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Start-up Essentials
People often come to our office with great ideas for products
and niche market businesses and want to know the best ways
to let people know they are available and in business.
Some of these folks have Web sites (like us) and some have
a bricks and mortar business. While these businesses seem quite
different the basics of starting any business are the same
regardless of whether the business is a brick and mortar type
or a virtual one.
- If you open the doors, turn on the telephone or post
a new Web site to the Internet, there are things you must
do.
- Make noise...albeit joyful noise...called marketing
yourself.
- Call everyone you know.
- Send letters to every company in your area who could
use your services.
- Let your local newspapers know that you have a new
product or service available and where they can find
it. The story may not make news the next day, but eventually
it will get in either the business or community section
of your local paper.
- Find groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Kiwanis,
Rotary etc. who have monthly meetings and might be
in need of a guest speaker.
- If there is a local cable station, try to get booked
as a new local entrepreneur. Local stations are very
often trying to find interesting stories about local
people.
- Post your new business card on every free bulletin
board you can find where people who might use your
service or product will see it.
- Send e-mails to everyone on your list.
- Hire a company to get your Web site name out to
those folks you can't reach.
- On the Internet there are many companies who promise
to get your Web site at the top of every search engine
and their prices are reasonable. Just do some research
to find not only the best price, but also to find a company
that will do what they say they will do.
- If you must travel a lot and use major airlines,
let them know what kind of business you are involved
in. They have on-board magazines and some of them use
local interest stories.
- Network, network, network. Call, write, e-mail,
then call again on everyone you've ever worked with
who can help you move your business forward. At every
gathering you attend hand out your card if appropriate.
- College professors often belong to groups or have
connections in their fields of study so they can make
important connections for you. The same is true with
clergy. They are connected in many communities and possibly
can be of help to you.
- Running a business on the Internet can have problems
unique to it, such as server problems and finding people
to maintain your site and expenses that would pertain
only to operating a Web site, but for the most part a
business in my mind, is a business.
- Getting people to come to your site or your store
is really not all that hard to accomplish. Most people
will try new things - once.
- It's what you do to keep them coming back that will
make or break your business.
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