerts to disperse audiences who lingered in hopes of an Elvis encore.)

As my guests on this third episode of “The Virtual Meeting Coach Show“ like to say, business people who continue to neglect online meetings and other social media – focusing the bulk of their marketing dollars on traditional tv and radio, or newspaper and magazine display ads – are marketing to a crowd that already left the building.

The old models don’t work…and the new ones do.

If the people you need to tell about your business don’t read newspapers anymore, it makes no sense to buy newspaper advertising to communicate with them. But many people are still doing just that.

In their jobs as the Pacific NW internet marketing team for Ticor Title, Matt Sweet and Rene Fabre, spend a big chunk of their time helping Realtors, bankers, and other folks in the real estate industry understand why the old models of advertising and business communication don’t work anymore… and why the new models do.

As Rene likes to say, young and old alike, people all over the world have become “searchers.” We go online daily now to self-educate and to find what we need. So, the question is, how can people possibly choose to buy your products or services unless they can easily find your compelling presence online?

Matt jokingly called this third conversation, “I Get By With A Little Yelp From My Friends.”

Take a look and a listen as the three of us talk about ways to use online review sites like Yelp, Amazon and others to help people searching for things they want FIND YOU in the process of their searching.

FYI: You don’t have to be in real estate to get a lot of value out of this conversation. Anyone who sells professional services needs to be thinking this way to make a decent living in this new economy.

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