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Very often, I am confronted with a dilemma. One was
surely an event that took place last week. During midterm exams at the
college, in one of my marketing management classes, I caught a student
cheating. This person had copies of class notes tucked underneath his
chair, which he discreetly read from time to time, particularly when I
was not looking his way.
When I caught wind of this, I silently walked over to his table,
grabbed the incriminating evidence and, without a word, walked away.
(I later confronted him about the incident in private.) Now, we're
told as teachers to never take this kind of unethical activity
personally. But I couldn't help. I love my students and take their
welfare very seriously -- and personally.
I offered a scenario to this gentleman: "If you had to undergo
life-threatening, open heart surgery, would it matter if your doctor
cheated his way through medical school?" (Incidentally, a recent
Internet cartoon jokingly referred to the same matter. A surgeon was
about to operate on a patient when he said, "Nurse, please visit 'surgery.com'
to find out what we must do next!")
Seriously though, the correlation between cheating and Internet
marketing is surely that of spam. In reality, spamming is to cheat
one's business out of much more in the long run. For example, I often
-- and often passionately -- teach about the negative effects of spam.
Unquestionably, spam is profitable in the short term. But like so many
other marketers on the Internet these days, spammers think about cash
instead of *cashflow*. Big difference.
Spam will generate sales -- a shrinking
minority of people will respond favorably to spam giving a short,
temporary boost to any online business. However, like a drug the
effect usually never lasts and the need to keep spamming will emerge
sooner or later. And similarly, the hangover can often be deadly --
with ISPs deactivating, flames abounding and authorities looming.
Spam is not the only culprit. Many have instituted moneymaking
processes on their websites that typically generate either very small
quantities of cash or very large quantities in very short periods of
time. By far, it is a better approach to institute a process in which
continuous streams of cash keep flowing.
Similarly, if your promotional efforts have been to simply generate
sales, you are solely and wrongfully seeking cash instead of cashflow.
This is usually accomplished by advertising only the existence of a
business or product, or offering price reductions and sales
promotions. It is better to promote the fact your business is unique,
different or special, and not that it is merely "open."
While cash is king, cashflow is definitely a better option. So here's
a question: What can you do to infuse an endless stream of cash into
your business? While every single business is different, with
individual needs, goals and processes, here are two key result areas
upon which you may want to ponder.
1) Business Model
Does your chosen business model
(in other words, the manner in which your business operates, exchanges
goods and markets itself) stimulate cashflow? Or is it one in which
the products or services you offer cause it to lose value, or to
become saturated in a given market, over time? If the latter is true,
then it may be your while to examine how you can change or improve
your business model to achieve cashflow. Here are some key questions:
Are there any other businesses with which you can joint venture in
order to capitalize on marketing opportunities, share markets, upsell
your current customer base or grow your offerings (or their perceive
value)? Are there strategic marketing alliances you can form with
others in order to enter new markets, tap new segments or implement
new processes on your website?
Can you develop strategic marketing alliances (see my article on the
subject at
http://SuccessDoctor.com/article8.htm). For example, can you
develop info-networks, auto-networks or intra-networks so to grow your
marketing reach? Expand your target market? Expedite your orders? Add
value to your offerings? Simplify your customers' experience? Reduce
your costs? Or increase the size of your customers' transactions?
In short, don't stagnate. Look beyond your business, including direct
and indirect competitors as well as other, non-competing businesses
with which you can team. Look at ways you can generate continuous
customers by increasing either the size of their transactions or the
frequency of such. Often, you can accomplish this with the help of
other businesses or products and in ways of which you may never have
thought. Think "outside the box."
2) Automation
As marketeer Corey Rudl often
preaches, automation is the biggest, and often the most
underestimated, opportunity of the Internet. Whether it's to
communicate with your customers on a constant basis, to accept orders
(such as by credit card), or to fulfill and expedite your orders,
automation should be an important aspect into which you should look.
Are you implementing processes that can help automate your business,
its operations and above all its marketing? Are you constantly
thinking of ways through which your orders can be filled, your
customers can be served and your marketing can be deployed
automatically? Can it be placed on auto-pilot?
What I call "auto-pilotizing" is the process through which you can
engineer your business so that it can operate with as little
intervention as possible. For instance, Michael Gerber, author of the
bestseller "The
E-Myth," states that in today's fast-paced,
convenience-seeking culture business success is often inherent in a
business' capability of becoming auto-pilotized.
In Gerber's words, it is to think of ways you can create multiple
copies of your business that are capable of running by themselves
without intervention. It is even to think of how you can add
individual value to your business, making it possible to separate it
from the owner as well as sell it at a later date.
Now, the goal here is neither franchising your business nor selling it
-- at least not immediately. The concept is to *think* in this manner
right now. It is to think about how you can automate your business
today. And the more you think along those lines, the more value you
will add to your business and your offerings, as well as the more
cashflow you will in turn create.
However, here's a caveat. Keep in mind that the Internet will demand a
more humanizing experience -- a demand that will keep growing over
time. One of John Naisbitt's "Megatrends," from his book of the same
name, is called "high-tech/high-touch." It means that the more
automated we become the more the demand for social interaction will
grow. But the question is, can automation and humanization be
combined? Of course. Technologies exist today for that purpose -- such
as CRM ("customer relationship management").
(While the Internet is still in its infancy, automation and certainly
humanization are definitely younger. Therefore, there may be an
opportunity lurking in there somewhere for you.) Nevertheless, the
bottom-line is to think cashflow, not cash. The more you do, the more
prosperous and successful you will become.
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