Telling People About Your New Internet Business (Part 1)

People used to love words. For millenia, they were the primary method of communication. Initially the words were spoken, remembered and repeated by the Elders or the wise men and women of our civilsations. Then came the written word, with the Homer's, the Shakespeares, and the Heinleins with their beautiful phrases and vivid ideas and narratives. We learned from poets, soldiers, statesmen and of course, from teachers.

Our entertainments consisted of one on one dialoques, from reading and from listening to the masters, the gurus in live performances or exhibitions. We had time to consider what we heard and what we read, because life was slower, less harried. It took time to listen, time to think.

As a result of this slower pace, people were accustomed to waiting until they heard or read the entire story. People were really good listeners, they expected to take time to enjoy, or savour all the nuances that the telling of stories provided. People were able to actively participate in the narratives, to relate to the emotions and used their imagination to extrapolate other scenarios.

Consider the current situation, where the primary communication media is television, video or the Internet. Most information is shared visually, and the written word is a secondary medium used for emphasis, or to repeat a message. We have learned that listening is not necessary, except under certain circumstances, so we generally don't listen to the spoken word.

Worse, we tend to discount what we do hear, or wait for visual confirmation of any message. We no longer learn from the gurus and teachers of old, but get our information from anonymous third party sources, controlled by businesses, or by governments. We are able to assimilate information visually, and transmit our information the same way.

Visual communications aren't novel; the visual ats have been around for centuries. The difference between then and now is that producing the visuals in days past took enormous effort and talent, and then for people to view the results took TIME.

Today, television gets visual messages to viewers with the same effort and talents required, but people no longer have to use their time to access the medium, as it is transmitted direct to our
homes, offices and smart phones or other connected devices. The effect this has on our lives and
on our businesses is profound. Most of us get all but all of our news from electronic media. The
major corporations internationally all have their own television and video production studios.
Sales conferences are rarely conducted in large rooms or halls but are video or web events

Our children spend more time with electronic media that they spend in their educational institutions by a factor of around 2 to 1.

Today, if you want a message or information disseminated, you look to video conferencing, or
produce a short digital video for transmission to the other paries. The techniques used by
television studios to produce hard information as news are replicated by business. Key financial
data is analysed, facts, numbers, ideas and strategies are examined for pertinence to audiences
and their relevance measured in traffic, and in views.

One consequence of this media transmission is that we are conditioned to interpret data in much
shorter time frames or bursts than previously. This leads us to impatience toward any message
that takes more than just a few minutes.

Inevitably, if we wish to "tell people about our business" we are constrained by the same
barriers as the large corporations. This means we either have to be master communicators to get
our message to our customers, or we need to spend huge amounts to achieve that purpose.

Luckily, to become a master communicator is relatively simple; all that is needed in information, and TIME

In the next installment we will commence discussion about the techniques for improving communication, so that you can commence "Telling People About Your New Internet Business"

See you soon...

Tools for Your Web Business

If your business has a website, direct sales are not necessarily the sole, nor even the primary reason for maintaining it.

Having a web prescence helps promote your brand and provides essential information about your products and services. In fact, if your business is primarily services, it is unlikely that you wouold require an on-line sales system.

However if you sell physical goods, or pre-sell software, or educational services, a web-site makes sense as a way to expand your offerings and create opportunities for more sales. As your customers become aware of the convenience and security of paying on-line, your business can make life easier for them, by offering a secure payments system.

Making life easier for your customers does not mean that it will simplify your business, or that you will find the transition to a payments system painless. This is intended as a beginners guide, that will help you to plan your on-line payments system.

Establishing your payment system at even the most basic level will require planning; who processes amd then packages your goods? Will you need to provide invoices, or receipts? If you already perform some of these functions in your business you will have some procedures in place that you should be able to translate across to your web-site. There are specialised software packages that can help in managing the process, by automating labels and such. But you should be aware that there will be additional work that needs to be done.

To accept payments and orders from your website there will several related technologies that will be needed.

1. You will need to list the products and services that you offer. If you are just offering a few products on your site the simplest way is to add descriptions by using your content management system (CMS) If your offering is extensive, you will probably need dedicated software to handle the complexities of a catalogue. There are a number of open-source systems, and ecommerce offerings available - if you have trouble finding something that suits, contact me...

2.You will need to accept payments. For a small scale business, PayPal will process transactions via a "Buy Now" button. This is probably easiest for small operations. All that is required is for you to set-up a PayPal account and add to your web-site. Make sure you register for a premium account as the fees are lower than for a personal account. PayPal have a facility where you can cut and paste the HTML code for a "Pay Now" button into your CMS at the appropriate place.

For larger scale operations you may find it advantageous to have your payments processed more directly. This will mean a number of elements: a merchant account, and a payment getway service to handle the processing. The merchant account will be required for the processing of credit cards; some merchant accounts include a payment gateway service.

If you have any problems with any of these elements, you can contact me for help...