Guest post by Craig Jarrow, author of the Time Management Ninja.

In today’s world, it’s not good enough to tell people about your talents; you need to show them. The question now is how big is your social proof?

Recently, I was solicited for some web design services. An individual overheard me discussing my time management blog and approached me to say that he and friend had a website design company and they would love to provide services for my site.

I was not really in the need, but because he was local, I decided to take his info for future reference. I asked him for the address of their company website. “Um… we haven’t gotten our site up yet.” OK. Well, do you have some examples of your work online? “We are working on that.” As you can guess, the conversation went downhill from there. Needless to say, I left without his contact info. Why would I want to do business with you, if you don’t have any social proof? (more…)