Yes, you must be online
August 22nd, 2008 | Published in Internet Marketing, Marketing | 2 Comments
I’m talking to lots of holistic business owners these days about the power of the internet… particularly the power that the internet has when it comes to building your business.
A few years ago, if a client asked if they absolutely had to have a web site, I would have said “it depends on your business…” These days, my answer is very different.
Yes, you can forgo the web site. You can stick to just seeing 1 on 1 clients - you can keep yourself very local. But know this - if you do that - your business will grow very slowly.
I have spoken to a few people in recent weeks who absolutely resist the whole internet thing. They insist that they don’t want to be tied to their computer and they don’t want to learn the technology.
The big problem is, the internet is a HUGE part of our every day lives. Your potential clients are looking for you online. And if you’re not there, they can’t find you.
I promise, I’m not trying to use this as a scare tactic, so please don’t take this as me hyping something up. It’s the truth. And I know it first-hand.
My husband has a barber shop - his clientele is VERY local (tough to cut hair through a web site 
). How do they find him? Online. Where online? Not his web site (he’s resisting having one… *Sigh*). They find him through a few online listings he has. A few years ago, a majority of those people found him through the phone book - not any more. The tide has turned.
I’m going to work on getting him a web presence… but until I can convince him - I’d love to help you get online. It’s really not as difficult as it looks.
The other thing about having a web presence is, you can diversify your business and not only add income streams, but you can reach more people with your work than you ever thought possible.
People need you - and not just the people in your local area. If you create products (like, books, CD’s, DVD’s etc…), you can reach people across the world.
Plus - there’s only so much time you can trade for money. If you open yourself up to more income streams, your business can support you in even more ways, and you can continue to get your work out there to more people and in more ways.
Here are three steps you can begin taking to building an online presence:
First, have a professional web site. Create a web site that talks about what you do and who you help. To start out, you can have a simple, one-page site. As your business develops, you can put more pages out there. The key is - make sure it’s professional, clean, easy to read, and clearly talks about how you are in service.
Second, develop products. Think about what your clients come to you for help with most. Can you create a short e-book around solving your clients biggest challenges? What about a CD with meditations, or a report full of quick tips or recipes?
If it still feels overwhelming to think about taking your business online, check out the class I have coming up – it will help you every step of the way to get your business online and creating steadier income.
About Jenn Givler
August 23rd, 2008 at 4:14 am (#)
Jenn this is a perfect and timely post. I’ve just been talking to another practitioner about this. He’s currently still in school but is an internet junkie like myself. What is amazing to both of us is not only how many people really don’t know what they need to be doing online but how they are almost proud of how they know so little about the internet.
The internet is such a low cost way to create an interactive brochure about what you do. I don’t know how businesses exist without a website and there are so many really easy ways to have one created or to create your own!
August 30th, 2008 at 5:36 pm (#)
You are dead-on, Jenn. I went through the same evolution myself. Back in 1999, I was saying “it depends.” And now I say: “You must.”
My 80+ year-old mother-in-law is visiting us, and she picked up the phone book to look something up. It was the first time the phone books had been touched in probably two years. Local or global, the internet is where people go looking.
ON top of it all, my poor mom-in-law was frustrated trying to find what she wanted in the phone book. In the end, my wife was helping her by supplementing her phone-book based research with google…