Online Business Lead Generation, Business Development, Client Acquisition and Selling...

...turning "creative" award-winning, flashy, glitzy, glorious and glamorous websites into professionally conservative, client-friendly, hype-, jargon-, mumbo-jumbo-, gizmo- and bullshit-free prospecting and sales machines.

Website vs. Doing Business Online

Absolutely randomly, pick 10 technology companies in your own industry. Go to their websites and take a closer look. They certainly look different. Now imagine those websites without their logos and company names. What you'll find is that they look dangerously similar. Almost identical features, benefits, often ridiculous claims and an inordinate amount of pompous pontification and self-aggrandisement. Most of them are more self-centred, thus client antagonistic, than the notorious Zaphod Beeblebrox in Douglas Adams' legendary Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy; a feat which is almost impossible to achieve.

Web design is not about fabricating some cute, pretty, eye-candy with all the bells and whistles the world has ever seen. It's about helping you to get qualified sales leads that match your ideal client profile and gradually convert them into paying clients. That means, web design is one sub-function of a business function called "Business development" or sales and marketing. If you don't believe in this basic premise, then you'll find this whole website pretty infuriating.

And the real drama in this discovery is that your own website probably looks exactly the same, so when potential buyers visit your site, they can't differentiate your business from your competitors. With this you've just planted the seeds of commoditisation, and gave permission to your buyers to start price-shopping. Your only perceived differentiating factor is your price. And then you're pushed into a bidding war to stay alive. And before you know it, you start responding to impossible-to-comply-with RFPs (as Mike McLaughlin calls them, Real Fools Participate).

According to a four-year study by Stanford University, the first thing visitors look at on a web page is the copy. The quality of your copy defines whether visitors stay on your site and start browsing or click off to another site. Most people are surprised, or even shocked to learn this, especially after they've spent a fortune on a fancy site with all the graphics and technology bells and whistles. Yet, for most technology companies copy is a mere afterthought, often written by some of the technology folks with some spare time on their hands.

Yet, what do most people do? They get obsessed with graphics and the animation stuff. And by the time the eye-candy stuff is done, they have no money left to hire a copywriter, so they, although have never done it before, write the copy for themselves. After all, as they say, it's just a bit of filler and any idiot can do it. But they are wrong. Or as Earl Nightingale once said...

"The majority is always wrong."

Isn't it interesting that websites with high "client magnet" and selling power have fairly minimum graphics, JavaScript and other wiz-bang stuff, but heavy-duty kick-arse copy on them? They are copy- and information-led websites. The reality is that selling on websites is copy-driven, nothing happens until someone writes the words that make people take action and request a report, sign up for en e-course, read an article, register for a workshop, subscribe to a newsletter, or buy something.

People come to your site for information and what do they get? A Flash intro, unstoppable music, mysterious navigation tools and a very tiny amount of content, which in most cases is empty chest-beating and self-aggrandisement, like "Look how many MBAs we have", "Look at our fancy offices" "Feel free to admire our awards" or "Send some bones for the office dog." They provide eye-candy for visitors who are looking for pertinent information to solve their problems, and are not the least interested in eye-candy, retarded platitudes, bloated clichés and fancy jingles. In plain English, most websites fail to serve their target markets regardless of how colourful they are.

Yet, how do most technology companies approach online marketing? They hire web designers. And how about the rest of online marketing? Nothing. It gets ignored. And they contact web designers to check their hourly rates (...to see if you're cheap enough for us) and their portfolios (...so, we can imitate one of your clients' websites because we are so bloody dumb that we couldn't think ourselves out of a piss-soaked paper bag for an original website idea). There is one question they hardly ever ask...

"Has that website produced any sales for your client?"

Also, these buyers almost always want websites which they like with no regard for their target markets' expectations.

And here is the other problem with wanting to check portfolios. If I need website design help, it clearly shows that I am not a website design expert. So, what gives me the right and expertise to evaluate an expert's work? When you select a surgeon for your mother-in-law's triple heart bypass surgery, are you going to ask potential surgeons to submit their portfolios of cuts and stitches to you for evaluation? I doubt it?

When you call a plumber to fix your kitchen sink, are you going to ask him to submit his portfolio of leaky sinks and toilets he's fixed over his career? Again, I doubt it.

When, in a previous career, I was an electronics engineer, and no one ever asked me to see my portfolio of control systems I'd designed. And when I was a buyer I never checked anyone's portfolio. I wanted a customised solution not an initiation. The question was always this: "Given the parameters, what do you suggest? Note that they didn't even ask, "Can you do it?" The fact that I could wasn't even in question.

What most website buyers fail to realise that every good website is an expression of the client and the result of close collaboration. I give my professional input but if the client insists on it, for instance, green background, then we'll do green background. Of course, if clients suggest something I totally disagree with for either a practical, professional or ethical reason, I end the project. I'm not too keen on signing my professional death sentence.

And when you look at my portfolio, you may say I don't like it. Hey, that's great. It means that unlike 99% of website buyers who say, "I like the green background in your portfolio. Make me something similar.", you have the ability to think for yourself and say, "Let's sit down and create something amazing together." But this is the tiny and smart minority. Re-read the Earl Nightingale quotation above.

The sole objective of a business-to-business website is to discover current interests in the marketplace and provide relevant and valuable information to fulfil those interests in order to turn them into qualified enquiries and, finally, into sales. Over 90% of B2B websites miserably fail from the sales standpoint because their owners are focusing on the wrong elements. Most websites are over-designed for eye candy and under-constructed as a marketing and selling tool.

The purpose of this service is to help technology companies with complex B2B sales to build professionally conservative, hype-, bullshit-, jargon- and gizmo-free, client centred and information-driven websites that fulfil the two main objectives of great B2B websites...

1. Sharing valuable information with the target market, thus establishing your business as an industry expert worth asking for help.

2. Generating a steady stream of high-calibre, qualified sales leads, matched against your ideal client profile. This way you can sell more with a tiny but deadly efficient and proficient sales "commando", and don't need to raise a army of peddlers with feet on the streets and fingers on telephone dialling pads hunting for new business, and gradually eating up your margins.

Over the years web design has become more and more design-heavy, but sadly only for the sake of design. Over 90% of all websites fail to generate revenue for their owners. The basic question is hardly ever asked, "Just because we can, does it mean we should?" And while consumers can be dazzled by built-in Flash elements and other design bromides, B2B economic buyers are looking for pertinent information and justification for purchase. That is, they are looking for ROI not eye-candy.

Some Vital Statistics You Should Be Aware Of...

Some 83% of the money that is available in your marketplace is only accessible on and through the web. Without an online business development system, you can have access only to the 17%, while leaving the 83% to your competition.

93% of business prospects say they go online to research upcoming purchases. And 63% of them, instead of going directly to the company's website, turn to search engines first. If a company fails to rank on the search engines, these 63% of buyers go to the competition.

More than 69% of prospects say they pay more attention to natural search engine ranking results than paid or sponsored advertising. They find natural listings more credible.

72% of buyers say they check online promotional messages.

Nearly 90% of prospects expect response to their requests within 24 hours. Most of them don't get it.

"50% of online sales are lost because visitors can't find what they're looking for" - Gartner Group

"40% of repeat visitors are lost as a result of negative experiences" - Zona Research

"43% of all websites are missing basic navigational devices" - Giga Group

Less than 2% of the web visitors are surfing to purchase.

These numbers alone show that a significant amount of revenue is hiding in online opportunities. They also show that most of your competitors are missing the boat altogether.

Forbes magazine has surveyed corporate executives on what they consider to be their number 1 source for due diligence information.

The Internet, just like the Yellow Pages, is a business development vehicle, thus your web marketing should be in the hands of a savvy marketer, as opposed to a graphics designer, a programmer, your unemployed brother-in-law or your high school student nephew.

The big hairy truth is that once upon a time the web has started out as a channel for information sharing, and then became a marketing and sales channel for smart entrepreneurs, who picked up what one of my mentors calls the InfoGuru concept. That is, marketing, promotion and lead generation through sharing information, and establishing yourself as the "go to" dude or dudess in your industry. The web also allows you unprecedented level of automation. For instance, Amazon, employing a couple of people, out-sells the largest encyclopaedia selling organisations that employ armies of peddlers who relentlessly roam the land day in day out harassing people in their homes.

The problem you're facing is that most web designers are great artists, giving you bells and whistles but have no understanding of marketing. As a result of this, most of what they design is like a well-dressed eunuch. He looks great on the surface, but no ability to "perform."

Putting it more bluntly, a design-heavy website would eat up all your money and you'd have noting left to create the actual sales engine of your website. It would be like throwing a hell of a wedding reception party and then spending your honey moon in the tool shed at the back garden because the wedding flatlined your bank account and you're so broke that you trip the alarm even by walking into your bank.

Kick-arse, clear, crisp and compelling sales copy in the right overall context that makes people act, as opposed to merely admire amazing Flash animations and other graphics elements.

Have you noticed that the larger design agencies use call centres in India and armies of peddlers to get new clients for their services? I've just seen an ad: Prestigious Canadian marketing and branding agency with a bushel of awards is looking for salespeople to roam the land, pounding pavements and dialling for dollars to cold-prospect for business. The award-winning agency has no idea how to sell itself out of a paper bag without an army of peddlers who are constantly harassing people with their pitches. And they want to sell you their "marketing and branding" services that will still require you to employ a call centre or a legion of peddlers to drum up new business. What's on their website? Essentially the message is: "Look at us and admire our awards and portfolio."

So, what's the alternative? First I have to disappoint you. I'm not even a web designer. I'm a business development strategist who builds websites as one of the many aspects of creating an online business development strategy and bringing in new clients 24 hours a day and 7 days a week consistently and predictably with as little time and effort on your part as humanly possible. Unlike webdesigners who go for bells and whistles in the hope of a nice design award, as a pragmatist, I go for ROI. My clients don't come to me for dazzling website design. They ask me to help them to build client magnet sales machines.

But I do believe in the casino goer's mantra...

"Know your limit; play within it."

Late business guru, Peter Drucker put it this way in his 1954 seminal book, The Practice of Management...

"If we want to know what a business is, we have to start with its purpose. And its purpose must lie outside of the business itself. In fact, it must lie in society since a business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one definition of business purpose: to create a customer. And because it is its purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two - and only these two - basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results. All the rest are costs.

In marketing you get paid for creating a customer, and in innovation you get paid for creating a new dimension of performance. Please note, Peter never mentioned design for the sake of design.

Results You Can Expect

But first what you'd better not expect. Dazzling graphics, eye-popping Flash animations and other useless eye-candy. If your intention is building a website to raise "brand awareness" and similar nonsense, then I'm not your guy. My idea is that your brand comes when you work with clients and they start talking about you. That's brand. The rest is empty chest-beating.

What you can expect is a pragmatic website designed from the perspective of ROI, based on empirical data on design, usability, technology and psychology. The design may appear to be simple on the surface, but once you understand how the human brain digests websites, you'll understand the method to my madness.

Sites are designed in such a way that you can modify them using a plain text editor. Everything is properly labelled with comments on each page, so you know what goes where. This makes pages easy to navigate for non-experts as well. During our work together, I'll introduce you to all the weapons I use to design sites, so you can later add new pages or fiddle with the existing ones to your heart's content, and without running the risk of messing of the design bits and bobs.

There are several options under this service. They are...

So What Can We Do?

We have to sell the same way online as we sell off-line. In multiple steps...

Content -> Traffic -> Pre-Sell -> Sell Continuum

Content: Website visitors are in search of valuable information. They are not looking for your company and they are certainly not ready to give you their credit card numbers. So, the more you try to sell to them in a one-step process, the more likely you chase them away. Give them information that also gives them a reason to return. Level with your visitors. They want valuable information before they buy. Well, then give it to them.

Traffic: You use various methods to distribute your content on the web. These methods can be both off- and online, including but not limited to search engine optimisation, email, blogs, RSS feeds, article syndication, direct mail, published articles, speaking engagements, etc.

Pre-sell: When you exercise with cold muscles without warming them up, you get injured. When you try to make your visitors exercise their purchasing muscles without warming them up with valuable content, they get injured, thus bugger off from your website and never return. It takes time to help your visitors to realise that the situation they're in could be better for them than it is right not, and then to develop their trust and confidence to make an investment to improve the status quo. So, make sure you over-deliver on valuable content and keep your pitches to the minimum. Don't ask for the business. They ask you when they are ready.

Sell: And then you can gradually convert warm, trusting, returning visitors into clients. Now they understand your services and the value to them, and now have confidence in your abilities to help them. Sadly, most high-tech companies' websites make a mess of this process because they want to squeeze the quick buck out of every single visitor. And these companies don't even realise how much money they lose in the process. Without the first three steps this fourth step can't even happen.

And to achieve this is about infrastructure not merely a flashy, glamorous website. Actually the look and feel of the website is less than 10% of your onlime marketing's success.

And everything we do online is an extension of your offline business development and organisational strategy. It's not merely fancy design with an ostentatious display of the latest technology. It's not about using better technology. It's about using technology better. That means, web design is only one sub-function of a business function called "online business development". If you don't believe in this basic premise, then you'll find this whole website pretty infuriating.

Results You Can Expect

But first what you'd better not expect. Dazzling graphics, eye-popping Flash animations and other useless eye-candy. If your intention is building a website to raise "brand awareness", then I'm not your guy. My idea is that your brand comes when you work with clients and they start talking about you. That's brand. The rest is empty chest-beating.

What you can expect is a pragmatic website designed from the perspective of ROI, based on empirical data on design, usability, technology and psychology. The design may appear to be simple on the surface, but once you understand how the human brain digests websites, you'll understand the method to my madness.

Some other benefits good online marketing programme...

...so you can achieve more with fewer staff and less effort.

There are several options under this service. They are...

Designing new websites from scratch. In this service we create a brand new website, usually wart and all. The process is fully collaborative, so I can add my business development knowledge to your business and industry knowledge, thus creating better results than we could create separately.

One caveat here: We work with an external graphics designer because I have zero eyesight for graphics. You can use reither on of my trusted contacts or yours.

Re-designing existing "brochure" and "brand" impotent websites for online business development. Many clients don't want full re-design, so using existing elements we just re-design the context of the site tuned to business development as opposed to brand awareness.

Consulting with infoirmation technology companies that want to do the work in-house and all they need is some guidance. These are retainer engagements to have access to my "best and brightest" and advising clients on an "as needed" basis. Clients usually have unlimited access to me during a specific time frame.

Integrating audio and video elements into your website. This can be either downloadable or streaming elements. This service also includes the production of CDs and DVDs for off-line promotions and sales.

Building databases for your applications, so you can start building your own highly targeted database.

With all this in mind, I want to ask you to answer a few questions for yourself...

Would you make more money more easily and effortlessly if you could stay open 24 hours a day 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the rest of your life with smaller office space and fewer employees?

How much more fun, freedom and exhilaration could you create for yourself and your people if you at least partially automated your business using the web? Imagine how much more time you'd have for truly exciting stuff.

Think about it and let me know if you're interested. A very interesting brand new world may be waiting for you. But only if your focus is ROI not merely aesthetics.

And remember, a properly designed website is only one part of an online client acquisition platform. Yes, you can fool yourself with Java, Flash and other fancy eye-candy stuff, but at the end of the day money talks. No, it screams. Either en route to your bank account or to your competitors'. Make sure it goes into yours.

So, if you want to create a pragmatic "client magnet" website for revenue generation, as opposed to some flashy, glitzy, glamorous "awareness raising" bells-and-whistles eye-candy, then follow the link and read my On Becoming A Client document. Relax, there is no obligation here. This package helps you to define whether or not there is a sound financial justification to initiate the engagement.