AN OPEN MESSAGE TO PERTHS SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS. My dear small business colleagues, now that we find ourselves well into the first month of the New Year, its time to get serious about facing the business challenges 2015 will present. And believe me, it WILL be a challenging year! I say this because the long anticipated digital tipping point has taken place and now the vast majority of our new customers will come exclusively from online sources! Further, its also important to accept that the majority of our existing customers will only remember us if we reach out to them through channels they actually monitor; and theyre all online too. Now, the fact is that well over half of the small businesses in Perth are either minimally prepared, or totally unprepared, to access and profit from the online economy. You may recall the article I wrote late last year about this disturbing fact when it was revealed by the Deloitte Access Economics Connected Small Businesses study. And it is a fact that I can confirm with complete authority, because I have just completed two years providing small business people all over Perth with coaching and mentoring as part of a federally funded business development program. My predominate observation from this experience is that of the 200+ small business people I helped during this time, virtually all came to me with no idea at all about even the most basic requirements of doing business online, let alone the more complex, but equally essential, knowledge and skills involved. Happily however, these people are now doing business digitally to great effect, having committed themselves to applying what I taught them each and every day. However, the number of business people who availed themselves of these coaching and mentoring opportunities represented only a tiny fraction of all the small business people that operate in Perth. This means that the majority of the remainder are attempting to establish and build successful and profitable small businesses with little or no knowledge of how this is done in the digital world, with very poor results being the usual consequence. Its little wonder that the failure rate of small business in Australia ranges from 58% to 80% dependent on industry (ABS). So if you dont want your business to be part of this depressing statistic, then you absolutely MUST embrace doing business online and doing it properly. At a minimum, the questions you need to ask yourself are: 1. How do I market my business to potential customers through the online channels that they frequent daily? 2. How do I drive potential customers from these online channels to my website? 3. How do I get my website visitors to take the desired action that leads to a sale and puts money in my bank account? The problem is that there is so much information being aimed at small business people that purports to answer these questions, that they feel overwhelmed, and have no idea where to start. And unfortunately, a great deal of what is put forward as being correct is in fact utter rubbish. Its just noise. Then add to that the fact that the whole web development / social media consulting / digital marketing industry is unregulated, which means anyone can set up shop as a web developer, or digital marketer, or a social media consultant, just makes a bad situation worse. I mean, who do you trust? Who’s actually qualified and trained to help you with your digital business needs and who is just saying they are because they cant get a job? There are so many dodgy operators out there who do nothing else but prey upon uninformed and overly trusting small business people. The endless horror stories related to me by my clients and mentees in 2014 were shocking. Its very, very scary! So why am I telling you all this. Simple, because I want you to know that I am the person you can talk to about doing business online and trust to give you the right answers and the right help. I AM qualified; I AM experienced and I DO specialise in designing online business solutions that fit the precise needs of my business clients. And most importantly, everything I set up for my business clients is MEASURED to determine performance and ROI in NUMERIC terms. My policy is simple...if I feel I cant help you increase the profitability of your business using the digital tools, strategies and techniques I specialise in, and at a fair price, then I wont take the job. In other words, I wont profit from you unless I believe you will profit from my work many times more. But don’t take my word for it. Check me out at my WordPress Warrior Facebook page, or my LinkedIn page or just Google wordpress warrior to visit my website. Read my many articles and read my reviews, and then, if you’d like to have a chat about your digital business needs, Im just a phone call away. A 10 minute chat will cost you nothing, but may set you on the path to the business profitability you deserve. Warm regards Vincent Brown 0407-144-271 Business Planning, Digital Marketing, Website Design
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 07:07:02 +0000