The Story of Goblinfish
The humble yet proud beginnings
Goblinfish started as an information technology consulting company. Its primary function was setting up servers, networking multiple offices together as well as desktop support. We focused on hardware and software solutions for small businesses. We set up fax servers and scanning stations and pretty much whatever our customers could come up with. Essentially, I was known to my clients as the “computer guy”, “tech guy”, and “if-it-plugs-into-a-wall guy.” It continued that way for a while and life was pretty good.
Computer guy plus…
But then my clients started asking for things that were not in my normal bag of tricks. “Hey Lantz, can you make me a website?” “Hey Lantz, can you make me a logo?” “Hey Lantz, I want to send a mailing to all of my 6000 clients” “Hey Lantz, I created this new product, can you make packaging for it?” At first, I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant to jump into the deep end of the pool with all these new challenges, but, after the initial frantic splashing, I found that my clients liked my work, and more importantly, I really liked solving their problems. I felt that I was good at it and felt my talent was developing. So then I became known as the “computer guy who did a lot of other stuff.” This also continued and life was still good.
The question that changed it all.
A client of mine, with whom I was working on a new business, asked a simple question; how do I advertise my website? Wow. Such a simple question with a complex answer. Well, the obvious and time tested answers that we both knew were no longer relevant. Originally, the first dollars put aside for advertising went straight to the telephone directories, the ones with the yellowish pages. This was the default answer for the last 40 years, yet I cannot remember the last time I used them to find a company or service. Local radio, a more inexpensive alternative to local television, had continued down the path of rebroadcasting syndicated shows and removing local DJ’s, therefore negating the need to keep local people glued to the radio for traffic and news and such. Television seemed out of the budget for him.
What to do?
He was looking for a web solution, a pure electronic campaign. He had a meeting with an advertising company that dealt mainly with traditional media, (TV, Radio, Yellow Pages, Billboards, etc) which went, put politely, badly. So what to do? Call in an SEO (search engine optimization) specialist? Call an online advertising consultant? Call a social networking expert? We did. What we found was surprising. Although there is no central one stop shopping for any of these services, each of the many vendors felt that their solution, independent of each other, was the single most important thing that we could do. Could they be all right? Yes and no. After further digging, we got to the bottom of it. The reality is that all things needed to be done, in equal doses. After putting all that research into practice Goblinfish evolved to become the all encompassing web presence and technology company it is today.
