In times past, while walking past your neighbors porch, it wouldn’t be uncommon to hear discussion about needs, wants, desires, hopes, dreams…

Needish wants to bring those conversations back. It wants to answer the question “can some one help me?” with the answer: “Yes!”

Needish: A new way to connect with potential clients

An interview with Emily Williams, Needish Community Manager

Who and/or what exactly is Needish?

At Needish, we describe ourselves as “a new kind of marketplace for services, help and ideas integrated as a social network with a purpose: solving local needs.” Our development and test market are located in Santiago, Chile, where we’ve spent several months improving the site before turning our attention toward the US market. We’re just beginning to capture US users, and we believe it can benefit people in the mortgage industry, especially in the current climate of frustration and distrust.

Daniel Martin: So what is Needish anyway? I see that it says “share your needs, help your friends, offer your services,” but how does it work?

Emily Williams: The basic idea behind Needish was that consumers are going to spend their money; they shouldn’t also have to spend their time in order to compare the best offers for the products and services they need. So Needish started as a site where you could post what you needed, have that sent to vendors and companies and receive and compare offers. That still exists, but thanks to customer feedback we’ve made the site a lot more social: you can post Needs that aren’t necessarily commercial and/or professional, add your friends in order to share private Needs only with them and – perhaps most importantly – help other peoples’ Needs. It’s not only companies sending professional offers anymore, it’s community members sharing tips, saying hi and sometimes just showing their support.

DM: Ok, so next time I need something I can post it on Needish. In the meantime, what about all these people who read my blog? How can they use this proactively to help their reputations?

EW: Help out! Each Need has a Help Chat underneath it, like comments on a blog. Obviously if someone posts a Need saying they’re looking for a mortgage, that’s the perfect opening– don’t just send a link to your website, introduce yourself by saying who you are, what your experience is and why this person should choose you. If you sell yourself well, you’ll probably win a client. This is also a great way to build your reputation by helping on Needs that aren’t related to your professional field. People post Needs for all sorts of things, so you should be able to find something you can help with. Helping is just a nice thing to do, and if the next time someone’s looking for a mortgage they remember you and have a better opinion of you because you helped them previously, then that’s clearly a plus!

DM: Got it. Last question: how do I know when somebody in the site is looking for my services?

EW: When you sign in, you’re directed to your dashboard, which highlights your friends’ Needs and Needs that match your NeedTracker. In your NeedTracker write keywords that you want to be notified of, so that would include words like mortgage, refinancing, real estate, etc. Throw in words about your hobbies or something you know a lot about – for example, I have California and Chile in mine because I’ve lived both places and can give travel tips – so that you always see those opportunities to help out just to be nice. You can also include a geographic location in order to focus only on people in your market. Every time you sign on to Needish you’ll be able to see what Needs are currently matching your NeedTracker, and you can choose to receive a daily e-mail to let you know about any new Needs that have been posted that match.

DM: Well, it sounds great. I know you guys are just starting out in the US, but it seems like this could be a good place for my readers to connect with potential clients in the future.

EW: That’s the idea! I want to personally invite all of your readers to check out www.needish.com, and they can always get in touch with me via e-mail emily@needish.com with any questions or comments. Thanks, Daniel!

NOTE: In a follow-up to my conversation with Emily after signing up I receieved the below email within 24hrs.

New Need: I will fly to Denver, CO, the next week, and I need to know what to do, interesting places o what I can visit there.

This just might have some merit! Early adopters start your engines, reserve your username and, give it a shot! I may just post a need or two to see if you are there…

After you have checked out the site, please, come back and post your thoughts below in the comments!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 8:58 am and is filed under Marketing Strategies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.