13. In Conclusion
a. YOU AINT GOT TO DO IT! My grandmother never got a driver’s license. She never needed one. She lived one block from her church and two blocks from her ladies dress store and Papa brought the groceries home from his meat market. She walked most everywhere and she had lots of friends and family with cars and lived quite happily until she passed away in 1990. What you don’t have you don’t miss.
b. But if you do, define the purpose of your WebBusiness precisely. Reread 1abc above. Then define the purpose of your Facebook Fan page as precisely. You may choose from the following options.
i. To identify people inside your established markets with whom you might be interested in business.
ii. To provide an opportunity for your existing customers to better learn what you’re doing especially regarding new products or services, promotions and customer service.
iii. To take advantage of instant advertising of specials, discounts, and other promotions.
iv. Provided that the logistics of your traditional business will support this, to open up new markets with different geographics or demographics from your current markets.
None of this will work the way you would like if your traditional business is not running smoothly and does not have the existing capacity to grow 10-25% . It simply does not make sense to push the “grow my business” button, if the guy that was working on the loading dock quit last month and you have not replaced him because business is slow right now. Now I am not saying, hire a new man for the loading dock, before you start the Facebook/WebBusiness. What I am saying is go halfway, find someone you like and be prepared to move quickly, if needed.
c. There is one more rule in WebBusiness, Rule #6 Be Quick. The one thing that will make you stand out on the web is not on the Web. How quick you respond to inquiries, and to orders, to issues and problems makes all the difference.
d. Upfront on a conceptual level, and long-term as an investment strategy, think web-platform, instead of website. A web-platform is an integrated online workplace that includes your traditional business, email, your website, Facebook, search engines and your software vendors and service providers. The key word is integrated, not separate entities.
e. Marketing, on the one hand, is all art. On the other hand, marketing is all science or math, whichever you prefer. Both are required and essential for success. Old School Marketing Science has not changed one bit because of the Web. On the other hand, marketing art is constantly changing. That’s the nature of artists; to do the next creative thing. Do your math, first, and keep doing your marketing math. It is the only way to avoid being overrun and overwhelmed by the marketing web-artists.
f. There is probably no good reason whatsoever to set up a Web 2.0 business if you have not already been successful with a Web 1.0 business. If you do not know the difference, Google Web 2.0 and do some more reading. There are two reasons for this.
i. First, most all of the web designers, programmers, consultants, etc. are terribly bored with the mundaneness of Web 1.0 and really don’t want to do that kind of work anymore unless they have to, but they probably are not going to tell you.
ii. Second, all this is somewhat like learning to play basketball, which I coached for ten years. I can tell you everything you need to know about shooting a free throw in 10 minutes. In another 10 minutes, you will have made your first one or two. But if you want to play professional basketball, you have to shoot 500 a day, most of them by yourself, for several years.
To be successful in your WebBusiness, you and all of your employees and vendors have to practice being a web-team. Not just any team, but your championship team wearing your colors. You all have to practice every business day, thinking like web-pros, talking like web-pros, and walking like a web-pros, while each one practices doing their specific web-job. This will be a whole lot easier at the Web 1.0 level, since you still have a traditional business to run. Once success has been achieved at the Web 1.0 level, it may become desirable to upgrade to the Web 2.0 level.
Recommendation #5: Understand the game. You can’t win the game if you don’t understand the game.
Good Luck!
Bill Warren
a. YOU AINT GOT TO DO IT! My grandmother never got a driver’s license. She never needed one. She lived one block from her church and two blocks from her ladies dress store and Papa brought the groceries home from his meat market. She walked most everywhere and she had lots of friends and family with cars and lived quite happily until she passed away in 1990. What you don’t have you don’t miss.
b. But if you do, define the purpose of your WebBusiness precisely. Reread 1abc above. Then define the purpose of your Facebook Fan page as precisely. You may choose from the following options.
i. To identify people inside your established markets with whom you might be interested in business.
ii. To provide an opportunity for your existing customers to better learn what you’re doing especially regarding new products or services, promotions and customer service.
iii. To take advantage of instant advertising of specials, discounts, and other promotions.
iv. Provided that the logistics of your traditional business will support this, to open up new markets with different geographics or demographics from your current markets.
None of this will work the way you would like if your traditional business is not running smoothly and does not have the existing capacity to grow 10-25% . It simply does not make sense to push the “grow my business” button, if the guy that was working on the loading dock quit last month and you have not replaced him because business is slow right now. Now I am not saying, hire a new man for the loading dock, before you start the Facebook/WebBusiness. What I am saying is go halfway, find someone you like and be prepared to move quickly, if needed.
c. There is one more rule in WebBusiness, Rule #6 Be Quick. The one thing that will make you stand out on the web is not on the Web. How quick you respond to inquiries, and to orders, to issues and problems makes all the difference.
d. Upfront on a conceptual level, and long-term as an investment strategy, think web-platform, instead of website. A web-platform is an integrated online workplace that includes your traditional business, email, your website, Facebook, search engines and your software vendors and service providers. The key word is integrated, not separate entities.
e. Marketing, on the one hand, is all art. On the other hand, marketing is all science or math, whichever you prefer. Both are required and essential for success. Old School Marketing Science has not changed one bit because of the Web. On the other hand, marketing art is constantly changing. That’s the nature of artists; to do the next creative thing. Do your math, first, and keep doing your marketing math. It is the only way to avoid being overrun and overwhelmed by the marketing web-artists.
f. There is probably no good reason whatsoever to set up a Web 2.0 business if you have not already been successful with a Web 1.0 business. If you do not know the difference, Google Web 2.0 and do some more reading. There are two reasons for this.
i. First, most all of the web designers, programmers, consultants, etc. are terribly bored with the mundaneness of Web 1.0 and really don’t want to do that kind of work anymore unless they have to, but they probably are not going to tell you.
ii. Second, all this is somewhat like learning to play basketball, which I coached for ten years. I can tell you everything you need to know about shooting a free throw in 10 minutes. In another 10 minutes, you will have made your first one or two. But if you want to play professional basketball, you have to shoot 500 a day, most of them by yourself, for several years.
To be successful in your WebBusiness, you and all of your employees and vendors have to practice being a web-team. Not just any team, but your championship team wearing your colors. You all have to practice every business day, thinking like web-pros, talking like web-pros, and walking like a web-pros, while each one practices doing their specific web-job. This will be a whole lot easier at the Web 1.0 level, since you still have a traditional business to run. Once success has been achieved at the Web 1.0 level, it may become desirable to upgrade to the Web 2.0 level.
Recommendation #5: Understand the game. You can’t win the game if you don’t understand the game.
Good Luck!
Bill Warren
Upcoming:
The Culture Clash between Business and Facebook
The Culture Clash between Business and Facebook
