Project Business Management

Admit it, it may sound off-beat, but you long for that day when you can strut in to a virtual business conference dressed in your undies. Now THIS IS THE LIFE, you must be thinking (even if you don’t smoke or drink coffee, for the love of the Marlboro Man and Juan Valdez), and indeed, online business has become such a big hit since dotcoms first permeated our subconscious. And indeed, the statistics are attractive: Fifty-five percent of American households are wired for the Internet, and nearly a third, or 32 percent have made a purchase online, according to the US Census Bureau. Online business is, whether we like it or not, lucrative, so where does all the dough go?

When one speaks of “making money online,” one creates an image of simply turning on a computer and getting money out of it as if it were an ATM machine. But at the end of the day, the Internet, for all its shiny, shimmery splendor, is not the “whole new world” an entrepreneur would need – it can often be an auxiliary tool, with the main tools in the shed being the ones that have been around for time immemorial. When you’re building a house, sometimes that high-tech, laser pointing thingamabob is great, but sometimes you just need a hammer. The same applies with online business – that fancy-dan rigmarole on the Internet is fine and dandy, but it must be supplanted with old-school ingenuity, and sometimes, said old-school ingenuity and business tools are supplanted by that 21st century business sense and technology. Success online comes not in replacing the old with the new, but blending them together.

There really are very few exceptions to the following rule in which the usual company that can “make money online” and back up its claim is more than just a virtual retail store, but rather a multi-faceted company where the Internet is just one of its mediums. People these days are more techno-savvy than ever before, yet they do not look at the Internet as their be-all and end-all – it may sometimes be their primary option, but often isn’t the only one. Truth be told, the Internet’s main purpose is as a medium of research – consumers would look up different products they can buy, but cash will actually be exchanged at the brick-and-mortar retail shop.

So as you may realize by now, the words “virtual business” do not necessarily equate to the exclusive use of the Internet for selling.

The most successful online businesses are those that have promoted themselves offline as well as on, through traditional media such as television and newspaper as well as via clickthroughs and email advertising. Perhaps you’re thinking that companies like Yahoo! have made Messrs. Filo and Wang into multi-super-duper gajillionaires, but come on, there’s that one thing you think of when the word “Yahoo!” is mentioned – go, what is it? The silly yodel from their television commercials.

If you should one day go about starting an online business, this is probably the most cogent piece of advice you will ever receive – don’t get too enchanted. The Internet revolution has, and continues to bring us all manner of useful tools and techniques for commerce, but if you want to get customers to visit your new online boutique, you have to actually change out of your bathrobe, get out of your den, and actually talk to some people face-to-face.

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