article: small business pitfalls

This article is about small business pitfalls in the context of the Internet. It is not theoretical. These are real issues.

I've chosen to state each issue as a failure to do something. As always, with each failure comes a source of opportunity.

In summary, here they are:

1  Failure to work the way your customers want to work.
2  Failure to keep up with your competitors.
3  Failure to manage costs with new techniques.
4  Failure to exploit available technology.
5  Failure to leverage marketing communications.
6  Failure to develop the business.
7  Failure to maintain a consistently professional image.
8  Failure to look ahead.
9  Failure to exploit the new local search engines.

1 Failure to work the way your customers want to work

A web site provides a way for potential customers to approach you in easy stages.

Many prospective customers use some form of directory to find potential suppliers. Yellow Pages, Yell.com, and scoot.co.uk are examples. They then create a shortlist by visiting the website of the potential suppliers. This gives them important information which enables them to decide who to approach in the next stage of the buying decision.

This is how today's potential customers like to work: you need to respond to it. If you don't have a web site then you're not even in the deck and your Internet card cannot be played.

Short listing in this way is also non-threatening. The customer can gather information without being under the sales pressure that the telephone often creates.

Are you responding to how your new customers want to work? How many potential customers do you loose because they never approached you? It's an impossible question to answer but the answer is probably not zero. Make it easy for potential customers to approach you in easy stages, in the way they want to work.

2 Failure to keep up with your competitors

Do you know how your local competitors are using the Internet? Take a look in the Yellow Pages,and YELL.com or Scoot.co.uk.

Any surprises?

You will undoubtedly see a few names where you'll say to yourself 'Hmm, didn't think they'd have a web site, I didn't think they were that big'. Many small businesses think that having a website only applies to large companies. There are many one man or one product companies on the Internet.

You will probably see far more companies and competitors with web sites than you expected. If you are looking at the Yellow Pages then the chances are that the site has been there for a while, since the Yellow Pages is only printed annually.

So what are these competitors doing? Simply this: they are reaching potential customers in ways that you are not. In short, they are exploiting a competitive advantage.

Are you starting to appear out of date? Some people expect companies they'll do business with to have a web site. It's an indicator that they are 'in touch'.

A web site can convey credibility to potential and existing customers. It is a necessary credential for your company.

3 Failure to manage costs with new techniques

Is managing cost important to you?

How much do you spend on advertising, direct mail, and other forms of 'reaching out' to potential customers? How much of this cost repeats?

Think of a web site as a brochure that doesn't have reprint costs. Isn't that a creative way to avoid or manage repeating costs?

4 Failure to exploit available technology

The Internet card is in the deck. It will inevitably be played in your part of your industry. Do you want your local or national competitors to get the better hand first?

Most businesses will not be able to avoid getting on the Internet. To many it is already a 'no brainer'.

Every major technology has become pervasive in business: telephone, printing, fax, computers, advertising, etc. Exploit web technology as early as possible, and if you are not already exploiting it then have a conscious and solid reason why not. Determine what the triggers are that will cause you to get your own company web site, and act when they are met.

Do you want to exploit the new word of mouth? The Internet is the new word of mouth. Just as people passed around company names by word of mouth the same now happens with web addresses.

Just because you don't use a computer or don't have one in your business does not mean that your potential customers don't use computers. And don't think that older people don't use computers or the Internet: it's just not true.

If you don't have a computer in your business it doesn't follow that you can't have a web site: you can. You only need a computer yourself if you want to receive e-mail over the Internet.

5 Failure to leverage marketing communications

Your web site is a source of secondary marketing.

By that I mean that it feeds off some other form of marketing such as an advert in a trade magazine. For instance your ad in, say, Cotswold Life should highlight your website address. Then your web site can feature extended marketing messages that would be too costly to include in an ad.

In this way you get more leverage from your primary marketing communications.

Would you like free billboard advertising? When do you look at bill boards? Usually this will be when you're driving, or more often when your stopped at traffic lights or in a queue of traffic. Incorporate your website address into your vehicle livery and you are advertising just like the billboards. It's far easier to remember a website name than a phone number.

6 Failure to develop the business

No market stands still. Businesses must keep in league with their markets if they are to survive. You must move with the times. At least be in step if you can't get ahead.

Your key question is 'Can you handle more business?' Unless you have a conscious strategy to constrain the size of your business to a level that you can handle without expansion then you will always be seeking ways to grow the business and take on new business.

The Internet is one tool to help you do this. E-mail and your company web site help you develop your business. Do you really want to ignore another source of additional sales?

7 Failure to maintain a consistently professional image

You have created an image for your company over the years. You have a letterhead, business card and maybe even a very recognisable logo. You are careful not to let yourself down and try to do everything in the best possible way for your customers and for your business.

Now the Internet comes along. You debate whether or not your company would benefit from having a website. For whatever reason you decide to take the plunge and get on the web.

The issue is how to go about doing it. Generally, small businesses see three options: get it done professionally, do it yourself, or 'phone a friend'.

It is relatively straightforward to create a web site using a software tool that generates a site using a predefined template. You can probably do it. Your friend can probably do it. Generally, such sites look 'home made' and have limited methods of site navigation. The technical side of site building has been automated for you (after a fashion) but the web building software cannot, and never will, automatically build in your company's personality or the hallmarks of your individuality. The non-professional, through lack of awareness, ability or inexperience has to make compromises, whether intentionally or without knowing it, and these necessarily limit the quality of the site that is created. The tool is in charge and not the web designer. The same tools in the hands of an experienced professional can often yield spectacularly different results.

It is not straightforward to create a web site that works across the wide range of hardware and software that your visitors will use: different screen sizes, resolutions, colour depths, operating systems, browsers and browser versions. Add to that the fact that many people use toolbars on the top, bottom, left or right of their screen, and use maximised and resized windows, and you have a lot of factors to cater for if your site is to display properly for all or even the majority of visitors.

The business reality is that most DIY sites have a DIY look rather than a professional look.

Your company web site reflects 'you' to anyone who visits it. For some potential customers this is the only information about you that they have, and on the basis of it they decide whether or not to give you a call.

If you've traveled the DIY route it's time to look back at was has happened and ask yourself a few key questions:

• Does this site reflect my professional image?
• Is this site consistent with the image of my business I want to project and have already invested in?

The answer to these questions is often 'No'. You have failed to manage your business image. You have failed to project a consistently professional image to your customers.

8 Failure to look ahead

This is about the 'times are good, times are bad' syndrome.

Essentially, what you say to your self is that we are not doing well at the moment and can't afford a website, or business is good at the moment so we don't need a website. Both are fallacious.

One issue is that search engines can take well over three months before they visit your site, and longer before it is catalogued in their search databases or directories.

Another issue is that potential customers do not always respond immediately. They will view your site, maybe bookmark it, and approach you later.

So if you wait until times are bad before getting a company website you will have missed the opportunities you need to harvest.

You therefore need to have your site on the Internet well ahead of any unwanted changes in your company's sales pattern.

9 Failure to exploit the new local search engines

Many companies believe that Internet is only useful for companies whose customers are national or international. This is totally untrue. The Internet is also a business opportunity for companies whose customers are in their local area.

There are two major local search engines people use to find the supplier they want: the Yellow Pages and YELL.com.

But the Yellow Pages is a printed document you will say. Yes, but it also contains the web addresses of many of the local companies featured in it.

YELL.com has facilities to easily search within a narrow geographical region. Many people use it and YELL.com invest heavily in publicising this search engine.

So if you want to increase business from your local potential customers you need to be on the Internet and exploit these two major local search engines.

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