I have spent few hours this afternoon trying to talk to local businesses about the importance of having a website. My wife and I decided to visit Keilor Rd this afternoon. As it was only our second attempt, we felt more confident there than visiting other unfamiliar areas. We have been in quite a few restaurant along Keilor Rd, on a regular basis.

There is a big concentrations of restaurants and caffe

It was the first time for Camille to come out to visit businesses and talk to them about the importance of going online. We still need to figure out the best moment to do so. Today we got there at 2.30 pm and a few restaurants were busy for lunch, some others were still closed.

The first restaurant we visited was Tin Roof Cafe. We had a chat with the restaurant owner who was quite friendly and interested in what we were saying. He told us that a local guy a few months ago went door to door selling websites for businesses and once he collected all the money he disappeared! I can’t blame him if he didn’t really trust us at first glance.

The second restaurant we visited was Biagio’s, it did look pretty good inside, the owner however didn’t really care about what we were offering. She said they have got a website and she is happy with that. There is plenty to do even if u have a website! Keep it in mind!!

Chartreuse was next on our list, the owner was nice and we spent a little bit of time talking to him. He seemed to like our business card and cover letter.

As we needed a bit of a walk, we decided to go talk to the owner of Mamma Lina restaurant. Unfortunately, he didn’t even want to hear about our services. He said “No sorry I’ve already got my IT guy”. I hope you’re not investing too much in him! Where is your website? And do you think your online presence is good enough?

We did visit other restaurants and cafes, but as you can imagine, they are not worth mentioning.

Lesson learnt for day 2

• Restaurant owner in this area are a bit old fashion. I would call them Yellow Pages users
•  Visiting restaurants in the afternoon seems to be a better idea
• Working in a team with Camille gives me more confidence and she helps me when I forget to mention key points of the services we offer
• I am starting to understand why restaurants have got such a bad online presence. It is not because no one is focusing on this niche. It is just owners being stubborn, not understanding how important it is to be online! It is not unusual to find tweets like this one I found this morning: “Never again order in Chinese food from a restaurant that only has 3 stars on google place. I’m going to be sick”.

At least if no restaurant owners take action to enhance their online presence then there won’t be threatening competition between them! However, with so much opportunity to dominate, wouldn’t you want to be the one on the front line!

To conclude, I do wish to hear back from one of you restaurant owners. There is so much we can do at Proattiva Internet Consulting, you are missing out on! Call me!