Business Alone

I recently came across some information that should be of interest to all solo Internet business owners.

It was entitled: "Search Engine Marketing: Search Users and Usage"

It was authored by David Hallerman, Senior Analyst at eMarketer. I would encourage you to get the whole report and study it. I hope the link is still live when you read this. Here it is:

http://www.emarketer.com/Products/Products.aspx

I was especially intrigued with the satisfaction survey that was offered as it gives you a feel for how users or consumers view the major search engines as well as the field of Internet marketing and advertising.

You should be able to gain your own "take aways" from what the articles describes.

I recently came across an article that gave some specific proven advice about launching a new web site. The steps explained were simple and straightforward. I don't remember where I saw the article, but I did make a copy and thought I would summarize it here for you.

The title of the article was: "Launching your Web Site the SEO Way" and it was authored by Paul Fleming.

First of all, you web site needs to be SEO friendly - no flash, no frames, judicious use of images and graphics.

One of the most important things you can do for a new site is to begin building the incoming links to your site from outside, trusted sources. This process takes time and will be something you need to pay attention to always.

Try to get links from sites with a page rank above 3. Here is a directory that offers good links, both paid and free. It's a good place to start.

Other candidates are Wikipedia (Page Rank of 9), Yahoo! (Page Rank of 10), Superpages.com (Page Rank of 8) and Dmoz.org (Page Rank of 9). It may take some time (especially with DMOZ), but a link from any of these sites would be wonderful.

Every county will have its own procedure and you may find that this is the place to begin tracking down all the licenses and permits that you need. This is the place I started, but was told to register my business name with the State first . . . so that's what I did.

The County Clerk's office will usually be helpful in getting you pointed in the right direction. They'll be able to send you to the proper window to pay your fees.

The type of business you're creating will have a lot to do with the licenses and permits you'll need from the County government.

Just a few years ago, if you owned a solo business and contracted your time and expertise out on an hourly basis, you probably called yourself a freelancer.

Maybe you were good at writing, or typing, or graphics design, or doing research.

Whatever the skill you possessed, you found you were able to hire your time out to others on an hourly or "per job" basis. It seemed pretty nice at the time.

Hopefully, you enjoyed whatever it was that you did because you were being paid to perform that function only as you were able to produce. Typically, the more hours you spent in someone's service, the more you got paid.

Most of the professional solo businesses that I am aware of have followed a very traditional model in how the business is set up and operated.

Most attorneys, doctors, counselors, and accountants design their practices around the way their predecessors did business before them.

They may decide to locate in a single office or they might opt for a group setting where several others of their practice get together to take advantage of a single building with a common reception area, staff of office assistants, and shared billing system, parking lot, and rest rooms.

Each professional is in business for himself, but his business only thrives as he is able to apply his trade.

He bills at an hourly rate, sees whom he chooses, and sets his own schedule, although his assistants really handle the appointments and flow of work throughout the day.

For many years, solo businessmen worked among the ranks of the self-employed as "organizers" or facilitators of groups of like-minded people.

They held titles such as "consultants," "coaches," "mentors," and "instructors." Sometimes they operated strictly as solo entrepreneurs being the only source of expertise in their company.

Others banded together to form a "team" or group that offered the same type of service but included the perspective and experience of multiple experts that often worked together on one project to provide the service.

These workers would organize their own curriculum, design their own delivery approach, and earn their fee by teaching or coaching their clients either in a one-on-one setting or small group atmosphere.

Digital information is not unlike written information, except that it exists in the form of little data bits that consist of "1s" and "0s."

Every character and many symbols that we use in our language can be represented "digitally" and transferred electronically over wires and cables and even through the air waves.

Those characters are developed or "written" in software programs like MS Word and others but are "saved" as digital files which can then be transferred to other media and output types.

First, think for a moment about a traditional physical business.

Choose any store down the street you like or think about your favorite shop at the neighborhood mall.

Undoubtedly, it will have walls, a roof, carpet, employees, opening and closing times, products on the shelf (or some type of service that can be purchased), a cash register, counters, aisles, lights, bathrooms, advertising in the window, dedicated or shared parking outside, and many other things that all businesses have . . . or do they?

Try to imagine an alternative type of store with a single owner but no employees, no walls, no roof, no carpet, no bathrooms, no cash register, no counters, no aisles, no lights or other physical attributes.

Let's face it, many folks that start their own solo business are first time entrepreneurs. They have no history, background, or training in small business development or operation.

That presents a great challenge - one that can certainly be overcome - but one that must be recognized and met head-on.

You see, operating a business is like most other professions. You don't just declare that you want to be in business for yourself and all of a sudden possess all the skills and knowledge that you need to be successful.

Depending upon the type of solo business you operate, and the needs that your business has to communicate with the "outside" world, you may want to consider setting up a private area on your company site.

I'm not talking about creating a forum, chat room, or discussion board as is commonly done among niche community web sites.

I'm not talking about a private membership site either. In both these models, your web site is open to the public and you attempt to recruit members (paying or otherwise) that have to identify themselves before entering by submitting a user name and password.

I'm always amazed that entrepreneurs are so anxious to spend their money.

I think the traditions and practices of the past have spilled over into the Internet generation of entrepreneurs and clouded the view of some soon-to-be business owners.

They feel that the old business cliché "you have to spend money to make money" still holds true.

I want to challenge that notion and tell you that you can play that game if you want to, but I would strongly advise a different approach.

I want to suggest that you conserve as much cash as you possibly can as you begin your new small business. Look for ways to save money instead of focusing on all the possible things you could spend your money on.

Have you ever noticed how customers like to be given very specific instructions or detailed directions from those they consider to be an expert?

I used to work retail in the sporting goods industry when I was a struggling college student trying to get my education and support my young family.

My great passion and hobby was fly fishing and I took every opportunity I could to help fly fishermen who came into the store to become better at "my sport."

I was an evangelist, a mentor, and an instructor for the sport of fly fishing even though the store was paying me to be a salesman.

Do you remember that line from radio and TV advertising of yesteryear?

You don't hear it so much anymore, but sponsors remain an important part of many companies today, both private for-profit and non-profit.

Have you ever stopped to think that your little solo business may have the opportunity to reach a lot of potential customers by becoming a sponsor?

Here's what I'm suggesting:

One of the authors in the Know More Media network of business blogs, Maria Palma, asked an important question of each of the authors in the network that owned a business.

It went something like this: "What is your definition of service?" She runs the blog at Customers Are Always and was interested in getting a wide cross section of responses from the dozens of business writers in the network.

I thought it would be interesting to contemplate the question and make a contribution from my point of view and considering the experience I have had with service in the solo business sector and environment.

Marketing a small business can be a daunting task for the owner that has no previous marketing experience.

I was in that position many years ago and I remember having a constant struggle to come up with ideas or ways to market my business on a shoestring budget.

Yet, around a holiday it was usually easy to dream up a promotion of one sort or another based on that holiday's theme.

It's pretty easy and natural to promote a New Year's Kickoff, a 4th of July Firecracker Deal, or a Halloween Spooky Special.

How many ways are there for a small business to fail?

Don't try to count them . . . life is too short as it is . . .

I want to talk a bit about one of the dangers of solo Internet business.

I have always preached the message of niche specialization for the solo business owner. I say you should dig down deep and become an expert in a very tightly focused market.

I've often asked myself this question. It seems that when I was younger no one talked about individuals owing and operating a business without employees to help share in the work.

Here's what I've come to conclude: solo business is possible today because of the tools and resources we all have at our disposal to leverage the workings of the business.

Said another way: The business owner of today can leverage his personal time and effort in running the business (through automation of tasks) such that, by himself, he can accomplish the cumulative tasks of all the other business employees of yesterday.

I have often been asked about the effectiveness of "buying" customer service in a small solo business. Solo owners want to know if putting forth the extra effort to become stellar at giving outstanding customer service will really increase their business bottom line proportionate to the cost of taking the time to rise above mediocre or "standard" and expected service.

There is no doubt that excelling at customer service carries a cost and every business owner must absolutely be keenly aware of all the costs associated with her business. But my feeling has always been that an owner can't afford to decide whether she will choose excellent customer service or not . . . that decision was already made when the owner decided to go into business!

You see, customer service is a mindset, a style of doing business, a method of operating that shouldn't be thought of as an added component to a business that can be turned on or off at the owner's whim.

I found a great online resource that I'd like to share with you. It's an online service that "grades" your web site.

It can be used as a tool that will help you to see and understand what deficiencies your site may have. Of course, the idea is to then work on fixing those details.

The site allows you to type in your URL (like "www.mydomain.com"), press a button, and a few seconds later your grade pops up. The grade is a number between 1 and 100.

Just like a test in school, the higher your grade, the more your web site conforms to all the things that make a web site good. To see all the variables that are tested, you will need to go to the web site itself.

I just graded my web site at Business Alone and was given an "89." I'm doing OK, I suppose, but there is certainly room for improvement.

When it comes right down to brass tacks, I would say every Internet business owner should consider herself or himself an information publisher.

It seems to me that all business web site owners need to be publishers of:
a) website information;
b) sales letter copy;
c) site content in the chosen niche;
d) products in digital or hard copy form;
e) blog content;
f) email communications;
g) customer service responses;
h) advertising / marketing copy;
i) articles and press releases;
j) probably other things I'm forgetting about ...

My point is, whether you consider yourself to be an info marketer or not, you really need to pay close attention to your publishing (i.e. putting it out on the net or in emails) and how it can affect your overall business.

Web sites should be designed to facilitate and encourage efficient and effective human-computer interactions.

Designers should make every attempt to reduce the user’s workload by taking advantage of the computer’s capabilities. Your web site prospects will make the best use of you site when information is displayed in a directly usable format and content organization is highly intuitive.

Prospects also benefit from task sequences that are consistent with how they typically do their work, that do not require them to remember information for more than a few seconds, that have terminology that is readily understandable, and that do not overload them with information.

Your site visitors should not be required to wait for more than a few seconds for a page to load, and while waiting, they should be supplied with appropriate feedback. Prospects should be easily able to print information.

In addition, designers should never ‘push’ unsolicited windows or graphics to users.