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BizPals
10-01-2010, 01:28 AM
Hi,

I was hoping to receive some advice on how to approach businesses (in an attempt to get them to use my website). I am looking for a method that is cheap and effective (I guess thats what everyone wants :P).

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks

boogle
10-01-2010, 09:54 AM
No matter what method you use to approach businesses, being able to explain what you do is important. I checked out your website and still do not fully understand what your service is. Can you explain to me in a paragraph what I as a small business owner will gain from using your site?

Harold Mansfield
10-01-2010, 01:40 PM
Cold calling sucks. But a necessary evil in a lot of businesses. I agree, if you can't say it effectively in seconds, you will never get past the receptionist.

KristineS
10-01-2010, 01:57 PM
I've got to agree with boogle. I'm still not exactly clear what your site would do for me if I were a small business owner. I think the first thing I would do is sit down and try to put together a short explanation (by short I mean three or more sentences) about what your business is and can do. Once you have that down, you can look at expanding the message and getting it out to the people you need to reach.

BizPals
10-02-2010, 02:12 PM
I can see what you mean, I think you guys have picked out huge flaw in my site. I am going to site down and come up with a sentence or two that clearly describes what my site does. I will post it on this thread in hopes that i can recieve your feedback again. This was a great help.

Thank you

rdcclu
10-04-2010, 06:15 PM
You have a lot of options. Here are a few...

1. Set up a blog on your website, i.e www.bizpals.com/blog. Use Wordpress.org. Find a nice-looking theme among the free ones (to start).
2. Write, or have written, about 30 articles about the services your business offers and the problems it solves, each article optimized for that keyword, that is, the keyword in the title with about a 1% keyword density. Do keyword research to find keywords that are searched for at least 100 times a day and have less than 100K competing pages as competition (put the keyword in quotation marks and do a Google search).
3. Post each of these articles on your blog each day for 30 days. Put a (horrors) pop up on your blog to capture leads as they visit your page. Go look at Popup Domination. Come up with a freebie to exchange for their contact information (name/email only) like a free report, white paper, e-course etc. Get an autoresponder if you don't have one. Look at AWeber.
4. Submit each article (change the title) to EzineArticles one at a time. Be patient here as you have to submit at least 10 before any SEO factors kick in if you have not ever submitted to EzineArticles. Put a link to your site in the resource box using the keyword for the article as the anchor text.
5. Read each article into a microphone hooked up to your computer. Use Camtasia or similar free video editing software and make slides and pictures to combine with your audio. You now have a video. Edit so that it is no longer than 2 minutes.
6. Create an account on YouTube, which is named one of the primary keywords for your market and put up each of the 30 videos up on YouTube as you get them made. Make sure the keyword is in the title of the video. Put the URL to your site as the very first text when you write the description and include the keyword once.

Again, these are not your only options, but they are tried and true. That should keep you busy for 30 days. I'm sure everyone in the forum would be interested to hear how much the traffic to your site increases (give it 60 days for everything to kick in) and how many opt-ins you have to your list that you can continue to market to.

BizPals
10-05-2010, 02:31 AM
Thanks for the great advice Bob, I am going to put this advice into effect as soon as possible.

BizPals
10-05-2010, 02:40 AM
I was having a really hard time coming up with a clear message for my site because, I think, I have been trying to be too specific. So I took a step back and came up with this:

"A social network for small businesses and their customers"

I would appreciate your feedback, thanks

KristineS
10-05-2010, 08:35 AM
It's a start, but what does that social network do for the business? Is it a easier way to communicate with customers? Can they get instant feedback from customers? Does it allow them to answer questions in real time?

Social network means different things to different people, and to some people it means a place where you play or talk about what you had for breakfast. I think that sentence is a good foundation but you still have to show business owners how a social network for them and their customers will be a benefit. Also, you have to explain why your social network will be of more use than an established one like Facebook or Twitter? What are you plans to draw people to your site and get them to use it?

boogle
10-05-2010, 09:38 AM
I think you are going to need to focus your message on why customers are going to use your site. It is pretty easy for a business to see the value in having a direct relationship with customers, the question is what is going to motivate customers to get involved, what do they benefit.

Kristine is also right about the importance of setting yourself apart from facebook and twitter. I follow larger businesses on twitter to find out about new products and services. I am fans of local businesses of Facebook to show my support and communicate. What is your site doing that is different from that.

vangogh
10-06-2010, 01:28 AM
I agree with Kristine and Ryan. You have to give me as a business owner a reason why talking to my customers through your site will be better than the way I talk to them now. You'll also need to give my a customers a similar reason. I may not be your ideal customer. I'm a web designer with a handful of clients. We mostly email each other and at times we we'll talk on the phone. It works pretty well and truthfully I don't have a problem talking to my clients. Since I don't have a problem I'm not looking for a solution.

None of the above is meant to be negative. It's simply sharing my situation and again I may not be your ideal customer. I business selling a variety of products to many more people might have a problem talking to them and you may be able to provide a better solution.

The first question then is who is your customer. Who are the businesses that have a customer communication problem? What is that problem? And how do you solve that problem? If you can answer those questions it'll set a direction for you. It'll help you tailer your business to your customer's businesses and it will give you a direction in your marketing to reach those people.

I'm looking through your site and from I can see you're providing a mechanism for businesses and customers to communicate. The mechanism is the easy part though. Here's something I found on your About page


To make the most of this advantage we increase accessibility to small businesses and allow them to build strong relationships with customers. Consumers can use Bizpals as a means to contact businesses, and in turn businesses can respond at their earliest convenience, thereby increasing productivity.

How are you increasing accessibility? Seems to me if I as a business provide an email address on my site then customers can contact me anytime and I can reply to them at my earliest convenience. If I want to use your services I have to send my customers to you before they can communicate with me. It's an additional step so if anything it's less accessible. I don't want to make it any more difficult for my customers to contact me than what they have now. Can you provide something for me to integrate on my site for my customers can use. It can still go through your service, but I don't want my customers taking an additional step to contact me.

Again this isn't meant to be negative. It's meant to make you think. Tell me why you offer a better solution for me.

One problem I might have as a small business owner is not enough time to answer all the emails I get. Can you help me with that? Can you answer some of those emails or at least do some of my communicating for me through your site. If you were handling some of the questions my customers are sending me and only passing on the ones to me you can't answer then you're now providing something of value to me. You've saved me time or money to hire someone to deal with all the email I get.

Hopefully something in there is helpful.

BizPals
10-06-2010, 07:38 PM
Kristine:
I see your point in differentiating from other networks. The sentence doesn’t clearly explain what bizpals has to offer. I am working on a more accurate, succinct message. My plan to draw in people was to draw in businesses first, by showing them the benefits of using the site, and have them ask their customers to join. After customers used it, I hope, they would ask other businesses to use it. That is the dream plan anyway.

Ryan:
I see that I have to differentiate my site from the major social networks. I haven’t come up with a pitch to draw in customers, as you probably noticed above, my plan completely revolved around attracting businesses. It is probably a very good idea that I diversify my marketing strategy. I describe how my site is different from others below.

Vangogh:
I welcome honest input, I do not want to waste my time with false praises, so i really appreciate that you are asking the important questions that should be asked.

What bizpals does, that I believe makes it superior to email, is a combination of simple functions that make it a very powerful tool. It provides a unique system for communication, ratings, and search.

Email provides the same solution to accessibility and communication that my site does. But Bizpals has a different approach, which i believe is a greater benefit to businesses. I will elaborate on this.

A business on the site has a single communication thread with each one of its customers, where the messages are ordered chronologically. This prevents clutter that is created from changing the subject in emails, and makes it easier to follow the conversation. This thread is also integrated with ratings. Businesses can send a message called a “rating request” to a customer, in which they briefly describe the service they provided that they are asking the rating for; that also goes into the same thread (chronologically). This ratings request gives the customer the ability to rate whatever service was described in that request. and allows customers to have something like a receipt stored in their thread. Businesses benefit by aggregating ratings and receive ratings for each service they have provided. These ratings are displayed on their profile page, to help the business attract more clients.

I have a hard time describing what the site does with out getting into a rant, because I try and explain how all the features work together to help both businesses and customers. I simplified my message just to communication, transactions, and ratings which I thought would make it clearer, perhaps this where I am losing people. Like Ryan and Kristine said earlier I need a clear message and I am still struggling with that.

I believe this site would be beneficial to all small businesses including yours, but my target market is businesses such as small mechanic shops, and physiotherapy clinics. Places where people would like to get in contact with professionals for advice, and where they would like to have a record of transactions they have had with them.

Does this sound like a product that you would try? What about it sounds appealing and what doesn’t? Is the current message I have on my site too simple to communicate the true benefits of my site? How would you adjust the marketing to get businesses to try out the site?

I hope I will recieve more great input, like I have recieved from vangogh, Ryan, and Kristine. Thanks guys, I welcome any other advice you guys have.

vangogh
10-07-2010, 02:44 AM
Robby I think I' beginning to understand more. Feel free to explain things in as much details as you want here. If we understand we might be able to help with coming up with the short sentence or two. Let me see if I can state what you're suggesting are the benefits.

1. Threaded conversation with each customer/client
2. Ratings
3. Profiles other people can see

Now let me expand more on the benefits and some questions I have about each.

1. The benefit is a single threaded conversation will make things easier to find after a bit of back and forth. Is it forever one thread per customer/client or can either party initiate a new conversation with a new thread? I ask because at some point the conversation is something in the past and while I may want to keep older conversation in an archive I wouldn't want to keep seeing them in the same thread.

Again I'll be skeptical how much of an improvement this is over email. Personally all the different subjects have never bothered me. Most email is something I read once and never need to refer to again. The few I need I can usually tag in some way to find them again easily enough. And keep in mind than more and more email applications are starting to offer a similar threaded conversation.

I'm not suggesting what you'll have won't be better. It's more that you have to get me to switch from something I've used comfortably for year. You can't just offer me a little better. It has to be enough better for me to switch from something that's already working.

2. Ratings. I can see the benefit of ratings, though I'm not entirely certain how it will work. Do I have to ask for the rating? Do I have to specify what it is I want rated? Why can't my clients/customers rate me whenever they want? Or can they? Something to keep in mind is I can currently ask my clients for testimonials. I might not get as many testimonials as I would ratings, but I think testimonials are worth more. And I could always set up a rating system on my own site as well.

3. Profiles. Naturally if people who aren't my client/customers can view my profile I can attract new customers/clients. The value though is only going to come after you've built up your site so there are enough people there. That value will come, but it won't be a selling point early on. What's going to be on my profile. I assume my threaded conversations won't be made public and I assume rating requests will be made public along with the usual contact information. Anything else? Will my customers/clients be able to leave unsolicited testimonials on my profile?

Let me know if I'm beginning to understand and know that my questions concerns are to make you think more about this. I will leave you with one thought. Google Wave was a better way to have conversations with people. Few people cared and now it's gone. You're going to have some of the problems Wave had. Again while your system may be better than email, essentially that's what it's replacing and most people aren't having an email problem. It's going to take a lot to get people to switch.

As much as you might want me to believe your system makes it easier to communicate with my clients it seems to me like it will be more difficult. I have a dozen or so emails and I pull them all into a desktop application. I open the application and my email from every account is there. Having to visit your site and log in doesn't make things easier for me. It's another step for me. if you want me to take that additional step you have to provide something a lot better for me than the email I currently use and again I'm not having a problem with my email. I'm not saying you can't do it. Just saying it's going to be a lot harder than you think.

Another problem Wave had was it really wasn't useful until a critical mass of people were using it. It was difficult for them to build that critical mass though, since without it there wasn't any reason to use or even check in on Wave. Lots of people set up accounts and within a few weeks never thought about it again. You're also building a system who's value is going to come after there's a critical mass of people using it.

Again I'm not saying you can't build critical mass, but I do think it will be harder than you might think.

KristineS
10-07-2010, 01:47 PM
Robby, I think I'm starting to get a better picture of what you're trying to do. I'm wondering if you might not be better off concentrating on one type of business first in order to get this site off the ground. The category that comes to mind is restaurants and coffee shops and places like that. First of all, these places want reviews and are used to soliciting them more than other businesses would be. Second, customers are more inclined to review restaurants. Sites like Yelp! etc. have made that kind of the norm. Plus food and a restaurant experience is something that people might be more inclined to discuss.

I'm also find your idea of getting people in touch with companies that can provide advice interesting. Are you talking about having a service where I could go to your site and say I have a knock in my engine or something and mechanics could give me some potential trouble spots and then I could decide where I wanted to take my car for service? That's an interesting idea, and could have potential, but you would have to be prepared for a long run up as you get people used to using the service on a regular basis. You would also need to have business customers who are web savvy and used to contributing to forums and using the web. Not every business owner or manager is that way.

I think you have some interesting ideas here, and please don't be discouraged by the issues that we're mentioning. If you go through this process now, the final product that goes to market will be that much stronger.

boogle
10-07-2010, 05:50 PM
Kristine, you beat me to the punch on the advice idea :). I think Van is dead on with the wave comparison. Its not that your idea is not better, its that the current vehicle (email) works well enough where people are not inclined to change. Now... if I could go somewhere and say my engine is rattling, like Kristine said, and they could all offer me their input and bid for a price, I would be one happy customer. I currently looking at building a new screened in porch. I am reluctant to going to someone and getting them to start up ideas because I do not want to feel locked into anyone, and I really do not know what I am looking for. I might want wood paneling for the bottom half, I may want to raise it up, I would love a ceiling fan but how much more does that cost. I do not really know this kind of stuff, and maybe I could be convinced to just do it myself. If I could go somewhere and write what I just told you, and have lumber companies, contractors, rent-a-husband type small operations all tell me what their ideas would be and what it would cost, that would be pretty awesome. There is a huge benefit for the customer and the business. I am assuming this is a free service, which means you are making your money on advertising. You could let businesses pay extra to be at the top of the list, or maybe even be notified of a question before the non-paying businesses do. If you have a niche market, like home improvement and mechanics, you will also generate more with adsense and other programs that work better with niche markets.

Not at all trying to tell you what to do, I just see a lot of potential there and that is a pretty unique and easy to sell idea. I would use it.

vangogh
10-08-2010, 12:41 PM
I'm wondering if you might not be better off concentrating on one type of business first in order to get this site off the ground.

I'm not sure if targeting a specific industry is the right approach. If I'm understanding right then part of the benefit is being exposed to the customers of other businesses. If we're all in the same industry then we're just stealing each other's customers. The idea of picking up new customers from my competition is good, but at the same time do I want all my customers interacting so easily with my competition. Grabbing from across industries might be better, though I could still be misunderstanding a little how everything is working.

I do like the idea of being able to get advice about specific problems from experts. Again though the issue will be filling up the site with experts, which will take time, but it's certainly doable with the right incentives.

By the way in case I haven't been clear I do see potential here. Most of my objections are just trying to get you to see where other people might have them and hopefully help you think through some potential roadblocks.

BizPals
10-09-2010, 11:59 PM
Vangogh:
Let me briefly give my reasoning for making the site. This may help you understand why some of the features are the way they are. I made this site to help small businesses build a loyal repeat customer base through building the customer business relationship. My main purpose is not to just increase the number of customers a business receives but increase the number of repeat customers they have. This is because 80% of a businesses income is from repeat business, so by increasing repeat customers you have a huge effect on a businesses income. By increasing communication, allowing each service to be rated, and providing a way for customers to keep track of transactions, I believe I can achieve this goal. At this poing, I am making the assumption that a customer who signs up for my site has already used your services atleast once (I am making this assumption because, as you have said, I have not reached critical mass yet), and either you have asked them to add you on my site so you can build on your relationship.

The thread is continuous, and no new thread can be created between the same customer and business. The reason I gave it this structure was to make things easy to find, and provide a timeline for customers and businesses. Having that timeline gives customers a bigger picture of the service they have been receiving from businesses, they can see how the quality of service from one business may have improved or diminished over time. They can also track their own behaviour with respect to a particular business see how often they used the businesses’ services over a period of time. The fact that all messages are saved and not thrown out helps keeps both sides honest which is also nice to have in any business transaction.

Every rating has to be requested, and has to have a description of what service the customer received that is to be rated. The reason for the this is because I have seen sites such as Yelp and many others where a small business owner may have had a bad day, or the customer was having a bad day, and the business receives a horrible review. And as we all know, a bad review has a lot more power than a few good reviews. Since the rating is requested, this means the customer is a bizpal of the business and has used the business a few time or plans on continuing to use the service giving a broader more accurate rating of the business. Going to a business once and rating their service does not give an accurate description of the business, that’s like coming to Canada in the middle of the summer and saying its hot here. Also, when bizpals rate businesses on particular rating requests, they are rating one particular service giving an even more detailed assesment of the business. These ratings from all the bizpals are aggregated and displayed on the businesses homepage allowing other potential customers to see the ratings. The service descriptions remain private and stay between the customer and business. Since each rating is for a specific task this gives each rating accuracy, and aggregating these ratings from a group a of different people who all received different services from the business gives a broad yet accurate view of the business, which is a lot more useful to new potential customers and better feedback for the business. Businesses can not see the ratings on a rating request, they can only see the aggregated ratings on their homepage. This is to promote honesty from customers to provide real relevant ratings. I agree with you that testimonials are more valuable even if you have fewer of them, but I believe a large number of ratings can in some cases can trump testimonials. That is another bonus of this rating system, each bizpal a business has can provide thousands of ratings over a long enough period of time which are aggreagated with other bizpals to provide a huge number of ratings.

What is visible to the public on your business profile is a picture, breif description of your business, contact info, a map, and the aggreated ratings from all your bizpals. Really simple.

I am not saying my site is a better communication tool in general compared to email, I believe it has more to offer for a business customer dynamic.

I understand your point of google wave and critical mass, but if I may say google waves approach was:
increase in complexity => increase in benefit
where as mine is:
same complexity (if not easier) => increase in benefit

Kristine:
I like your idea of concentrating on one type of business, I did make this site with my fathers business in mind (a mechanic shop). The advice aspect is a huge part of this idea. How it works is you have to add a mechanic shop to your list (probably one you have used before), this allows you to have a communication thread with the shop. You send them a message describe your problem and they answer. Since you have used the business before, or have seen all the ratings they have you know they are qualified professionals. The advice a mechanic provides build customer loyalty, and if the advice doesn't work you can ask again and the mechanic who probably has hundreds of emails and phone calls for problems can easily see what he or she suggested earlier and can give better advice the next time. This thread also allows the mechanic to get to know you and your car, because as you continue to communicate he can see what type of advice you usually need and what problems your car usually has. This, I think, is a lot better than being bombarded by hundreds of random companies competing to give you advice.

I understand the process and I truly appreciate all your input. I am enjoying all the different perspectives, and the deep drilling questions. I hope there is still more to come.

Ryan:
Where my site would come in on your dilemma would be if you added a contracting company on your bizpal account and asked them for advice, and they provide it in hopes that for bigger projects you choose them.

Thanks for all the wisdom so far guys, I can not wait for what else you guys come up with :)

vangogh
10-11-2010, 12:39 PM
Thanks for the added info Robby. Hopefully the more we talk about it the more that sentence or two to describe things comes to you.


My main purpose is not to just increase the number of customers a business receives but increase the number of repeat customers they have.

That's great and if that's the main purpose I suggest your brief description should come out of that. However I'm still having a hard time understanding how you'e helping me as a business do this. Again I'm not trying to be mean, just trying to understand better. You mention that your site increases communication between business and customer. How? I don't see that. I'm not suggesting you aren't offering anything more. Just saying I don't see it yet.

The main thing I'm hearing about the communication is that through your service the conversation is a single threaded message. I'm not sure how that increases communication at all. I'm still typing back and forth to a customer the same as I do now. I think I'll get repeat business because I do a good job and treat my customers well. I don't think the form of communication has much to do with that.

The idea of having a timeline where both businesses and customers can see the quality of services over time is a good one. I'm not sure it will be used as often as you might think, but it's still a good idea.

The idea of letting other businesses see the ratings on my profile is a good one, though I think that's something that would be helpful in generating new business not repeat business. It's also coming across to me like a very complicated process with all the specific requests.

There's one thing I think you're missing in all this. You may not think it, but you are making things more complicated. The simple fact of having to go to your site and through your site makes things more complicated. You're adding another site for both business and customer to bookmark and log into and learn the interface. It's another step in the process and that makes it more complicated. If instead you offered me a widget or application I could add to my site it removes some of that complication. There's no reason I should ever send my customers away from my site in order for them to talk to me. It's still easier for a customer to click a link on my site with an email address than it is to go to your site, login and then send me a message. Customers are not going to do that if they have both options. People choose the path of least resistance.

Another question that comes to mind. Say I do use your service and 6 months later for whatever reason either I decide not continue with your service or you disappear. What happens to all the conversations? Do I lose them?

BizPals
10-14-2010, 01:42 AM
Vangogh:

Those are valid points, I can see how it is an extra step for you to send someone to another site in order to communicate with you. I will have to admit you are not my target market, I was thinking more along the lines of mechanic shops, and therapy clinics where contact with a professional for advice would be great, and a history of transactions can provide a good insight on problems. Most of these small businesses have very little presence on the web, most under utilize their emails, and a lot do not use their emails to communicate with clients for whatever reason. This way i provide a more interactive marketing than the yellow pages (who charge ridiculous rates), and a lot more meaningful and effective communication than facebook pages. At the point i reach "critical mass" it would be more effective for someone such as yourself, to gain exposure to potential new clients.

I really enjoy having this conversation with you please don't worry about hurting my feelings :)

Hope to hear more from you.

vangogh
10-17-2010, 09:24 PM
That makes more sense. Also why I asked about who you saw as your customer above. Your service makes a lot more sense for someone who doesn't currently have a web presence since you're helping to give them one. One thing that suggests is that the web itself may not be the best place to market to these people. Not to suggest that not having a website means not using the web, but you are likely dealing with people who aren't as web savvy. A big key I think is going to be making it as easy as possible to use your site and service. Some of the people you'll be marketing won't have a web presence simply because they themselves don't use the web.

Then again those businesses that don't have a presence because they don't use the web at all probably aren't your ideal customer since you'd have to convince them why a presence online is important in the first place. There's a sweet spot for you of people who do know they should be online, but for whatever reason haven't built a presence. Down the line you may want to offer an easy website solution since your ideal customer may likely want a site after having used your service for awhile. Maybe that just means being able to expand their profiles more.

Out of curiosity have you gone in to a few of these businesses in person and talked to the owners. Not so much to sell them on your service, but more to find out how they use the web for their business and how they interact with it. Maybe you already have done this, but I would think talking to the people you see as your customer and finding out what problems they have in regards to having an online presence as well as what problems they have interacting with customers via email and the like would generate a lot of ideas for you.


I really enjoy having this conversation with you please don't worry about hurting my feelings

Good to know. I didn't think I was hurting your feelings, but since you're new here and I don't know you all that well I figured the safe thing was to mention that I wasn't trying to be mean or critical and was trying to help. Sometimes you don't know how people will receive what you're saying. :)

BizPals
10-20-2010, 07:56 PM
I have not yet approached any businesses. I think thats a really good idea, thats the first thing I am going to do is find businesses that fit that criteria and ask them how they use the web etc.

Thanks Vangogh

vangogh
10-22-2010, 11:36 AM
Even more than asking them just try to observe them if that's possible. It might not be realistic, but if you can I'd silently observe. The idea is that what they tell you may be a little different than what they really do.

DeniseTaylor
10-22-2010, 03:43 PM
Personally, I hate cold calling and canvassing. :p

Perhaps you could use the Internet. I didn't see why I, as a business, would want to use it. So that's the first step, making it compelling so businesses know why and how you can help them.

The next step is to drive traffic to it.

Besides entertainment and socializing, people are on the Net to get information. The are looking for solutions to their problems. If you could research and find out what keywords they describe these problems how they use them to find solutions to those problems, you could write content to fulfill that "demand."

Writing lots of content this way, will pull lots of natural search engine traffic to your site. I would probably start a second site to do this.

Once you've helped your visitor and they like you, you then point them to your service site as deeper, more lasting solution for them.

vangogh
10-22-2010, 05:08 PM
Perhaps you could use the Internet.

The thing is Robby's potential customers probably aren't big Internet users so it'll be harder to reach them there. As far as the cold calling, I'm not sure if you referring to my suggestion to go into the businesses directly. I wasn't at all meaning to sell people on the idea. To me the point of going into the business is to get a better understanding of how those businesses currently use the Internet. The visit is mainly for researching purposes. If Robby happens to strike up a conversation about the business and can make a few sales, that's great, but the visit should be about research more than sales.

BizPals
10-23-2010, 01:24 PM
I dont know if observing them would be a possibility, but definitely have to go talk to them. I think the first thing I have to correct is the message I am sending. I believe I am not clearly communicating what my site can do for a business (as many people have pointed out, and I am glad they did). I am going to fix that first, and talk to businesses see what it is they want. I also do not like the idea of "cold calling" but have to start somewhere, and hopefully I can find some businesses to talk to on the internet it would really cut down the work i have to do.

Thanks for the input Denise, may I ask what your business is?

vangogh
10-25-2010, 11:50 AM
Don't think of this as cold calling. Go into the business with the idea of understanding them better in order to improve your service. You shouldn't be trying to sell anything. Odds are the business owners who do talk to you will be curious about your business and you'll inevitably be able to do some subtle selling anyway, but don't approach things as trying to sell. This is about research.

I realize it will be hard to observe how the businesses use the Internet. Just keep in mind that what they tell you they do isn't necessarily what they actually do.