Bad advice wonderland?

[Anton3]

Getting web sites right is very important to small businesses but not the most important thing of the many items on the agenda for getting a business going.

Getting a web site wrong though can be very damaging and often businesses would have been better off not touching the web at all.

That's simply not true. I didn't read ANY of the rest of it, because that is a very dangerous thing to teach. In fact getting websites right is 100% THE MOST IMPORTANT thing in the recession.

Let's take my mum and dad - my dad doesn't use the web - he's lost most of his clients. Mum lost most of hers, but she has a brilliant website and me. I got her more back than she'd lost, ALLLLL from the web and her website.

Judge for yourself whether it's not the most important thing. Sales levels - those are the KEY priority of any boss of any company. And other than freak exceptions, in today's market that means using "online" properly, and not failing to use it.

Anyway. Fair play - free advice is not going to usually be good, that's true also - I can't pretend that the fact that most people using this forum will simply become more ignorant over time is anything unusual, problematic or worrying.

When i see words like that, ignorant words, treated with so much reverence, i dinnae know whether to weep or to cackle. i mean, it's more money for me really. stupider and stupider, said alice to herself.

[maxine]

I dont know where the quote came from but I happen to agree that a perfect website is not THE most important thing to getting a business going.

For me it's about having a decent profitable product or service with a business plan

A website is one part of a sales and marketing strategy.

To take your point literally would imply that a website is THE most important thing regardless of business plans, personality to succeed etc.

[Anton3]

but ist IS

during 1999 to 2009, the ONLY thing that mattered was liquidity

i had a business that the ACCOUNTANT of 30 years INSISTED my dad fund because it was worth "5 million a year" - I was 23. Dad told him and me to **** ourselves. I had PROOF - i had 15k generated from £500 to 2k at the very most (at 23 your first shot is inefficient to say the least, even if it's 15k off of a couple of k).

my dad, the banks, all those ****s, ONLY considered liquidity itself to be evidence of trustworthiness. my business couldn't OPERATE without liquidity even though it had EVERYTHING a business needs

Now, in the post-meltdown, the fact is that online market power is the only thing that can help you survive against ME! That's a fact. I can reach 100 million people any day I want, and I have been honing my skill in this field for 7 to 10 years.

I see ALL brick-and-mortar people, former liquidity humpers, as THE ENEMY and my goal is to put them out of business with aggressive competition in ALL fields. I currently sell for ALL the major retailers in the UK and am targeting the USA in "fall", as they quaintly call it in the colonies.

I agree - it's ridiculous that for 10 years ONLY liquidity determined whether or not a brilliant business model could flourish. But now it may seem ridiculous that ONLY a web-rooted firm can keep customers in the downturn (and indeed experience real "eighties" style growth - which is what me and LOOADS of online entrepreneurs are seeing right now - you should try reading the 1000s of forums and news sites and blogs where people like me spill the beans all day long - the industry here is in the biggest boom since the "first" dot com boom - in SILICON VALLEY the second "dot com boom" has officially been deemed to have begun, coincidentally, at the same time as the northern rock and other crashes started off the massive fall of the liquidity-humpers.)

Your response is intelligent, but wrong! Today you are learning something. You replied VERY quickly - you didn't even spend 1 hour thinking about what I said. That's the thing. I take many months and years to think through much of the most important stuff I do. The fact that i refused to read more than the first few words of either the post i quoted (or indeed your response) (the bracket structure here is hackish not ungrammatical) is all to do with my ethos of neither wasting time nor rushing things. i am not a "babylon boy". i do my thing neatly.

Anyway. I'm sorry to make life so hard, but it's the truth - britain if she wanna be strong better listen to me - I hef the moneys now. And all I wanna do is make britain the kind of place she shoulda been yeeeeears ago - a good place where people don't overwork, where women, nonwhite people, gay people, and any other group in society pushed down many rungs and kept below a certain level of wealth and power as often and heavy-handedly as possible don't live like that any more, where there is no goddamn fried junk shop on every high street feeding crap to crap.

where people rise above themselves and perform well

anyway. i don't care whether i am just an ignored voice ranting... i'm gonna leave 100s of bills to kids off of knowing what i know. what YOU gonna leave behind ya (that's general, not for maria or yvette or whoever it was that answered so quickly - so fast i didn't have time to catch your name).

[OldWelshGuy]

I was going to post a detailed reply, but your anger has warned me against this.

You don't need any advice IMO, just do what you want to do, and come back later and tell us how you got on!

[maxine]

I don't need to deliberate for an hour or type out 1000's of words if not necessary to articulate my thoughts. For me it was quite clear but hey, I am happy to be wrong, it's just an opinion.

There have been previous threads about the most important things in business and I have considered some of the things mentioned previously along with my own experience before posting

[directmarketingadvice]

The most important thing for a new business is generating sales.

And, a huge percentage of them manage to do that without a website.

Steve

[directmarketingadvice]

I was going to post a detailed reply, but your anger has warned me against this.

Anger? Surely not.

Haven't you seen his sig? Love is his religion. :eek:

Steve

[startclaims]

Ugh...The 'rich jerk' style rant was too much for me this early on a Saturday morning.

Thanks Steve for posting a single sentence riposte that perfectly sums up my thoughts

:D

[stugster]

That's simply not true.

Rubbish.

My hairdresser doesn't have a website. In fact, my hairdresser doesn't make use of any kind of IT.

You now tellin' me that their small business is doomed to failure?

Why is it when you post, you can't help "bigging yourself up". Why is it, when you post, you can't help but tell us how much you've "made" for your mummy or daddy's business? Why is it you feel the need to divulge this boring information all the time? Is it to try and get yourself some sort of respect here?

Please let me know, I'm intrigued about the nature of how you post.

[d30web]

There are a number of businesses that function without websites and not having a website doesnt necesarily mean you are going to fail but if having a website helps your business then I would assume it makes good business sence to have one.

But then again I am a developer and want everyone to have a site ...ha ha ha

[Moneyman]

Dont quite know how to start.
1)liquidity is important but if you dont check the profit and margin you will go bust.
2)websites are useful but not the be all and end all.
3) second dot com boom. where have you been hiding? that finished a couple of years ago. we are starting the third or fourth. depending on who you talk to. (it generally means that 90% of the web companies in the last explosion have gone bust and we dont want to be associated with them)
4)I have a distribution warehouse which is full of other peoples products that sell brilliantly in shops but dont sell online and the companies have gone bust.

[Esk247]

i think that every business should have a website....:)...BUT! thats a 'SHOULD' not a 'MUST' i mean..as mentioned..whats the point in a hairdressers having a website, they tend to deal with local customers so surely a website would be an accessory item not a necessity item.

if you are setting up something along the lines of a hairdressers..you wouldn't go and buy a website before the premises would you? or the stock? or the staff? or the first few customers who will probably be friends or friends of friends.

[SillyJokes]

Rubbish.

My hairdresser doesn't have a website. In fact, my hairdresser doesn't make use of any kind of IT.

You now tellin' me that their small business is doomed to failure?



Well my hairdresser has a website and it rocks. They also text me so I never forget an appointment, and they open in the evenings so the working girl can get her hair done.

Not all hairdressers are so behind the door when it comes to the web.

[Anton3]

"if you don't check... you will go bust"

no silly, i mean unrelated (to the business) liquidity is required before they give you a loan to even start properly - i.e. if you are starting from scratch, have student debts and have no income, people won't ALLOW you to start ANY business, even if it turns £1 into £1000. They just won't. Well that was the past. Now the world is shifting so that even if finance doesn't yet roll toward what can be proved to be pure talent, encouragement and people on your flank are now massively possible - mass unemployment is driving more people onto the flanks of types like me

i KNEW someone would make that mistake, i should have clarified it the moment i thought ahead that far. d'oh. never mind. i'll read the other comments later. i've given up socialising tonight and have come back to this damn machine to finish that job... after tonight it's going to be so hard to not be arrogant. if i already am, i better start fixing it asap... soon i'll have WAY too much money to make humility an easy thing to demonstrate.

anyway. i take it back - you're all wondrous geniuses whose presence on these forums CLEARLY marks you out as typical fatcat highflyer fodder!!!!

the comment re the hairdresser with good online services is great - i like to see people making best use of the chance to exceed the service provided by competitors - this tends to be a guaranteed way to take business from other people.

[Moneyman]

Oh dear has someone been paying for a little "make millions online in your sleep with only one DVD" offer. Bit of a fan of the aprentice prehaps..hubris.

hmm... seen a bit of this before...lots of THE MOST IMPORTANT...changes in format to show EMPHASIS.

"going to leave 100's of bills" ...oh dear... all a little USA methinks.

These instructions on how to "improve sales with 25 golden rules" rubbish is rather fun but dont bring it here. The guys who write this are sales speciallists selling books. never business gurus.

Oh well have fun and i hope you succeed but be a little cautious. if the guy who sold you this program you are on is making money selling programs.........

[stugster]

Well my hairdresser has a website and it rocks. They also text me so I never forget an appointment, and they open in the evenings so the working girl can get her hair done.

Not all hairdressers are so behind the door when it comes to the web.

When I make an appointment, I attend at that time. I don't need text messages to remind me. The hairdresser I attend also opens in the evening - but having a website doesn't prevent/allow you to choose different opening hours, does it?

I quite enjoy being able to pick up the phone and book appointments with people like my hairdresser, you get a bit of nice chit-chat going and usually a wee laugh alongside. Booking online on the other hand is a faceless, boring system which has its uses.

My point, was that not having a website isn't the b all and end all.

Having said that... perhaps having a website would bring in more customers, more new sales, and obviously more profit... But having 70% of your customers being over the age of 65 without a computer in their home, and also turning over enough that you're able to go on two holidays a year and dance around in a Lexus... I don't think the hairdresser is that bovvered.

[OldWelshGuy]

Why do hairdressers all have IS200's ? :D

[sirearl]

but ist IS

during 1999 to 2009, the ONLY thing that mattered was liquidity

i had a business that the ACCOUNTANT of 30 years INSISTED my dad fund because it was worth "5 million a year" - I was 23. Dad told him and me to **** ourselves. I had PROOF - i had 15k generated from £500 to 2k at the very most (at 23 your first shot is inefficient to say the least, even if it's 15k off of a couple of k).

my dad, the banks, all those ****s, ONLY considered liquidity itself to be evidence of trustworthiness. my business couldn't OPERATE without liquidity even though it had EVERYTHING a business needs

Now, in the post-meltdown, the fact is that online market power is the only thing that can help you survive against ME! That's a fact. I can reach 100 million people any day I want, and I have been honing my skill in this field for 7 to 10 years.

I see ALL brick-and-mortar people, former liquidity humpers, as THE ENEMY and my goal is to put them out of business with aggressive competition in ALL fields. I currently sell for ALL the major retailers in the UK and am targeting the USA in "fall", as they quaintly call it in the colonies.

I agree - it's ridiculous that for 10 years ONLY liquidity determined whether or not a brilliant business model could flourish. But now it may seem ridiculous that ONLY a web-rooted firm can keep customers in the downturn (and indeed experience real "eighties" style growth - which is what me and LOOADS of online entrepreneurs are seeing right now - you should try reading the 1000s of forums and news sites and blogs where people like me spill the beans all day long - the industry here is in the biggest boom since the "first" dot com boom - in SILICON VALLEY the second "dot com boom" has officially been deemed to have begun, coincidentally, at the same time as the northern rock and other crashes started off the massive fall of the liquidity-humpers.)

Your response is intelligent, but wrong! Today you are learning something. You replied VERY quickly - you didn't even spend 1 hour thinking about what I said. That's the thing. I take many months and years to think through much of the most important stuff I do. The fact that i refused to read more than the first few words of either the post i quoted (or indeed your response) (the bracket structure here is hackish not ungrammatical) is all to do with my ethos of neither wasting time nor rushing things. i am not a "babylon boy". i do my thing neatly.

Anyway. I'm sorry to make life so hard, but it's the truth - britain if she wanna be strong better listen to me - I hef the moneys now. And all I wanna do is make britain the kind of place she shoulda been yeeeeears ago - a good place where people don't overwork, where women, nonwhite people, gay people, and any other group in society pushed down many rungs and kept below a certain level of wealth and power as often and heavy-handedly as possible don't live like that any more, where there is no goddamn fried junk shop on every high street feeding crap to crap.

where people rise above themselves and perform well

anyway. i don't care whether i am just an ignored voice ranting... i'm gonna leave 100s of bills to kids off of knowing what i know. what YOU gonna leave behind ya (that's general, not for maria or yvette or whoever it was that answered so quickly - so fast i didn't have time to catch your name).

See my signature I may be able to help.?:|

Earl