How to be a big deal on the internet – Part 3

Check out How to be a Big Deal on the Internet – Part 1 and Part 2 here.

 

We’re rounding the final bend of my 3-part series on Being a Big Deal on the Internet. As I said at the start, it’s not about physical size; it’s about your attitude.

Many big corporations run their website as an afterthought – ironically, they’re the “mum and pop” operations of the digital world, when they really should know better. They run their online business on the cheap, offshoring their development and thinking short-term. They do business, but they’re not going to grow; they can’t. They can barely even make ends meet.

What should you do, then? Think like a big company, and plan for growth from the start.

Now is the best time to get your ducks in a row:

• Invest in systems that are scalable. Even if your website starts small, it needs to be capable of growing – get a Content Management System that you can easily update. It’ll cost a bit now, but you won’t be rebuilding later when you should be consolidating.
• Automate everything you can. This follows on from my last point, but it’s important enough to say twice; even if your association doesn’t have many members now, you’ll need a cutting-edge, automated membership system to handle them when they come. Even if you’re not getting hundreds of orders a day, you shouldn’t be wasting time processing them one by one when you don’t have to.
• Spend big to grow big. Yes, we’ve all heard about “spending money to make money”, but it’s true – especially in the realms of search marketing, Google Adwords and email marketing. These initiatives often need quite an outlay, but they’ll pay it back in traffic, sales and continued customer engagement.

Wrapping it up

If there’s one thing I want you to take away from this, it’s this: YOUR business can be a Big Deal. It’s not just for the corporations and the big brands of the offline world; in fact, all too often they’re the ones playing catch-up to smaller operators that really get this stuff.

I often look at some of our clients, though, and think how impressive they are for their size. The turnover they make, the systems they’ve put in place, the search engine listings that they’ve managed to conquer by sheer grit and long-term thinking – it’s really quite inspiring.

You don’t have to be a Fortune 500 CEO to dream big.

• You can own the site that other companies desperately try to out-rank on Google.
• You can be the managing director that other managing directors ask for advice.
• You can be turning over hundreds of orders a day – easy! – and leveraging thousands of happy customers on social media.

All it takes is thinking like a Big Deal (and maybe giving us a ring :))