I won't lie. When I first moved to Roseburg, OR from Los Angeles, CA I definitely felt like an outsider, even though my family had been coming up to Oregon for vacations since I was about 11. 
 

I moved here for the same reasons a lot of people probably move to a more rural location from a large city – to live a better life. One the key factors that enabled me to move was the fact I was a business owner with a "portable" company. I did not need to be in any specific location in order for my design firm to function. 
 

It took me a few months to decipher the dynamics going on in this town of some 20,000 residents. One of the first things I began noticing were other local businesses and how they operated.  
 

As I was also a first-time homeowner I had quickly compiled a to-do list that eclipsed my "fix it" capabilities and needed to call in some professionals. First I went to the web and was not having very much luck locating local businesses that actually had a website to learn more about them, see some of their work, etc. There were a few listings here and there from online directories. So I broke down and dusted off that old tome, the phone book. I called 6 numbers, 3 of which just rang and rang (not even a voicemail). The first I made contact with answered the phone by simply stating, "Hello?" I asked if I had reached the business I was calling and the woman said, "Oh hold on …" then yelled out to someone else there. A pause happened, then a man said, "Hello?" I didn't have a great feeling simply because of the way the phone was answered but I stated what my need was and if someone could come out and give me an estimate. An appointment was made and I finished the other calls in a similar manner (with one actually stating the business name when answering the phone). 
 

Long story short, on appointment day the first company not only didn't show up, but never called to explain why or reschedule. The second company showed up 30 minutes late and gave me a hand written estimate ripped right out of his beat up notepad. The third company showed up on time, promised an estimate the next morning (which did in fact show up in my email box the next morning on a nice PDF) and was several hundred dollars more than the second company – but can you guess which one I went with? 
 

I discovered this one example was not an isolated incident, but a reoccurring scenario with many companies (or sole proprietors) I called involved with the service industry. In too many cases even the most basic elements of professionalism were seriously lacking. I was not used to this. In a large metropolitan area, businesses that do not operate on a professional level do not stay in business. Heavy competition in an industry can make a business owner clue in more on the fact that the more professional they are, the more chance they have of staying in business (and gaining new clients). Things such as answering the phone with nothing more than, "Hello", making an appointment and not keeping it (and not even bothering to call and inform your potential customer), and hand writing out estimates on torn out notepaper are just not done – that is, they're not done by successful businesses. 
 

Attention to basic professionalism can only help local businesses and the clients they serve. If some have been able to stay in business doing what they have done for many years, they're going to need to change in order to stay up with their more professional competitors.

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