“Income, Profit, Equity.” November 2009
Where Do the Internet & Local Markets Meet?
Last month we discussed how Revolutionary Entrepreneurs are Creative.
Here’s a place where creativity meets reality. How do you reconcile building a strong, web based business with selling to your local market?
How do you optimize local opportunity with the option to expand your reach through the internet via affiliate websites, social networking, blogs, etc?
It doesn’t take a revolutionary entrepreneur to realize that using the web and extending your reach is a good thing to do, but it does take some skill to know how to do it. With the preponderance of ‘do it yourself internet marketing’ stuff out there, it’s hard to know where to turn….especially when you want to make sure you don’t lose sight of your local market.
Let’s put our creative hats on here for a moment.
Consider doing an analysis of your customers and make a list of the problems they have, but you don’t solve. One way you can immediately extend your reach beyond your local market is to creatively solve your customers other problems using resources from other web based product / service providers.
What does that mean?
Here’s a specific example. You are a medical transcriptionist selling your services to local physicians. What other problems are doctors and medical offices facing right now? Compliance with all the regulations magnified by the unknown of socialized medicine creates uncertain times for doctors.
Suppose, as a thank you for being a great customer, you offered to add an extra hour of consulting at no charge for your best customers. You can tell the Doc’s or their office manager that your intention is to find out what other problems they are having so you can do some networking and try and find solutions for them. Who’s going to turn that down?
Even if you only visited with your top 5 clients and found out there were two or three common problems that could be solved by a web based solution, you’d have a great place to start. Let’s say you found out most of the offices were concerned about losing data in case of another nasty hurricane season. You could do some research and find out what companies cater to physician’s offices and offer off-site backup services with the capacity, restoration and responsiveness required by their regulations.
If you simply became an affiliate of the backup service provider and connected them with your clients through your affiliate link, you’d have the opportunity to get paid every month they were on the backup service. In this example, you’ve simply added a new revenue stream by solving a problem for your client. You don’t have to deliver the new service … you only monitor the commissions… and ask for referrals.
So what actually happened in this example?
Yes, you created some extra cash, but more than that you found a way to connect your local business with the internet. You just leveraged yourself in ways most business owners don’t consider. The other challenge is that most people don’t want to begin with the simple, easy to do and usually not hugely profitable at first ideas. They want the big hit…ring the cash register programs.
Here’s the scoop. Getting started building some reach beyond your local market is critical. Even if you don’t know how to do it, find a couple of other people in your local area (who aren’t competitors) and have a creativity party and see how you can connect local with global.
Revolutionary Entrepreneurs start local and expand globally!
Cheers,
Steve
Steve Olds
Founder and CEO
www.STRATWORX.com