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Article by Sam Martin, PE, CVS, President of OfficeOnWeb, Technologies. 1/3/2001

I am amazed by the talk of the death of the dot coms. While it is true that things have chilled considerably, it was predicted that a shake out would occur. For the last two years people invested in anything with a dot com in it. Business plans were not examined and choices were based upon getting to Initial Public Offerings. The bubble had to burst someday, and the year 2000 was the year that advertising found out that Foosball tables and Superbowl ads did not ensure marketing success.

People are a little wiser now, and more cautious, perhaps too cautious in my opinion. How many US industries grew more than 25% in a year that everyone talks about being a bad year? On line Christmas sales doubled from the sales figures in 1999 (going from $4.2 billion to $8.7 billion). Daily Internet sales exceeded $200 million in December. The worldwide number of people on the net doubled to 407 million at the end of the year (NUA Internet Surveys). More than 94% of people shopping on the web said their purchases were successful and they were satisfied with the service (Goldman Sachs and PC Data Online). Projections are that Internet hosting of businesses will increase by a factor of four this year alone (Interactive Week).

With all this growth, why is everyone so glum and down on the dot com industry? Two reasons first, people had unrealistic expectations that creating a company that was based upon a business plan that was nothing but marketing and endless growth would generate infinite wealth. It never has and it didn't. Second, the press has fallen out of "love" with the industry. Part of the reason for that is the large number of much publicized failures that have occurred in the last year.

If you think the dot coms are dead, don't tell IBM, Dell, AT&T, and the rest of the major corporations. They continue to move heavily into the Internet. While small companies and under capitalized firms are falling by the wayside, the large companies are moving in fast. They know that the Internet is the best opportunity for business expansion and customer support and they are moving fast to reel in their market share.

So how do we as small businesses compete with these mega-businesses? Here are some ideas that work:

• First, patronize our fellow small businesses. It is simple networking. Patronizing and partnering with others like ourselves helps your business grow. I personally am amazed at the number of people getting access through AOL, earthlink, MSN and the other big corporations and paying an extra $5.00 to do it! We offer everything they do, cost less, and it would support another small business. Further, we are stable as we have survived and don't have a 1.4 billion dollar debt load like they do. We are more likely to be around than they may be.
• Second, examine ways to expand your Internet presence. Don't treat your Internet presence like it was a hobby. Examine ways to use your web site to benefit your clients. It takes five times as much to generate a new client as it does to keep an existing one. A web site is a great support tool that is available 24/7 and the cost to produce the support is negligible. Think of the sites that you like. The best ones tell you the status of your order, tell you how to install the product, allow a download of a support feature, and more. Why not do that for your customer?
• Third, answer your e-mail!!!! It is unbelievable to me how people mistreat e-mail. First, some don't use it as an advertising tool. They advertise their dial up provider instead of themselves. Worse, many don't even check their e-mail. How can you stay in business when you won't respond to potential clients. We had one Realtor that said they didn't like the net because it did not work. We found that they were not checking their e-mail for the last four months. They had highly qualified queries that they ignored. Just one follow-up could have meant several thousands of dollars in profit. We have many people that complain that people wait too long to respond. If someone called you by phone would you put them on hold for three days? That is what you are doing when you wait three days to respond to an e-mail.
• Fourth, get some content up there on the screen. People are not searching the net to buy as much as to search the net for information. Providing information generates consumer confidence in your businesses, and generates return traffic. Put coupons up. They generate traffic and give you a measure of how your site is doing. If the data changes often, you can lease an updatable page generator that does not require you to learn how to program, upload, and so on. Just call us for details.
• Fifth, advertise your business web site. Put it on your business cards, in all ads (in big type), and even on your checks. When you prominently list your web site address on traditional advertising, a properly designed web site increases the productivity of advertising by a third!
• Sixth, use your web site to guide your business decisions and reduce your costs. A web site can tell you if your adverting is effective. Check your logs and see how well your ads are doing. If you spend a lot on a newspaper ad that has your web site address prominently listed, and your traffic doesn't go up, the ad was not effective. Place information on the site for your staff to use. For example, placing your calendar on the web is not that expensive and can increase productivity.
• Seventh, make the purchase of your products very easy. In 1999 and 2000 we designed a new shopping cart designed to remove obstacles found in most Internet shopping cart systems. Sales for clients that move to this system doubled in the first month. Make a purchase a click or two away and use systems that don't croak with all the usual Internet hiccups.
• Eighth, protect your clients. When I see a business that doesn't care about my security I click for the exit. I am amazed that even with the Federal law stating you must give secure ordering for clients how many sites just ship credit cards by e-mail (which is totally insecure). We provide four to five level security in our designs and on our servers. This exceeds the Federal standard. Be wary of security. Just because it seems "easier" to get clients orders by e-mail, be forewarned of what could happen with totally insecure e-mail of their credit card information. This is something important to understand and be smart about.
• Ninth, think about your supply chain. Can the Internet increase efficiency or reduce costs when purchasing from your vendors? Can the web improve your distribution channels? Can an on line catalogue, kept up to date, reduce your printing costs?

The Internet is much more than a shopping mall for consumers. It also provides numerous to streamline business and reduce costs. The big companies are doing, so can you.

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Did you know that in 1998 more than 95% of OfficeOnWeb's new customers made a profit from their web site within their first year of operation? Sad, but it is true. This compares to less than 20% industry wide ever even breaking even. Why? Professional and directed expertise. This industry average for people leaving their current web service provider is 4% per month! That's nearly 50% over a year! Ours is less than 1% per year. That is because we endeavor to make our clients money and don't just offer a "pat solution" that we know has a low probability of ever making our client a profit. Some of the features that make up the level of success that our clients enjoy are:

 Five redundant backbone connections

 99.999% up time on UNIX servers

 Redundant OC-3 connect to all five backbones

 Full data center services

RAID 5 system with weekly backup of critical systems

 True Web Developer Services

 Large support site for clients and visitors

 Four level or higherencryption on all e-commerce solutions designed by Office On Web (this is the government standard required if Government people are to use a site)

 We NEVER host a commercial site on an access server (that is really bad, but common in dial up providers)

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