Nowhere has the Internet made a more dramatic change in the existing power structure than in the business world.
It used to be that companies wielding the most power and influence were those that operated from a position of strong cash reserves and seemingly unlimited access to professional service muscle like Wall Street financial advisers, Big Five accounting expertise, and legions of powerful corporate attorneys.
The "Big Boys" could buy their way into business advertising that dwarfed their competitors.
They could swing the best deals from manufacturers and wholesalers giving them an obvious and pronounced selling advantage with fat margins.
They were always first in line when new products were about to hit the street or when popular merchandise was available only in limited quantities.
These same advantages are still the spoils of mammoth corporations, but the Internet has now empowered the "little guy" businesses with a set of their own operational advantages that can only be the envy of giant companies that stare in awe and amazement.
We have often discussed the fact that big business is slow, often bureaucratic, burdened with operating inefficiencies, plagued with counterproductive owner and investor demands, and subject to meeting changing mass-market demands.
"Little guy" businesses don't have to fight these same battles.
But there is another set of reasons why the Internet has dramatically altered the business landscape for small time operators: it gives exponential leverage capabilities to a single business owner.
I believe we are just beginning to see a great shift in the way businesses operate going forward. In the past, big corporations got their power from orchestrating the efforts of thousands of employees generally moving in a single direction.
This juggernaut steamrolled everything in its path. It appealed to the masses, catered to everyone, but acknowledged no one.
Enter the Internet and the tools, access, and power it puts into the hands of savvy business operators - those that recognize the uses and potentials of this gift for conducting "little guy" business.
I don't believe that large corporations will meet their demise anytime soon. The Internet gives them certain efficiencies and capabilities they never had before.
It opens new doors and access to global mass markets that never would have been imagined fifteen years ago.
But today, a single businessperson can leverage his brainpower, his time, his capital, his influence, and his physical effort in running a business to the max!
He can do a little bit of work and be paid over and over and over again for that effort. He can invest a small amount of time and turn it in to many hours of benefit in the operation of his business.
A single operator can put his product or service in front of millions and millions of prospects all over the globe with little more than the push of a button!
This shift in business power to the people will dramatically change the lives of those that see its potential and learn to harness its magic.
