Online Resource for Business

After the dust has settles on your website and the number of visitors is counted in tens not thousands the disappointment of the Internet comes home.

This has happened to hundreds of business owners across the UK week in week out.  Why is it that so many other business owners seem to be doing so well?  You have put the effort in you have invested the budget but the promises of the web developer and the stories in the press have not happened for you.

Why are you not getting some of the £1.2 Billion of sales online in the UK each week?  What is it about your website that the customers do not like?

A website user experience review Many of the clients we see each month, in our website user experience review sessions, say the same thing.  Our website is not working and we do not know why.  We have not had many visitors since we launched our site four years ago. In fact we have never had a customer from the site.  We have spent a fortune on Google Adwords and Search Engine Optimisation but we still cannot get the site to work as we want.

After a coffee and some questions about the products, services and original objective of the site we start to build up a picture of the process the client went through to get where they are now.  The non existent design brief, the unrealistic expectations and the low budget allowance.   All this combined with a misunderstanding of what is involved in the development, management and promotion of a website that works.  These are the reasons many have not had the results they expected from their websites.

The website design brief The first approach by the many is one of how much will it cost, when it should be how much of an investment will I have to make to get a website that can be beneficial to my business.  I have a design brief with me that outline the products, target customers, functionality, and what I want to achieve from my site over the next two years. I have approached three other web developers and I want a quotation from you.

We recently published an article about this subject called What would you get if you ordered your food the same way you commissioned your website? and can be found in the Telegraph Business Club website at

This should give you some idea of the outcome of handing the responsibility of your business to a creative.

Unrealistic expectations It is exciting to see that nearly 20% of retail sales are now done online.  But we have to remember that people are a discerning lot.  You, I and everyone you can think of make decisions on what, how and when they buy.  The smallest thing that is out of place can stop you and them in their tracks probably going to a competitor website to make the purchase.

When you are in a shop the salesperson can adapt their conversation as they listen to you speak.  Online we do not have that opportunity so we have to predict the user and their behaviour to enable us to give them what they want in the fastest and most intuitive way possible.  Just because you have a website with a picture of the product on it does not mean that everyone who comes to the site will buy.  It is more than a numbers game.

Your investment This is quite a simple problem – the perception that the internet is cheap is self inflicted.  There is so much free stuff online that why should you pay!  How many of you can be honest enough to admit that everything you have had for free has cost you more in the long term. We have all bought a spanner form pound land and it has bent the first time we have used it.  If we only want to use it once than that is OK and value for money.  But we do not delude ourselves in the fact that the spanner will last a lifetime.

The same goes for the internet.  A website that only costs you £1000 will not bring untold wealth.  If you have an office or shop in a good location work out what it cost to set up and run.  Without any promotion how many passing customers do you get each month?  What is the cost of teach customer?  Add up all the overheads and business costs and divide by the number of passing customers.  Find out how much this group of customers spent in the month and then work out if they are profitable.

Think to yourself how much it would cost to open a shop / office in every major town along the M4 to London.  Now work out what the cost of doing the same in every town and village across the country.  The sums soon mount up and then there is the manning of each location, stock and all the other costs involved, travel etc.  You will have a network of businesses across the UK with the ability to be seen by many millions of people.  The business should do well, but the cost of setup will be considerable.

Now what is the cost of getting into every home and office in the country that has an internet connection?  The £1000 you have spent on a website is no where near realistic if you want to grow a business.

The never ending race When you publish a website you are entering the internet race.  A race that never ends and you only win if you are in the top 10 places. At the beginning you get to the top fairly easily because all the other runners in your section are walking.  They see you walking faster so they start to pick up speed.  You increase speed because you were enjoying being at the top as it meant more income.  They will then go faster and the race really picks up.  But you are getting the returns on your investment.

If you stop for a rest or take time out from the promotion of your website the other runners will catch up and pass you.

A website is not ‘publish and it is done’.  It is a living document and as such needs feeding and management.  You have to commit to it if you want it to bring you the rewards that are there waiting for you.

But realise that the development, publishing and promotion of a website is more than talking to a web designer and popping a few pictures and some text on a webpage.

To get an independent user experience review of your website contact Nigel T Packer on 01693 820984 or email him now nigel@bsuinessforbusiness.co.uk

As long ago as the 1990′s there have been predictions on the way the internet is going. The change that we have seen to date is nothing to what is coming in the next few years and the future. It is not always safe to predict the future but if you consider the way the internet has influenced our lives to date it is not difficult to predict the changes that will come. Changes that affect everything we do and the way we live. I am not referring to the movement towards social media and the latest trends in business promotion but the way the internet is influencing how people live, interact and pursue their daily activities. The changes the internet has brought that influence and affects the way we all interact socially and in business. Like the printing press and education that changed society in the past, the journey will be difficult, some will resist, many will gain and many will lose. The effect the internet has had to date is small, only taken up by those who see the possibilities. Only a small minority who are engaged are actually influencing the creation of trends that are seen as the greatest thing or the next killer application. The vast majority of internet users are joining unaware of the consequences and not sure of the possibilities but want to be part of it, the ‘me too people’. A sales medium or something else? Business owners see the internet as another sales medium, individuals see it as many things: A place to meet, a place to share, a place to learn, a place to make purchases. These are all the positive facets, we also have to think of the ‘dark side’ a place to corrupt, a place to mislead, a place to steal, a place to groom. I have been researching the effects the internet has had on the retail industry in the last 10 years and the results are quite scary for those who occupy the High Street. At speaking events – across the UK and in Europe – I have been sharing with audiences about the changes that have taken place and are yet to come. It has frightened many but the evidence is irrefutable. Too many of the old schools, in Business, the Press and Politics do not comprehend the enormity the internet will have in everything we do. Business, society and life will never be the same again. The vast majority of business owners are reacting to the technology created by the web developers and trends internet users create by their volume and curiosity. These businesses are jumping on the band wagon hoping they won’t get left behind. The movers and shakers are the likes of Amazon and eBay – and don’t get it right every time – They are the ones who thought it through from the beginning and are now reaping the rewards. Online Retail The retail industry has a lot of catching up to do. They are still applying old business models to the internet. It is not the High Street it is the Internet, it is new and in most cases it is the blind leading the blind. Business owners are reliant on web designers and developers to find the solution to their needs but these are not business people or marketers. They simply take the clients money and build a website from a template and then put the clients content into it. No consideration has been made for the people who will be using the website. The News The press are also applying old business models to the delivery and monetisation of the news using the internet and they are failing rapidly. There was an interesting commentary by a journalist who was deriding bloggers on the BBC last evening. He has not realised that the mainstream press have lost out to a fast moving agile sub culture that is gaining momentum from the need of the user for faster and more responsive news. Not from across the world but from local events and issues. Watch out as twitter takes over from the press for local news and postings form amateur journalists on every street corner armed with a mobile phone, a blog and a twitter feed. Social media Society has already changed beyond recognition and we will see more of this in the next few years. Some governments have already tried to stop the march of the internet by blocking and filtering information. However, like the hacker each time you put in a firewall the hacker sees it as a challenge to get around. The vast majority of social media users are blissfully unaware of the consequences of their actions, they are feeding the speed of change by joining. On social networks you can see everything you would expect in a soap opera. I have seen the early development of a love story to an acrimonious divorce. There has been the offer of a job to the public sacking of an employee because they connected to their new boss when they started in the job and then published a diatribe of how bad it was working in the company. This is not fiction it is the real thing, happening in real time and far more relative than the six week soap story. Does this mean the end of the soap opera as we know it? The future We are at the beginning of the story, I cannot predict with any accuracy of what technology or trend will spring out of the next great website. One thing I can be sure it will happen because the technology, the will, and the momentum are there. The internet is a self service environment and whatever way you want to use it you have to take this into consideration. The question that business owners should be asking themselves is: What do users want? Can we provide it in an easy and timely way that meets their needs and wants? Who will survive? It is not really about the strong surviving but about the ones who can see, those people who have the broad knowledge from many sectors and are open to the challenges that the internet brings. They are not the young but the wise, the ‘T’ shaped people with a wide knowledge base which is focused on a core area, the internet. Kind regards Nigel T Packer

I was sent a customer feedback survey email yesterday from a well known supplier of business insurance. The company had provided a good service to me in the past and I was pleased to complete the form as it said in the email that it would only take a few minutes. Is it a phishing email? The first thing that struck me about the email was the lack of brand identity – No Logo or heading. At the bottom of the email there was an email address for the MD of the company. No contact details or company number – is this a phishing email? I decided to contact the MD to confirm if this was a legitimate request. So I looked the company name up in Google. The site I was presented with had no Contact us page but did have various services they provide including a tab marked Business. I clicked on it where I was met by a new web page and a number of options to select from. On this Business page there was a self promotion advertisement saying ‘Contact Us Our team of specialist advisers would love to help you. Please call us free between: Weekdays 8:30am to 5:30pm’ A nice message but No telephone number! Back to Google to find their telephone number on a directory website.  On the phone I got through to the call centre where the operator did not know who the person I was looking for was. She worked in a different department in a different town.  She put me through to the head office where I spoke to the marketing department.  They were aware of the MD and then told me that he was away on holiday until the next week. They also explained that they had sent out the survey email and it was a legitimate request. The poor user experience My whole user experience in this case was poor and if I had wanted to buy insurance from this multi-million turnover company then I would have had quite a job. Unlike most users I went far above the usual levels of persistence to get a response purely to see where it would lead. Most individuals would have given up when they could not find a telephone number on the website. Hit the back button and looked for an alternative provider. How many customers are they losing each day from a poor testing procedure and unconnected promotion of their services? It is hard to tell how many potential customers you lose each day from your websites.  The only way to find out is to carry out a website user experience review with an expert.  The cost of which is far less that the loss of revenue and sales and the brand damage that it causes. If you want to know the name of the company then email me at info@businessforbusiness.co.uk and I will tell you.  If you are the Insurance Company then please get in touch and we can arrange a Website User Experience Review for you.  The RoI on a User review is between 200% and 700%.

Another business advisor has contacted me over the ERP and changes to the economy. He has sent the following email to Ieuan Wyn Jones and he has kindly allowed me to reproduce it here.

“Dear Minister

I have been involved in corporate finance in Wales for 13 years; the last two in my own limited company consultancy business. My experience has shown that targeted grant support (both ‘free’ and repayable) for the right businesses has been invaluable in allowing them to start/expand/locate to Wales and to create real, sustainable, well paid and highly skilled jobs. Both my clients (previous and current) and I have been shocked by the approach taken by the Welsh Assembly Government. My clients’ view is that Wales is now ‘closed for business’ – surely not the intention you hoped to portray, but genuine feedback nonetheless.

I have been lucky to work with some excellent businesses in my working career. Even in the last two years, projects for which I have helped to secure grant support will create and safeguard well in excess of 500 jobs in the next three years alone. I can tell you that the average basic salary across all of these jobs is just shy of £30k and will ultimately ‘cost’ the Welsh Assembly £5.5m (although almost £1.5m of this is subject to repayment). Importantly, this support has leveraged over £8.5m of commercial funding – most of which has been dependent upon grant support. Those jobs are also highly skilled (IT, manufacturing, environmental) with my clients committing considerable sums to further training and development. Several of the these clients have also created strong links with Academia with some even influencing the curriculum to tailor graduates’ skills. I can confirm that none of this would have been achieved without grant support.

I would be the first to agree that there were fundamental issues with the grant regime prior to the Single Investment Fund. However, the change of emphasis towards quality jobs, training, skills etc. within SIF was a great step forward. For financial constraint cases, none of my clients had issues with elements of the grant being repayable (why should they?) and this could have continued. The fundamental issue has actually been the WAG support infrastructure rather than grants themselves. Critical decisions should have been taken when the WDA was subsumed into WAG and, again, with the launch of SIF. However, for whatever reason this did not happen. It now appears that all businesses are to suffer for the failing of WAG to make difficult decisions at the time.

I was currently engaged by a number of companies with mobile projects and they were of a high quality with the proposed jobs having excellent skill levels and high salaries. These companies were only considering Wales as an option because of the potential grant support available. Given the absolute lack of information and guidance emanating from WAG since the announcement was made, all have chosen to pursue alternate options. This is a very poor state of affairs and reflects badly on Wales as a whole – reinforcing the stereotype of Wales being an inward looking and backward country. This hurts me considerably as I take great pride in this country and the potential that it has.

Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that anything I say will have any influence but it is important to me that I try. I would urge you to reconsider the swinging cuts you propose and to urgently make a decision on the treatment of mobile projects.”

I am most disturbed by the statement about the lack of information and guidance from WAG which is clearly causing confusion amongst businesses and their advisers. It is not an isolated incident as I have heard similar complaints from others within Wales who work with businesses both large and small.

More concerning is the growing perception that Wales is ‘closed for business’.

To a large extent, the blame for this must be laid firmly at the door of WAG as it has focused its communications strategy for ERP on the message ”an end to the grants culture” rather than anything positive for business.

If you were a company, would such a headline make you think about relocating here to Wales? I very much doubt it.

This comment was left yesterday by Bob Shepherd on one of the blog entries from last week.

I reproduce it here for those who may have missed it as it demonstrates the strong feelings out there in the business support community over these changes to economic development in Wales.

Unlike some of the commentators who have posted on this blog lately, individuals such as Bob are those who are working every day to try and bring business into Wales.

Yes, these changes directly affects businesses such as Bob’s but it is clear that, at least in the short term, the ERP will also affect the potential of the rest of the Welsh economy to grow itself out of recession.

“I am a consultant who has dealt with grants, finance and mentoring, both for and despite the WAG activities. I have friends and colleagues who move in my world, some of whom are (still) working for WAG in some context or other. I am not a big fan of the WAG business support efforts in recent years but what has happened lately is beyond belief. My own blog has followed a similar line.

One could argue some of the points made in the ERP would be a good idea if we were starting off right now. But to guillotine grants and much of what was in train without something in place to follow on is laughably inept, unprofessional, needlessly destructive and frankly typical of the WAG dabbling in an area they really don’t know too much about.

I understand the staff don’t know what is going on. The clients don’t know if their grant application made the cut, so to speak. There are good propositions out there which were being prepared at no small cost which are now scrapped or on hold at best. There are consultants who relied on the complexities of the grant system for a business themselves who are wondering what to do. There are businesses shying away from coming to Wales, not only because they can’t get a grant but because of the chaotic business environment now apparent. I could go on but you all know what I am talking about.

The last I heard is that WAG are expecting some decisions to be made by the New Year!

I am joining a small campaign that is growing which is to personally email ieuan.wynjones@wales.gov.uk and ask him why this situation has been allowed to develop, to let him know about clients I have that will probably go elsewhere to a more professional environment” . Thanks for commenting Bob.  Further comments from other business professionals are welcome as you will be assured that, given the frequency of visits from WAG to this website, someone in Cardiff Bay will be reading them.