Growing Your Internet Business Incrementally
A retail business owner and I were talking about upgrading his website the other day. He has an old site that probably cost him a couple hundred dollars six or eight years ago, or maybe it was designed by a friend for free. You know what I mean — spinning and flashing graphics, no consistent look and feel (much less a coordinated design), antiquated HTML, etc.
He talked about one bid he recently received for a cutting-edge redesign that included online ordering with integration into his accounting software for $60,000. And that didn't take into consideration website optimization, Internet marketing, order fulfillment, Web maintenance, training or additional employee costs. We talked about how that kind of an Internet solution would require the complete reshaping of his business objectives. It would require a new business plan.
For those who are ready to do that, it may provide a potentially fantastic business opportunity. But for those who have a brick & mortar storefront business, it represents a potential catastrophe. Why? Because having an online ordering website does not guarantee success, and the up front costs of playing that game are significant.
Incremental Growth
This conversation was important to me because this business owner could not see an incremental upgrade path for his website. He thought that unless he spent the sixty grand it was futile to do anything else. I understand his dilemma. At the same time I think that the sales people who set that dilemma before him did him — and thousands of other business owners — a disservice.
Ram Charan in his book, Profitable Growth is Everyone's Business (Crown Business, NY, 2004), provides a simple yet often overlooked business strategy for growth — incremental growth. He notes that while grand slams are the most exciting elements of baseball, it is not home runs but singles and doubles that win baseball games. It is consistency and improvement in the little things that add up to success. A $60,000 website is exciting and it can generate a lot of fanfare. But it takes a whole lot more than a home run to win a game.
Shopping Carts
How does this apply to my business owner friend? Consider shopping carts. Most people think that having a shopping cart requires the ability to order online, which in turn requires a secure server, online credit card processing abilities, and integration into existing (or new) software. That's the $60,000 solution. But it's not the only solution.
Another solution is to utilize a simple web form to send customer product selection information to an actual person. It is curious that the Internet has made personal communication between people so accessible and easy, and yet most Internet communication is impersonal. By that I mean that there is no actual human contact. We do not see or hear the person we are communicating with. Such communication is very impersonal. I say what I say, and you say what you say (in an email exchange), but we don't see any body language or hear any vocal inflection. And communication experts tell us that a significant percent of successful communication relies on these non-verbal elements. Sales people be listening (or reading) intently at this point.
When I buy something on the Internet, I don't speak to or listen to another human being. I usually just read something. This is why there is such concern about sales copy among those who are trying to sell on the Internet. But the sales process involves more than reading a brochure or description of an item or service. My point is that we have allowed Internet communication to become impersonal, when the technology itself allows for more personal communication. Incremental growth will take advantage of Internet technology for personal communication. (This may well provide the missing link that could make for better customer service.)
It doesn't take a lot of money to produce a web form that will allow a customer to identify an item that he or she is interested in and send it to an employee who will follow up with a phone call. Such a form may be associated with a fairly sophisticated catalog like those found in the promotional products industry (i.e., www.business-specialties.com), or a simple PayPal™ button (i.e., www.pilgrim-platform.org).
The phone call then becomes the primary sales tool (rather than Web copy, though Web copy is still very important). The company doesn't need a secure server or the ability to process credit cards on the Internet because that information can be handled over the phone or through a PayPal™ like service. Internet security is improved at no additional cost, and the customer has established an actual personal relationship with a member of your sales team. It's a win/win scenario that can produce incremental sales growth. And, in a world that increasingly lacks human contact, it provides a warm customer-centered low cost solution to grow sales incrementally.
©2005 Phillip A. Ross
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