I have been running a web hosting company since 2003 and have spent my entire career in the hosting industry. One common theme I see regularly from small business owners is misconceptions and wrong expectations about building a website:
- A great web site can improve my business by:
- Increasing sales
- Creating efficiencies
- Reducing operational cost
- Building a website is:
- Easy and anyone can do it
- Almost free
- Should be done because everyone else has one
Case in point; I had a customer who wanted a web store front with all the bells and whistles including merchant services for payment processing, real-time inventory tracking, etc. This was a large project for the small business which happened to be a single unit liquor store in a small town. After the project was complete the owner became increasingly disappointed because she had gone to all this trouble and the only visitors to the site were friends and family who bought nothing. Her regular patrons still went to the brick-n-mortar because they wanted instant satisfaction which is often the case with liquor sales.
After about three months the owner began to complain to me because her investment was not living up to her expectation. Keep in mind that I only hosted her site and the web developers who built the site had long since moved on. She began to demand refunds on her hosting fees because no one was buying from her online store. I explained that I was just hosting the site and was not responsible generating traffic and sales, her content, etc. I provided the analogy that I am the online version of the leasing company that provides her brick-n-mortar and that the digital world of business is no different than the analog business world. Both require analysis, planning, execution, and validation. She eventually took her website down.
Putting up a website does not equal success. A website is a tool and when used correctly can do wonders for your bottom line. When used incorrectly does nothing or worse hurts your brand and market appeal and costs you serious money. Look for my coming post on a surefire plan that will get any small business owner on the web without costly mistakes and inappropriate expectations.
Comments and questions are welcomed.
Tim Symchych
3 comments:
I came across this article which is very much along the same lines:
http://tinyurl.com/6c35zs
Cheers,
Tim
Ron at Buzzoodle is dead on:
http://tinyurl.com/53qayv
I recommend subscribing to Ron's blog. It's full of relevant information for small business owners.
Tim Symchych
Thanks for visiting and mentioning me Tim. I have been in hosting before as well, and it is great at times but the idea that everything should be super cheap is a problem.
I guess if you would have just bought 10 cases of whiskey each month via her website, you would have continued to collect your $20 a month. :)
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