If you do business locally, I’m afraid to say the Yellow pages is not your best option. I really don’t know many people that use the phone books other than as a door stop or seat booster.

The search engines are the new phone books, where people go to get the information they want, when they want and wherever they are.

Local businesses need to wake up and start promoting their businesses online now more than ever and if they think that they just need to wait until things go back to normal, they will never wake up. They will die a slow painful death.

Due to the economy, people are more resistant to buy and they don’t buy from businesses they don’t know about or don’t trust.

It is your job to increase the level of trust, be in places they can easily find you, (like on their phones) and promote your business more than ever.

Today is naive to think one ad in one place will do the trick. You need to do more and on a constant basis and you need to be the marketer in your business like it or not.

We live in an age where the gold rush is to be found and to get attention and this is your main job.

You need to be found on search engines, social environments, phone applications if you want to be in business for the next five years.

You will need just a fraction of whatever you have been spending in advertising and some time.

You can outsource most tasks or you can learn how to use local marketing and mobile marketing in your business.

The only thing you cannot do is wait.