I just watched Howie Schwartz talked about “the death of Yellow Pages” in a new video and it made me laugh at myself. Years ago, I’d search for a laundry service near where I lived using the Yellow Pages. I’m sure all Yellow Pages go by the same alphabetical listing order, starting with the industry categories, then the business names.

The challenge is I was just looking for a service right at my doorstep (that is, location first). As I recall this little experience, I realize I had subconsciously imposed certain hidden criteria in my search:

1) I don’t care so much about the business name as long as it can clean my shirt.

2) After all, laundry is an ORDINARY service. How sophisticated can it be?

3) I had to make a 2nd trip to collect my shirt, so the service had better be near.

4) Traditional moms-&-pops businesses are most likely found in Yellow Pages (or at least in Singapore, these are simple folks who are not English-educated, and eke out a day-to-day living running small business shops).

I had to run my index finger along the text, page after page of that thick tome, to make sure I didn’t overlook any addresses, but that took time. If you ask me now, maybe 2 generations from today, all laundry shop owners will be enterprising young people with a global outlook constantly finding ways to stamp their presences beyond the local areas, like run a global franchise of washing machines.

So what made me laugh at myself? I go to Google Maps, search ‘laundry service “serangoon north” singapore’ and out comes Yong Lee Laundry Services, exactly the business name just 2 streets away from my residence! Even if Yellow Pages is encapsulated in a CD, I wouldn’t need it ever.

By the way, you can put your business on Google Maps here. What Howie Schwartz is really talking about is this deep black hole of an untapped market in getting offline businesses online, and you can position yourself as an Internet Marketing expert to provide a professional service to the offline folks in this area. Discover how you can make an easy $10,000/mth or more by fashioning yourself as an IM consultant with IM Leadership.