Building eCommerce

I was reading some posts on the SBI forums the other day and was struck by the theme about the TAO of SBI. Just a little quick background here. SBI is an all-in-one solution and they’re continually evaluating and researching to improve and expand the tools and services they offer. As near as I can tell SBI is most successful all-encompassing solution you could find to building a successful eCommerce website. They have proof. I, obviously, endorse them and recommend them highly (just in case you hadn’t figured that out already). Unfortunately for me, I failed to discover them until I was already hip-deep in alligators, committed to what I was already doing and out of funds to shift and make my life easier. But the time is fast approaching.

My experience is that I’ve spent a great deal of time looking for things, evaluating tools, messing with things that aren’t fully compatible and generally experienced a lot of frustration in building sites and fitting all these parts together. What’s the result? Primarily, it leaves me with a lot less time to focus on my business. As you may notice, my posts here aren’t high frequency. The time I need to spend mucking about with technical details and the problems generated by tools from multiple providers interferes with researching, reading and writing. And what’s crucial for what I want to do is the research, reading and writing. Not cyber-jumping from one site to another, rattling back and forth fixing things up and resolving problems.

For all of us, time is the most precious tool we have. Keeping focus on what’s adding value to our business is the way to grow. Putting out fires that you could have avoided is definitely not a good use of that tool.

Since I also happen to actually enjoy the technical stuff, I have a tendency to get all involved with messing about with code and - wham - lost focus, time flying, the real business of business not getting done.

Another massive distraction for many of us is the internet itself. The endless proliferation of information and fascinating sites and ideas can consume your attention totally. Newbie or seasoned pro - focus is one of the very hardest things to maintain.

Usually our minds are like drunken monkeys, stumbling from this thing to the next without any real purpose or plan. We try to train ourselves to stay on track, we use to-do lists and plans. Still the monkey rambles aimlessly and only ruthless force restrains it. OK, that’s an exaggeration, we can train ourselves, but it’s very hard work. Necessary, but difficult. And you need to do it over and over or you lose it again.

Your success in eCommerce depends heavily on your ability to maintain focus and do the things that really are advancing you toward your business goals. You needn’t become a geek, an SEO expert, a super trafficologist, or a world-class copywriter. Nor do you need every tool and eBook out there. I’m betting you have tools and a lot of books you’ve never used, read or seriously applied. I suspect we all do.

Look for ways to reduce the basically irrelevant distractions. Identify what is really crucial to building your site and expanding your business. Do that continuously. If you’re looking for a new solution, check carefully to be sure it’s one that really works, that has everything you need and will leave you the time you need to do the business of your business, not the busy work.

How about the marketing lifestyles of the niched - famous or not. You remember seeing, time after time, those ads that promise you that ultimate lifestyle - lying on the beach on some tropical island, while your sites are shoveling tons of money directly - and AUTOMATICALLY - into your accounts.

Even if you only believed them a little, I’ve got some semi-bad news. Have you noticed that the marketers and gurus never let up? Always got a new thing or a new wrap over an old thing. Always doing a teleseminar, going to a conference. Sure they have the possibility of dropping everything at a moment’s notice (well, more or less) and going off. But they all usually travel fully equipped with wireless laptops, cells, mobile palms and/or pocket PCs, bluetoothed to the max. About the only time you’re going to find a real marketer or web developer on the beach is when that’s where the networking is happening at the conference.

And then there are the people who aren’t out-front gurus, i.e., familiar figures, despite the depth of their knowledge and experience. Many of them make a truly excellent living from their internet activities, but they work at it. This bizarre idea that it’s easy to make money is excellent propaganda for selling stuff, but look at the data. If 90 or 95 or 97% of internet businesses fail, how could anyone believe it’s easy? If only a small handful of affiliates ever make more than a few pitiful checks, how could anyone believe that’s easy?

The truth is that no matter what model you use in your internet business, it’s a lot of work. Sure, it’s easy and cheap to start an internet “business”. This deceptive ease leads people to believe that all the other aspects of researching, planning, implementing, tracking, testing, revising, promoting and marketing can be somehow ignored - or they’ll be just as easy.

So, it’s not too surprising so many fail. To have ANY business and to make it successful you must have drive and determination and be willing to put in the time to learn how to do it.

On-line or off, successful businesses are run in a businesslike way. If you think it’s going to be quick or easy, disabuse yourself. That’s a destructive fantasy. Sure, a very very very few people do manage to make a great deal of money quickly. But usually that’s based on a lot of work they’ve already done, a truly brilliant idea that actually catches fire, or a genius for seeing opportunity and seizing it. Rare, very rare. Then there are the ‘overnight successes’ who have been working like dogs for years before it all finally breaks open for them. They may have failed a hundred twenty-three times, but each time they learned and applied. And each time it was a better ‘failure’. And number 124 — wow, another instant overnight success.

For most of us, it’s a process of learning and applying. Relearning, reapplying. You need a plan, you need to do research, organize, test, interpret, learn to market and promote. It’s easy to put up a site. And then? Nobody’s going to walk by. Where’s the traffic plan? Traffic exchanges? Click for visitors? Buy traffic? Use PPC? Optimize and add content and learn how to get free targeted traffic from the search engines? And that’s only a small part of it.

If you don’t love doing it all (or at least a big part of it), running a business is worse than slavery. And it may not pay any better for quite while either.

At least with a JOB, you get weekends off and a vacation and you may not even need to bring work home with you or be obsessed by it.

I don’t mean this to discourage anyone, because it is a great way to work and it does offer innumerable advantages - and it may even lead to that tropical island lifestyle (long as you can get a high speed connection). But don’t go in with your eyes closed and expect to be rich in a couple months. And don’t jump from one ‘opportunity’ to another. Don’t buy everything in sight that promises to make it quick and easy. Tools help, but they can’t substitute for research, knowledge and planning. Even the best tools require you to put in the time to learn how to use them in the most effective way. And since things change quickly on the ‘net, next month you may have to relearn how to apply it to the new reality.