Web businesses mature quickly

How do you get your Internet business on the web and selling before anyone else has the chance to?

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Web businesses mature quickly, you need Salespeople to stay ahead of the curve.

© David Peterson - 2006

Internet businesses mature very fast. Within a few months a hot product that was flying off your shelves can simply stop selling. You see the business slowing which leaves you with the uneasy feeling, wondering – what has happened to my sales? Is this a temporary slowdown, or a real downturn in your business?

As an example: Let’s look at the business of selling Pop-Under and/or Pop-Up Advertising. These annoying ads drove just about every web surfer crazy in 2003. Some sites you visited even had multiple ads popping up or down leaving web surfers down right mad. Something had to be done! In fact it was done. Nowadays this business of selling online pop-up or pop-under advertising is dying rapidly. 

What happened? The annoying ads spawned another business selling Pop-Up Ad Killer Software. This pop-up ad killing software became an instant hit. Many people made a lot of money quickly selling this ad killing product. But again, nowadays this business is dying due to the availability of free ad killing software in both Netscape and Microsoft IE6 Web Browsers. 

The above two businesses are experiencing very quick and painful deaths. They are not completely dead but close. Will there be companies selling pop-up/pop-under advertising traffic next year? Absolutely, but those businesses that do survive will have a solid sales staff selling to larger clients. You have to have selling skills to keep a maturing business afloat.

The moral of the story…If you are not actively selling, and I mean physically and mentally working day in/day out on your Pop-up and Pop-Under advertising business, or your Pop-Up Ad Killing business, or any web business then your company is probably going to die quickly. If you think you can keep a web business going without solid sales help working every prospect as hard as they can you are seriously mistaken. Web businesses mature too quickly. They don’t give you time to sit back and just count your money.

Essentially without someone constantly touching the prospects your business will die. There are simple too many players on the field to compete without some type of advantage. Look at it this way. You probably don’t have the lowest price. You may be competitive but certainly not the lowest. You don’t have a well known name. Using our small business as an example you would probably think about Sony or Dell before you thought about JDPDigital.com for your USB purchases. For us it gets worse; you can now buy our products at any major retail establishment in the country. You need an advantage.

Salesmen give your business a real advantage. For our business this advantage is you can get to know us and you will learn to trust us. You will trust us to give you a quality product at a competitive but fair price. Relationships and trust build sales over the long haul. Not price. In a competitive market you have to do better than the other guy or the other website selling at ½ of your price. You have to answer the phone and return all of the emails. You have to take back any product that may or may not be defective. You have to treat every customer like they are the last customer on earth. I think these principles hold true if you are an MLM, Reseller, Affiliate, Manufacturer, or a Distributor. The bottom line is you have to get involved with your website and sell the prospects that visit. 

One final point about selling over the web, a good salesperson hears what a customer wants. They can hear your need for a shift in the business model. Salespeople are the ones telling you, “…you need this,” or “…every other customer is asking for that.” Salesmen do more than close orders and write proposals. They are on the front lines of your business. Salespeople are the pulse of your living and growing business. If you have no pulse your business will die.

Good luck in your Internet business!

Sincerely,

David Peterson

Author of: 

Been There - Done That

David Peterson's Search Engine Optimization Guide

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