Do you ever feel like your city isn’t on the same page technologically as you are? When I’m on Twitter or LinkedIn, people are using the technology to connect with their customers, vendors, and fans. Connections are made over Skype, and bills are paid with PayPal. It’s understood that voicemail is a pain, and that waiting in line for bad customer service is heresy. Sure, it’s chaotic, but yet somehow it all makes sense.

Then I step outside, and everything changes.

I don’t live in a big city. I suppose I shouldn’t expect to step out into a technological utopia. Still, why aren’t more small businesses trying to join the 21st Century? I hear people joke about the Yellow Pages, but that’s where I still have to go to find what I need.

Just yesterday, I wanted to email our vet. I know there’s a business card somewhere in this house, and it has their email address on it. I couldn’t find it, so I went online to search their site. I finally found it and…no email address on the site. What?

For some reason, I use Foursquare. I like to try out new things, so I check in to my location every once in a while. I’m even the Mayor of a few spots. From what I hear, this means I might be entitled to some type of discount or VIP status. In my town, I don’t think the owners of any of these businesses even know about Foursquare, let alone the fact that I’m currently the Mayor of their store.

I will admit, I’d take this to an extreme level if given the chance. When I see a kid running a lemonade stand, I want to tell him to setup a website, tweet the location, setup a Facebook event, and give discounts to people who “check in” to the stand. This is usually where my family gives me “the look”, and tries to tune me out. Fair enough.

Please tell me I’m not the only one that feels this way? Tell me that the lack of tech adoption in your town drives you crazy too. No, seriously…if this drives you crazy…please tell me in the comments. I need proof for my friends and family that I’m not the only one.

Not too long ago I spent some time telling you how bad I was at selling. I can’t think of a better way to spend a Friday morning, than to bash myself again. Well, maybe bash is a strong word. There’s just another aspect of business that I’ve had to work at…it’s just not something I find naturally easy.

That aspect is marketing. By marketing, I’m referring to the more traditional, Don Draper style of marketing. I’m not naturally good at coming up with a catch phrase and designing a visual marketing campaign around it. Thankfully, nobody looks for a bookkeeper to help them shoot their next commercial. If you’re like me, and you run your own business, I’ve got good news for you. In the opinion of several people, including myself, this isn’t the best way to find new clients and customers.

So, what’s an introvert with a skill suppose to do? How do you grow your business if the idea of talking in front of a camera terrifies you?

Word of Mouth

There are 3 factors that led me to this post.

1. Life experience

No matter what crazy ideas I’ve had, or ads I’ve placed, most of my work over the years has come from a referral. Sometimes a current client will recommend me to a friend. More recently, I’ve had people read this blog, and recommend me to a friend.

2. The Referral Engine

This book really sums up what I probably knew, but just didn’t know how to put into words. John Jantsch is the author of what has become one of my favourite business books. If you run your own business, but don’t have a strategy to handle referrals, you should go get this book.

3. A recent post

I just read a good post at The Freelance Bookkeeper that talks about this very topic. It reminded me that I hadn’t written about this before. Sure, it’s about bookkeepers, but the information is quite universal.

Why is so effective?

It’s simple, really. If you need a new car, do you trust the 53 spam emails from steve94285@example.com telling you to buy a Toyota? Or do you listen to the one close friend who tells you that the Nissan they’ve had for the past 10 years has been amazing. Exactly.

The real beauty of this is what happens next. Are you really good at your trade, but lousy at marketing? Guess what? The thing that will guarantee you more referrals…is being really good at your trade. Your customers are much more likely to tell a friend because you did great work for them than because they really liked your newspaper ad.

Sure, if you are just starting out, and don’t have any customers, you’ll need to run some ads. But once you’ve got them in the door, the best way to grow is by treating them better than anyone else in your field does. A quality product will trump a big ad campaign. No matter how many times I see an ad for McDonald’s, it will never make their burgers taste as good as the ones at Five Guys.

Do you have a referral strategy in your small business? I’d love to hear about it.

Most of the time, pouring over my site stats and analytics is a waste of time. I usually just end up obsessing over why more people read last Tuesday’s post than yesterday’s, or something else equally trivial. One little nugget that I find very useful is the search terms that people use before they end up at the site. Today’s “Ask ThatBookkeeper” question is one of those search terms.

Whose job is it to use Freshbooks?

This isn’t exactly how it was worded in the search term. Basically, this person was searching to figure out if the bookkeeper or client was meant to be using Freshbooks, which I thought was an interesting question.

The short answer is that it’s the client, not the bookkeeper, that is meant to run Freshbooks. The bookkeeper will often reference that Freshbooks data, but it’s not intended to replace bookkeeping software. On the surface, it may seem strange that there’s a bookkeeping app that’s meant for the client. However, when you look at it closer, you realize that this is how we’ve done things for a long time.

In the past, a salesperson would hand write invoices when they were out in the field. In most cases, it was too cumbersome to lug around a computer and printer to a client’s office or house. When they got back to the office at the end of the day, they would submit their invoices, which would end up on the bookkeeper’s desk. The same went for expenses. The salesperson would keep receipts from fuel, meals, travel and supplies. In some cases, they were required to submit a proper expense report along with those receipts.

Fast forward to today. Hand written invoices and expense reports aren’t gone…but they should be. This is where an invoicing app like Freshbooks or Blinksale comes in.

It’s trivial to bring your smartphone when you visit a client. With it, and the right app, you can handle everything. You can create an invoice on-site that can be emailed directly to your customer. That same smartphone can snap pictures of receipts. Those pictures can be included with relevant details, and forwarded directly to your bookkeeper, whether they’re back at the office or somewhere across the country. Now, at the end of the day, 2 things have improved.

1. You’re work as the salesperson is done. You don’t need to create an Excel report or drop off copies of the invoices.

1. The bookkeeper has almost real-time access to the sales and expense information. This means that instead of always being at least a day behind, the whole system has accurate sales information on the same day it was generated.