Has your business taken the road most travelled?

If it has, the chances of it being successful are minimal. Why?

Because most Internet ‘experts’ hand out the wrong advice. They believe it’s the right advice but all the evidence (if you look a little deeper) shows it’s not…..

Most businesses that look to start a web site will consult an ‘expert’. In fact if you have a small business you can’t avoid them. You will be receiving several calls a week from web site ‘designers’ wanting to sell you a web site

But small businesses have every right to feel uncomfortable about getting involved.

In my experience small business owners battle with 2 main issues. i)They do not understand enough about the technology to make an informed decision and ii) They talk with their peers who have not experienced much success from their site

So what happens to the business owner that despite this ‘streetwise’ evidence bites the bullet and decides to go for a site? He is taken down the same business model that has failed everyone else!

So what is that model?

It’s where web designers convince the business owner that their clients will be impressed with a technologically and visually impressive web site that also takes orders from the net

The fact is it’s the web designers that are deciding the content of the site because the business owner feels impeded by their own lack of knowledge. Web designers compete with themselves by who has the best looking and technologically advanced sites

Web designers will not tell site owners that words sell. Or that sometimes they do not need to take orders from their sites but develop a lead or an incoming phone call or visit as this is the most appropriate method for their business.

That’s why shopping carts don’t help most businesses. They make them look ‘cold’ and the same and therefore increase the competition

What’s made the business successful so far? Selfless customer service? The owners personality? Isn’t this what needs to be ‘sold’?

But then again a web designer would be laughed at by their contemporaries if all they did was put up a two page web site with a bio of the owner, testimonials, professional sales copy that encourages opening dialogue by whatever method. Yet in the vast majority of instances this approach would be of
much more use to the client

Of course emerging technologies should be included if they help sales. But if all they do is make the site and developer look good at the expense of sales it’s a pretty sorry state to be in. But that’s the reality. There has to be a balance and at the moment it all swings one way

It has lead to the crazy situation where all this hype exists about the benefits of the internet with little evidence of general success……and the small business owner threatening to do something physical to the*next*sales call he gets from a web designer:-)

A spiral of self defeating actions and reactions that show no signs of abating. This will not change until a new general model of operating appears. But its hard to be seen to go backwards in the face of technology racing forward even if it would mean becoming more successful

Crazy but true.
Regards
Andy


Sell Web Sites Like Wildfire...