I admit I am old-fashioned.
Sometimes, especially when working with people.

While I almost always grant a certain level of trust to people up-front, to really gain lasting trust takes time. There is neither shortcut nor trick, only consistency triggered by hard work, patience and care. Step by step, keep going, adjust direction.

Let me show you how consistency translates also into your business & your consideration for automation of up to 80%.

Intro

The role of information technologies for our businesses has never been more important and has dramatically increased over the last 30 years. Nonetheless, a website is oftentimes treaded like an extended business card. More often than not it is a quickly assembled page, based on some pre-populated templates that are being sold on the market. I know it's lovely to rush through as you want results while someone else seems to do all the hard work for you. However, it bears the risk of executing the irrelevant.

Done with gusto, it helps you build a scalable infrastructure for your business or approach. Besides everything else like market evaluation and validation - proper technology selection that can be scaled up as things evolve settles your www-fundament for a loooong time.

Scope

To really take advantage of your worldwide! visibility from day one, here is a

List of what to ask yourself before you establish any website
(Pssst: We were taught this by Economy Site®, our most precious Business Angel ...) :

1. What do you want to achieve with your website / business ?
   I.e. do you want to run a one-man-woman show, more or less, or do you want to change the world ? Do you want to work in your business or on your business ? Do you want to establish a business small in scope or a scalable business ? (btw. : both can be very satisfying)
   
   
2. What is an ideal domain-name for you ?
   Do you want to work with clients you already have, and see your name in it ? Do you aim to grow and establish a brand ? Do you have a large budget to spend for advertisement that explains your business ?
   A self-explanatory domain-name, outlining your purpose, takes off such worries as it already tells your target audience what your business or approach is about. It allows people to easily recognize what you offer & care about, and they will remember the name pretty effortlessly. Bottomline it saves you much time & money because customers will easily find you again.
   (examples of such self-explanatory business domain names you find at » www.internet-domains.online)
   
   
3. Have you thought about which website system you want to use ?
   A C(ontent) M(anagement) S(ystem) like TYPO3, Contao or WordPress ? Some more sales /management and/or communication software ? A mixture of it ?
   The variety is sheer endless and gets more every day. However, even if something „quick & dirty“ out of the shelf might be tempting, you might want to keep in mind what you want to use it for in the future. I.e. do you want :
   
   • your website in various languages ?
   • to provide a service that is available 24/7 ?
   • a dedicated line to your clients ?
   • or need someone to host the system on behalf of you ?
   
   You can choose among a large diversity or even get yours completely programmed for a relatively low budget.
   
   Few remarks indeed :
   a) the more you rely on a niche system and/or you use a very customized system, the more you may depend on one vendor – who can also run out of business any time.
   b) to take what everyone takes exposes you to the risk to be very attractive for hackers.
   (and believe me – it can be veeeery annoying and time consuming to get rid of them)
   
   
4. Do you want to use any kind of multiplier ?
   Talking about functions like online shops, newsletters, lightboxes and many more ... do you know what you want in order to get what you want?
   Watch out whether or not you can enable systems that you own & host. Watch out for open source solutions and alike. That way you keep your precious customer data in house, don't depend on a providers (changing) policies, and burn much less bridges. Sure - it will take you hours to find out, but it will safe you tons of hours, weeks, months, and frustration …. if you don't have to re-consider everything again at a later stage.
   
   
5. Do you want to take advantage of your numerous contacts ?
   Such as those that you can extract and export from your LinkedIn contacts ? Do you prefer to care about your clients (and what they will see) or do you chose to reach out to as many as you can get, hoping clients will connect to you ? Do you plan to work with a third party (external service provider) for newsletters distribution ? Do you plan to share any client data with them ?
   Either way – let your customers know or them decide whether or not they want to (un)subscribe.
   
   
6. Do you want to hire an assistant (virtual or not) to run that stuff for you ?
   Does she share your values & acts as you would do yourself ? Does she merge your contact lists, and takes care that each contact gets your updates only once (ideally) and pays attention that changes in someone’s life are being considered appropriately ?
   You may want to pay attention to instead of burning the bridges to your contacts, even those who mean well.
   
   
7. Do you target remote working ?
   Do you need a particular set up to ensure smooth conversation ? Do you have to consider different time zones ?
   These and more are options....

Conclusion

1. To worry too much about the technical issues you’ll have to deal with can make you lose track of what is actually going to make you succeed.
2. To worry too little will become a very labor-intensive and costly experience.
3. Building a product without having validated technology fit bears the risk of executing the irrelevant.

Coming soon....

Practical tips and hints

 

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