Suzanne Stephens writes:
> Gang, I've been invited to give a presentation to the Ashland Chamber of
> Commerce and would appreciate any help you can give me with some questions.
> Topic of the ongoing series of presentations is described as:
> Making Money on the Internet
> [...]
> What I'd like to do is give a broad overview of the types of businesses that
> do make money from their Web sites (or experience other tangible benefits).
> Of particular interest would be the types of businesses that are common to a
> small tourist-oriented town like Ashland: motels, restaurants, bed &
> breakfasts, small retail shops, etc. Do any of you have anecdotes you can
> share about online successes experienced by businesses such as these? Or
> info on what these types of businesses should expect to pay for Web sites?
The guys over at Brave New Worlds, in Los Angeles, CA, USA
(www.bravenewworlds.com) specialize in doing e-commerce sites for
retail businesses. They have several good success stories and
occasionally do speaking events and seminars. Their customers include
folks like the founders of HotHotHot (whom they occasionally bring in
as guest speakers; BNW still takes care of HotHotHot, as well as the
new business the founders of HHH are starting, dadgear.com).
As for what the cost of a web site is, I know Bob Schmidt's book
puts a minimum cost at about $5K, but I don't know if that's for a
site that provides e-commerce capabilities. Obviously it varies
according to the customer, their business model, and their web
needs. I like to tell folks it's like building a store in the real
world - you can get anything from a hotdog stand to a department
store, it depends on your needs and your budget.
I think it's important to emphasize the on-going cost of
maintaining a site, both on the web side (not simply hosting fees but
regular, ongoing web maintenance work, either monthly or quarterly)
and the business side (making sure the business info in the site is up
to date, responding to customer contacts, and quickly fulfilling on
customer orders). This is one of the Seven deadly Sins of a website,
particularly a buisness web site.
To put it in a positive light, emphasize that most of these costs
are comparable to the cost involved in fulfilling an order, i.e. you
can't expect to make a profit from selling a product without spending
the money to purchase the product and arrange to have it shipped out.
Also emphasize that for most businesses, even small-to-medium retail
businesses, the ongoing costs of web maintenance are very modest and
quite economical.
Remember that to the average non-computer-savy businessman, the
web is a complete mystery. They don't even know what it's capable of
(amusing anecdote in followup message). Imagine if somebody came up
to you and told you that you need to use this great new thing called
the Saskatchewan to help your business:
"So what is it?"
They say it's a new technology.
"Uhm, great, what kind of technology?"
They say a lot of odd phrases and words with lots of syllables that
you've never heard before.
"So it's like my computer, it'll help me run my business?"
Well, no quite not.
"So it's like my phone, it'll help people communicate with my
business?"
Well, sort of, but not exactly.
"So it's like advertising, it'll help me inform people about my
business?"
Well, that's one of the things you can do with it, but there's a lot
more to it.
etc.
I suppose the point of this socratic dialogue is that trying to
address the topic from your perspective is going to confuse them. You
need to think about their perspective, what their fundamental needs
are, and show them where the web fits into the picture.
I know this gets a little delcate, since obviously part of why
folks do presentations and seminars is to drum up new business.
However, the BNW guys are pretty sharp on all three fronts of the web
biz - design, technology and business - and they're open to doing
business with other web developers. One of their more recent projects
is making their e-commerce suite available under some sort of
franchise arrangement. I don't know what the details are for that,
but maybe you should drop them a line.
Steven J. Owens
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(p.s. I'll CC this to them.)
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