Resistance is Futile

If you want to succeed online you’d better hope you run into a Borg. Unfortunately, all too often onliners resist what is necessary to succeed online. They battle, whine, delay and complain ad nauseam about all that they have to learn and the frustrations that go with that.

Online if you do not assimilate you will fail. If you resist what you need to learn, do and embrace you are simply throwing good money after bad. Want someone to tell you otherwise — you’ll find them — those folks are a dime a dozen online.

Want the truth? Well, the many can’t handle the truth. They believe if they search long enough they’ll find the easier, cheaper way to “get rich online” while accomplishing nothing but lining the pockets of those willing to take advantage of what they don’t know.

Being I consider myself a muse and a pretty darned good coach, it always is disappointing when I meet a client’s “evil twin” because they feel they don’t have the time to learn or the patience to acquire the necessary knowledge.

I can’t make things any simpler. With WordPress and eStores that take the coding out of the picture and leave just having to learn how the software works and how to do business online, sadly for some even that is too much.

While I am always encouraging and let them know I am only an e-mail or phone call away to help them through their frustrations, at the same time I would be negligent if I were to compromise what I know is necessary for them to reach their stated goals. Sometimes that makes me the bad guy…

While I know fast, cheap and easy is something folks prefer to hear, and many marketers count on that fact, it is a disservice to play into that hype and water down the facts and reality of what online success require of all who want to reap the rewards.

Here are a few of the issues that I see compromised, minimized and outright ignored because the business owner doesn’t want to “deal with it”:

• Not having a business plan or at the very least investigating what others, with an already established online presence are doing. In other words, check out the competition. Some markets/products/services are saturated online. Unless you have a unique selling proposition, a niche or way to do things differently or better — you will have a challenge ahead of you and need to be prepared for that.
• Not understanding enough about technology to use it properly and efficiently. You need to know how your online presence is structured so you can take advantage of all the opportunity your platform will offer you. To have features, tools and widgets available and not want to learn how to use them is called lost opportunity.
• Not wanting to make the effort to learn how to use your e-mail program to its full potential and integrating proper Business Email Etiquette in your day to day e-mails. Choose to piecemeal and apply this information based on what you are willing to do and the perception of your professionalism and credibility will be on the line. You can’t type like a 6th grader lacking communication basics and common courtesy and expect others to want to do business with you.
• Believing that your water-downed version of customer service will suffice. Nothing less than Extreme Customer Service will do. Seriously! This is a rabidly competitive environment and if you are outperformed in this area, customers won’t be back.
• Thinking that this is a static playing field. It is proportionately the opposite! You need to be prepared for technology shifts and changes that you will need to embrace if you are serious about succeeding online. Application upgrades, new versions of software and new technologies will come around that will require you jump on board if you want to compete. Ignore them and your competitors will rule the day.

I’ve been at this 15 years and have lost count of the number of times I’ve had to change direction, evolve or reinvent my business or morph a Web site so that I can keep on the edge and run a profitable and healthy enterprise.

Yes, at times it is frustrating. And, there have been those days where I wanted to throw the monitor out the window. But at the end of the day, it is this challenge that I don’t shy away from, the ongoing quest for knowledge and skill acquisition that has allowed me to survive in an environment of here todays and gone tomorrows.

If you want to thrive online, resistance to the reality of this environment is futile. It is what it is — if you don’t like it, maybe you shouldn’t be online…

At your service,
Judith

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