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Speed Kills on the Web!
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by
Lee Traupel
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I only have to point to the 555 plus failed .com
companies (according to Web Mergers) as the poster
children of the "speed at any cost" business mantra
that clearly doesn’t work. And, these were companies
who burnt through significant amounts of capital (in
the millions, tens of millions or hundreds of millions
in many cases) while they were rushing to get to
market.

Do you wonder why every time you talk to someone he or
she seems to be in such a hurry that they don’t really
have time to talk with you? But, if you want to work
with them you have to try and converse on the phone as
a first step, or even worse, setup some type of a face-
to-face meeting. What’s going on ­- why aren’t we all
slowing the pace down so we can focus on business
processes that are based upon viable models?

I think we are experiencing some type of a .com
hangover effect. Everyone was in such a hurry during
the heady GBF ("get big fast") .com days trying to do
the "land grab" while driving an "online brand" that
would lead to a quick exit strategy" that they forgot
to really define a viable business model that included
development of tangible goods and services for real
customers.

I still come into contact with many people that act
like they’ve been hard wired to a double espresso ­-
they aren’t sure what they are doing, where they are
going, but they want to do everything in a hurry! And
are till trying to build a business the same way they
did during the last two years -- when fundamentals and
many niceties of business went out the window, while
greed became the order of the day.

We are telling our clients speed can and does kill on
the web ­- its time to slow down and think strategically
about what they want to do and then build marketing
campaigns and processes that convey tangible value to
their market demographics (read customers!). Here are
some fundamental marketing rules for living life in the
slow (but safe) lane:

1) Ensure all marketing collateral (web and offline)
are in synch ­- invest sufficient time and resources to
ensure there are no discrepancies between them to build
a cohesive brand that effectively communicates what you
do.

2) Take time to really evaluate business opportunities,
don’t just blast through relationships, meetings or
assessments ­- many times you can build viable
partnerships by sitting down and taking a hard look at
how third parties complement your business and vica
versa.

3) Use the web for what’s its really meant for ­- as a
highway for communications and commerce, its not the
"saving grace" its been touted to be by many companies;
87% of Internet users today utilize the web to research
goods and services.

4) Make time to look at your competitors, whether they
are across the road or on the other side of the world ­
the web has created a commerce model where a competitor
is just a click away; so carefully analyze what your
competitors are doing.

5) Communicate with your customers and partners ­- it
doesn’t do much good to build a beautiful web site that
does not make it easy for people to contact your
company. I’ve seen hundreds of web sites the last year
that don’t have e-mail contacts or phone numbers listed
prominently ­- take/make time to build a site that lets
people communicate with you.

6) Hire people with some gray hairs ­- they may not
flash the latest PDA at you or wear the latest trendy
clothes, but many of them have years of experience
building companies slowly and carefully, by paying
attention to business fundamentals. I’ve got nothing
against youth, but it seems like many over 40-
somethings got left by the wayside in the .com mania
and to the detriment of many companies.

7) Think small when your building a business, the
billion dollar days are gone with last year’s PR
hyperbole. I get no royalties from E.F. Shumacher, but
I really think his "Small is Beautiful As if People
Mattered" is a wonderful book and the forward is done
by Paul Hawken, a brilliant serial entrepreneur, well
known for his landmark PBS (Public Broadcasting Service
for global readers) series on "Growing a Business" that
inspired many of us to take the entrepreneurial plunge.


So, good luck to all of you tortoises out there ­- keep
plodding along!

This text may freely be republished or distributed in unmodified form provided the following resource box is included intact either at the beginning or the end of the article and a complimentary copy or notice (link) is sent to the author at the address specified below:

Ralph Tegtmeier is the co-founder and principal of fantomaster.com GmbH (Belgium), < http://fantomaster.com/ >, a company specializing in webmasters software development, industrial-strength cloaking and search engine positioning services.

He has been a web marketer since 1994 and is editor-in-chief of fantomNews, a free newsletter focusing on search engine optimization, available at: < http://fantomaster.com/fantomnews-sub.html > You can contact him at mailto:fneditor@fantomaster.com
(c) copyright 2002 by fantomaster.com
All rights reserved.
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