Standing at the counter staring out the window stood a middle aged man.  He seemed to be off in his own world thinking.  The cogs in his brain were running at full speed even though he seemed content and almost relaxed.

He was standing in the middle of a flower shop.  He owned it and what he was thinking about was a series of things.  He was wondering if he should close up, sell the business and cut his losses.  He was wondering if he should invest even more money towards advertising in his local newspaper.  He didn’t know what to do.

It was about 2pm when a young woman walked in and asked the owner for a dozen roses.  The young woman struck up conversation with the owner and could tell he wasn’t mentally there with her.  With that in mind she asked him what was wrong. 

It opened a flood gate.  He told her everything he was thinking.

It was then that his life changed forever.  At that moment, even though he didn’t know it yet, this young woman became his partner.

She began explaining to him how he could leverage the internet to improve his business.  She told him that he could use video, rss, blogs, podcasts, information products, and much more to generate more leads and more customers for his business. 

Not only that but she even mentioned how there were local city search directories online that he could use to start and they were only a fraction of the cost of newspaper ads.  And they worked just as good. 

She explained to him that the local yellow pages has turned into a poor investment for local companies and the internet was the way to go.

You see, over 60% of online information gathered is related to local searches, she said.  You can leverage online local search directories as a catapult and begin getting business almost right away, she said. 

He really didn’t know what she was talking about, but that was ok.  At this point he was prepared to ask her to come on board and help him.

She did and the business flourished.

Now, whether this story was true or made up, it doesn’t really matter.  The bottom line is local search, right now, is an untapped resource mounting a main stream geyser of success.  More and more people are turning to online searches for finding information in their local community but only a fraction of offline companies are taking advantage of this.

The first businesses to adopt this type of technology will be the first to reap the benefits and gain the upper hand during good times and bad.  If you’re at all interested in keeping your offline business flourishing at a lower cost then you should seriously investigate online local search.