Yeah you, FaceBook “Friends”! I don’t read your teleseminar emails, your “join this” emails, or your “special deal” emails. Nope! I trash ‘em!

I have some real friends on FaceBook. You know, the kind who actually KNOW me, that have talked to me about something real, who have taken the time to be a real person to me. If they ask me to join something (which they only do if they are reasonably certain I will be interested – see, they KNOW me well enough to know that!), then I read their message, and consider it.

But if all I have ever seen of you is your name in an ad, you haven’t got a chance. If you email me on a regular basis with ads, and have never taken the time to so much as look at my profile (by which you’d know I’m death on internet marketing spam tactics!), then you are going to be trashed without being read. In fact, I won’t even read the TITLE of the email (yours are so long that all I ever see in my email program is your name… you know, the hypy one that is too long…). I never SEE the great thing you are trying to advertise, all I see is your name and BLIP! You’re GONE!

I’m a nice person. At least, most of the people who know me say that (if you ask my teenage daughter who is in a mood, she might not agree, but the prevailing concensus is that I’m not mean). I don’t like getting snotty about this. But sometimes I think that this is all that certain people will HEAR!

I’m also NORMAL! Virtually EVERYBODY, except internet and social networking greenies, react the same way I do. They don’t have time for people like you! Their life is full of meaningful relationships, urgent tasks, and offers from trusted sources. Why in the world would they even bother to read your ad when you haven’t bothered to try to even get to know them?

You may think you are following the rules – you may think that your PM blasts fit some rule of “relationship building”. They don’t. They are ads. In a world saturated with ads. Everybody is screaming, and nobody is listening to anyone who hollers. They are listening to those who quietly talk to them, person to person.

Next week, I’ll be unfriending anyone who sends me regular PM blasts who doesn’t even know my name. I encourage everyone who reads this to do the same. They can all go and holler to themselves. The rest of us have a real life, and a real business, and we’re too busy succeeding to listen to your immature irritations.

If you need to know how to do it right, I’m always willing to help – and that ISN’T an ad. Countless people will tell you I’ve offered them free resources that were solid, or gave advice without cost that was invaluable. I don’t want to stop anyone from succeeding. I just want to help them get out of their own way, and stop irritating the very people they ought to be befriending!

NOT part of the Recession Survival Series – That will publish later today. Just an important interjection that should not wait.

I thought long and hard before writing this. I dislike categorizing someone else’s decisions as a bad example, but the mounting trail of actions on the part of the new CRE team comes together into some unmistakable patterns. I think an article about this, especially now, is both pertinent, and worth exploring to illustrate some points about business. I apologize for the negativity, but there just isn’t any way to be positive about this because it is SO CLEAR that what is happening is bad for everyone involved, ESPECIALLY the CRE developers. I’ve never seen someone so blatantly shoot themselves in the foot!

I think it is also relevant to point out that when CRE announced the update to 6.3, and its new pricing structure, my first impulse was to say, “Well, there goes that one, my clients will never go for yearly extortion.” (And it is that – no other software company disables part of the software if you do not renew. They withold updates or support, but they do not lock you out of the admin.) But one client said, “Oh, I can go for that.” (she is selling the store so she doesn’t need to worry much about sustainability), so we moved forward with it anyway. I thought I would be open minded about it and see whether the upgrade had value. I have now decided, irrevocably, that CRE will not be a sustainable option for our clients. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend it again unless there are significant changes in both the company policy and behavior, and the software itself. I will explain those reasons in this post.

First, it is important to understand who the target market is. CRELoaded was Open Source software, and always had a free version available. Development was slow, the software was somewhat clunky, but fairly functional. There always remained a high number of bugs. Those who used it did not use it because they loved it, or because it was fabulous – for the most part, except for a few blindly rabid fans, they used it because it was the best of the worst. Cart software tends to be old, clunky, and built on aging frameworks (like CRE), or new, immature, and lacking in important features (it is incredibly complex, so development is very difficult). There is very little middle ground. CRE just happened to have a smidge more ease of use and sustainability than others. But the margin was SLIM.

CRE had a set of longstanding problems, leftover from its OSCommerce roots. OSCommerce is an aging dinosaur, which is even more clunky and awkward than CRE. But CRE retained enough of that to be time consuming and annoying to use in ways it should not have been. Less so than Zen, X-Cart, Cube Cart or some of the other options, but still frustrating to use much of the time.

In spite of that, a gathering of people, all with the thought that at least since it was Open Source, the community could contribute and make it better together, came together and did just that. Many of the major improvements in CRE were contributed by community members. The support base was almost exclusively community contributed. You got help from other users, not from the developers. There is a certain amount of idealism in the Open Source community, people are willing to band together for the common good.

So now, with a paid scheme in front of them, the community feels betrayed. The scheme was sprung on them with no notice, no warning. Purchasers of higher priced versions have no consideration if they have purchased very recently. Too bad, pay again if you want to upgrade. Long time users, who have invested a great deal in the CRE community are now told, pay if you want to keep your store going. If you don’t pay, your store either gets outdated, or if you already have upgraded to the new paid scheme, we’ll lock you out if you don’t KEEP paying. Contributors find that their contributions are now rolled into a package that THEY have to pay for if they want to use!

The developers are crying that they did it to make the software better. But that does not appear to be the case. The new package is mostly window dressing. They also claim they did it to provide better support. But they don’t. In fact, they’ve shut out the best helpers from the forum. They say they have “new documentation”, yet it is sparse, not even current for the new version, and only contains instructions for obvious tasks. The conclusions I draw from this are not very nice, but there is so much evidence, there really is no other conclusion.

You now get a little support when you pay for the software. Complaints on the forums allude to wasteful responses, and burning the support time in clarifications that should have been obvious, instead of getting actual help. Further, since they’ve shut down the people on the forum who can help you there for free, and have driven off many others, the conclusion is that the developers resent the free source of information, and want to confine people to the paid support.

If you think this conclusion is off, consider:

• The major contributors to the forums have been suspended from the forums. These are the ONLY source of helpful information on trickier issues.
• The ONLY voice for the company, who ever posts to the forums, has NEVER ONCE actually answered a question, even when the answer had to be fairly simple. NOT ONCE. The answers are always hedgy, they circumvent the actual question, and then lay blame for the criticism of the project on “unprofessional” behavior of the criticizers. If you express dissatisfaction, apparently, you are unprofessional!

At the same time they have done these things, they have embedded yet MORE advertising in their software. Not only do you have to pay a yearly fee with the promise of penalty if you do not, but they have placed advertising through the whole software interface. It shows up during the install (in a way that is not obvious that it is not a required informational field instead of a request for info from a service), template ads embedded in the design area, active ads at the top of the admin.

Again, we might accept these things if there were significant improvements. But I’m not seeing that either.

The longstanding problems are still there. A little bit of eye candy (and not even GOOD eye candy, the design improvements are pretty lame) in the backend, a few more modules bundled in, and one or two tweaks which did not make things easier, only changed how it is done. No real VALUE added to the package for the average user.

Consider… Leftover from OSCommerce, the software has had a major issue in wasting time. It does this in two ways:

1. Database queries are very wasteful, and SO SLOW, that you spend an average of 15 to 45 seconds just waiting for an admin page to load. 5-10 seconds is considered normal to long for page load times. Cumulatively, this adds up, and it drives people off from the frontend also, costing in customers.

2. The interface is clunky, requiring 2-3 actions to do things that should take 1. To configure the store, I am confronted with more than a dozen links. Each of these leads to a page of config options – each page has probably 20-30 options on it. In order to edit any of those, I must first select it… and wait for the page to load. Then I have to hit an Edit button… and wait for a page to load. I can then edit the item, and… wait for the page to load again. I am spending between 1 and 2 full minutes on EACH OPTION. That means it takes me 15 to 30 minutes to edit each set of options instead of the 2 minutes it should take. All in all, HOURS of wasted time for each install and setup. This should be done in a single screen. Load the list of options, and edit fields already visible, so all options can be edited at once. A single form for each set of options, instead of hundreds of fiddly separate forms. There is no reason why it should not have been done LONG AGO. I just don’t have that kind of time to waste. I’ve used Joomla. I know what config interfaces should be.

The new version has only 2 templates. The old standard, and a new one that is WORSE than the old standard as far as coding methods and editability. It has hard coded images all through it instead of putting them into the stylesheet where they can be more easily controlled. One can only assume that the lack of quality templates, and the lack of templates in general (they reduced from 4 to 2), was to provide an incentive for people to purchase templates instead.

It is abundantly clear that all the “work” they were doing on 6.3 and the delays to release were caused not by the developers slaving night and day to bring new features or improvements, but to embed all the new revenue generation bits and protections into the code. They developed for their greed, and not for the customer need. That is pretty short sighted, because if they’d just made it good, and done some real improvements, people would not be nearly so grumbly about having to pay for it. All that coding time they spent forcing customers to pay for more and more just serves to detract from the value, and tick off the customers. REALLY foolish.

Interestingly, they are running around doing a lot of “image control”, and spending a LOT of time trying to put bandaids on all the negative reviews and comments. This is borne out in their forums and by the fact that they dug out my blog (not by any means a ragingly popular blog), and took the time to comment. Now, not ONE issue has ever been addressed other than by placating and evasive words. Had they done what they knew to be right, and were they confident in what they are doing, they’d be concentrating on fixing problems and hurrying to address issues with actual helpful information. The fact that they don’t do this tells me that they KNOW they are on shaky ground, they know they are being unfair and inconsiderate, and they know that they are also on legally questionable ground (a whole ‘NOTHER story!). Even STARTING down that kind of road is foolish. It tells me they are more concerned with ILLUSION than with REALITY. Always a deadly course for a business. And suggests ulterior motives – questionable ownership, and the possible intent to bleed the company and walk away, or to use it for other less honorable purposes. For any serious business, problem resolution and prevention is ALWAYS more profitable than damage control after the fact.

It is important to realize that a store owner cannot just “move to another cart”, otherwise you cannot quite understand the position that a cart users is put in when a cart moves from free to paid, or worse, to a situation like CRE just did. Each cart has DAYS of work involved in the setup, and often hundreds or thousands of dollars spent to get it the way they needed it. Sometimes custom coding has been done, to get just the right features, and that custom code, design, and config work cannot just be ‘ported to another cart. Most of the time, it must be painstakingly redone. So what is the struggling shop owner to do? This change will cause many to either operate a store that is at risk for security exploit, or to be forced out of business. Yes, it is that serious, especially in the current economic climate.

Now, there is a complete conclusion here. It is a lengthy one, for which I appologize, but it must be explained fully to get the whole import.

First, they deprived people of their agency. They took away the independent options, and are muscling people into a position of HAVING to buy what they did not choose to purchase in the first place.

Second, they have demonstrated over and over that they do not appreciate the help of the community, in fact, they resent it, and want it to go away. There is no other conclusion for the events on the forum.

Third, they will shut out any resources which provide any alternative to purchasing services or enhancements from them. They fear any competition, they have no willingness to develop a spirit of helpfulness.

Fourth, their actions are completely contrary to the community spirit of Open Source. They are driving away the very community that build them, and turning on them in a fairly nasty way.

Fifth, the leadership is talking a lot, but saying absolutely nothing of value. The comments on one of my previous CRE posts are clear evidence of that. Lots of placating words, an effort to manipulate me into accepting blame as the unreasonable bad guy, but no actual addressing of actual issues. There never has been, and one can only assume there is no effort to do so.

Sixth, the software has only ever been good enough to compete as a free offering. If I want bad software, I can get it free anywhere. If I want GOOD software, that is also available free. If I want to actually PAY for poor support, I can get that from ANY company out there! If I want to pay for obsolete OSCommerce underpinnings, I can get LiteCommerce. If I want nightmarish templating, I can get that from X-Cart. If I want unsustainability, I can get that from CubeCart. If I want any of those options for free, the choices are plentiful. Any one of those packages costs less over time than CRE, and is no worse. I refused to pay for them because they had serious problems – and I feel that paid software ought to NOT have the most obvious sustainability problems.

Seventh, they are spending a lot of time on image control, and on policing negative publicity. Time that could be better spent actually addressing the issues. They KNOW they are in trouble, and they know the course they are on is indefensible – otherwise they’d answer effectively, and work on fixing what is wrong.

Eighth, they did this at the beginning of a recession! People are looking at CUTTING BACK, not adding on expenses. BAD TIMING!

Ninth, the combination of poor decisions and inconsiderate actions on their part, not to mention just bad business management in their choices to just go around telling people to stop complaining and gee everything will be ok cause we are really nice people after all instead of actually addressing issues in an open and helpful manner, combined with an unsustainable payment model, means that they cannot stay in business long under the current structure and policy. I am a startup expert. I know what it takes to succeed. They have consistently done everything that would get in the way of long term momentum, and they are currently driving off their most loyal customers – those that were responsible for bringing them the most business. The only customers left are those who feel they have no choice. That is a poor base, they’ll eventually find other options.

I think the company cannot survive more than another year, perhaps two at the outset if they continue as they are. That is a well-considered opinion there, and one that I feel strongly. This is, perhaps, the primary reason I will no longer recommend it as a viable and sustainable option for my clients. The company is not stable enough to ensure that the software will go forward in growth with my clients. It is too likely to fold and simply disappear. I won’t advise that my clients invest in something so shaky.

I’ve advised that my clients get behind new projects a lot. We’ve invested our time and support behind MANY young projects, and many Open Source projects. This one, we can’t. It lacks the two most important elements in Open Source, and brings with it baggage and a developing track record that virtually guarantees their failure.

For the record, the two most important factors in Open Source, to ensure sustainability, security, and growth, are:

1. An active and responsive developer community. Theirs is obviously not responsive, and their activity is concentrated more on developing more forced revenue streams than on delivering value to the users.

2. An active user community. It is drying up so fast that only a few die hard hopefuls are left, and some ignorant newbies who did not know what they were coming into.

So the whole point here is, in those points above, CRELoaded has given us an admirable roadmap of what NOT to do if you want to stay in business. If their actions were carefully calculated to drive off their customers and go down in an unspectacular poof of electrons, they have chosen exactly the course to ensure that it happens.

Take a lesson from them:

1. Understand your target market, and put their needs first.

2. Base your revenue generation on the choices and goodwill of your customer base.

3. Give good value at every point possible.

4. Cultivate a spirit of helpfulness.

All four are things they have failed to do, and which can make or break a business. DO those four things, and you can succeed and compete even against big business. Fail to do those things and you’ll crash, no matter WHAT your business size.

So long CRE… been nice knowing you, but I don’t think I’ll be there for the funeral.

Note: The opinions expressed in this post are the perceptions of the writer, and should not be interpreted or quoted as fact without corroborrating evidence.

A ship in the harbor is safe. Most of the time. During a storm though, the ship is safer at sea. In the harbor, the confines that make it safe at other times, becomes a trap, and the ship is in greater danger. Out at sea, navigation away from the worst of the storm is still possible, and fewer obstacles are present to dash the ship to pieces.

Our economy is heading into a storm. It is likely to be a bad one. How can you get your business out of the trap of a harbor, and out to sea away from the fury of the storm? How can you find calm seas, or at least, less turbulent waves and winds?

In a volatile economy, sitting where you are, hoping that things won’t change, may kill your business. Smart sailors watch the weather signs, listen to the reports, and steer clear of the troubled seas. If they cannot avoid them, they batten down the hatches and try to ride it out. But they try to avoid it first, and only settle to ride it out if there is no other option. And even then, their choice is backed up by changes in their actions, to give their choice the best possible chance of a favorable outcome.

It isn’t time to pull back into the false security of a harbor. It is time to move out, and take smart actions to preserve your business. To adjust for the winds and waves so they don’t swamp you.

• Assess your current business health, and make smart corrections for current problems or deficiencies.
• Develop a contingency plan, based on what your customers are most likely to do as things get hard.
• Watch your stats, and be ready to act if you see declines of more than 1-2 months.
• Implement your contingency plan, and be ready to move into different ways of doing business if necessary.

We’ve seen a lot of businesses go under recently. Big ones. It didn’t happen suddenly. The signs of an impending storm were there for a long time before the company declared bankruptcy, or sold out, or laid off workers. They either failed to adjust out of ignorance, or decided that they’d try to ride it out in the hopes that it would not get too bad (in spite of clear signs to the contrary), or in hopes that something would rescue them if they just waited. Don’t wait when you should be taking actions to adjust your business! Failure never happens suddenly, it always happens slowly, and there is plenty of time to react if you just do it in a timely manner.

Smart sailors know when to act. And they know to watch the signs. Don’t let the rut of familiarity trap you when wise action can keep your business going strong in spite of what happens around you.

Google Base has a feature that sounds like it would help webmasters. You can request a multi-user account. Only problem is, if you do, you may find yourself limited in ways that really don’t make sense.

One of my clients has two sites. They contain similar items, but no duplicates. Each item on each site is completely unique, and one of a kind.

Google Base denied our initial request for a multi-user account with those two sites. Their claim is that they have too similar items. Odd, since each one is entirely unique, and since they are all handcrafted items, no one would ever consider them to be duplicates. Further, one site has antiques, the other has contemporary items.

They also denied us because two other sites had two items that were similar, while all the rest was different. It would seem that rather than indexing the entire web, as they say they want to do, they only want to index what they consider to be unique. Even though services are distinctly different, they consider them to be the same because they are in the same category.

So before you request a multi-user account, make sure you differentiate the sites enough that someone who cannot think for themselves can tell the difference. Otherwise you’ll be denied the account.

It seems that most of the people on FaceBook are of one of two kinds:

• Those who explore the mundane trivialities of daily life to the point that your eyes glaze over while reading the status updates.
• Those who do nothing but advertise, and whose sole purpose in updating status is to advertise once again.

Of the two, I prefer the first. At least they are trying, and there is hope that they’ll grow out of it as they gain experience. The second type just don’t have a clue what people think when they read it. If they did, they’d find a softer approach.

Somewhere between the extremes, there is a balance. One I’m dead certain I have not found yet, I fear I am still wallowing in the realm of mundane trivialities! But it is one that I know I’ve found about once or twice a week.

It is interest, and value. It isn’t an ad – though sometimes it is an update on your latest project (but not all the time!). It isn’t what I had for breakfast, unless breakfast was out of the ordinary, like the first strawberries of the season that I can’t resist bragging over.

• It IS humor – the kind that happens in life each day.
• It IS wisdom – the little lessons taught in the triviality, without which, it is only triviality, with which, it is profound.
• It is interest – those things that happen that are out of the ordinary, and worth sharing.

Like I said, I only get it right every once in a while. But when I do, I know it.

I pay attention to those status updates that are interesting, give me value that isn’t an ad, and that make me chuckle. Those things I identify with, or consider worth my time to read.

Between the extremes indulged in by most FaceBook users, there is a narrow glimpse of the extraordinary. The thing that makes it worth hanging out there. I’m working on honing my skill at staying within its narrow confines.

And you?

We use free Open Source systems. We don’t do so to be cheap, but merely as a way of producing affordable solutions.

I know that my clients will not be able to afford or justify a yearly subscription fee, and most cannot afford software fees at all unless they are just for a few necessary add-ons. They already have to pay ongoing fees for maintenance, to keep the site software updated. One more fee on top of that is a deal breaker for them, and I know that it will be for others also.

By becoming “just another commercial cart”, I believe that CRELoaded will lose a huge portion of their user base. That, in turn, will reduce the viral nature of a good Open Source project. Joomla, and CMSMadeSimple, which are the other two major software systems that we build site solutions around, do not have any indication of going commercial, though they do have some commercial enhancements.

There are other projects, still free, which have been nipping at the heels of CRE for a long time, and which have made significant progress in the last six months. Our company will be testing those, and adopting the most flexible solution. We have no choice with the market we serve. I’ll report on what we find when we make a choice, and I’ll start testing the two most promising ones today, in between working on a Joomla template.

Our clients give back a great deal over the long term. But they use freely available Open Source software as a means of getting a foot in the door, until they have the means to give back. In the mean time, they are donating time and service, volunteering to move good projects forward, and giving in other ways while they do not have money to give. They are people worth helping, and we keep our own service prices low by building site solutions using Open Source software.

Our company gives back also – we support and assist with several Open Source projects, offering documentation assistance, usability help, and promoting them. We aren’t parasites who are just complaining about the loss of a free tool. We’ve invested in every system we’ve used, and provide training, tips, and encourage their use with both clients, and colleagues. Each system we use has a section in our Trade Association pages, where we are assembling resources and tools for them.

We are not the only company out there that promotes Open Source software, nor which contributes to it. When an Open Source project moves from a freely usable business model, to a commercial business model, they lose a large portion of their user base, and an equally large portion of their contributor base. Active members drop from the help forums, abandon the Wiki, and contributing developers wander away to more promising projects. After all, why should they contribute freely to a project for which someone else makes money but they do not? And why should they develop paid contributions when the likelihood of sales are much lower?

I faced the same issue with Front Porch Folks. I could develop it around a free membership model, a paid membership model, or a combination with free and Premium memberships. Before I made the final decision, I took a poll of the membership. Even though the free model meant ads in places that reduced the value of their membership, most members voted for an ad based revenue model. We had to think creatively to make that work within the structure of that site. But it was worth it, because the support of the members is very strong. They know now that we listen to them, and that we’ll be responsive to their requests. Most of the new members that come in are doing so from promotions that the members are initiating. They know we have to make money from it to keep it going, and they don’t mind that. They just want the most open community possible for networking, and that happens best by keeping it free. The same holds true of Open Source – indeed, that is the power in it.

It is also not wise to load every kind of revenue generation into a project. If you are going to charge for the service, then don’t plague the users with ads at every turn. They already paid for it, and built-in ads that are not a genuine service to the user should be left off.

There is no perfect solution to it all, it is going to be hard any way you do it. But I believe that in this current economy of high competition, and plentiful freebies, that some businesses and products will simply be stronger, and healthier, and be able to earn more, if they remain with a free option.

Note: The opinions expressed in this post are the perceptions of the writer, and should not be interpreted or quoted as fact without corroborrating evidence.

Or better yet… Would you hire a MUTE Invisible Man as your marketer?

A lot of people approach marketing just as if they were invisible, and mute. You wouldn’t hire someone to market that way for you, so why would you BE that way about it?

In order to market successfully, you have to be seen, and heard, over and over. Not in an obnoxious way, but in a consistent and dependable way. You have to BE there. You have to say intelligent things.

• You have to be where your target market is.
• You have to say things that let them know what you have, that they want, in a way that helps them understand why they might want to get it from you.

Silent invisibility is not a successful marketing strategy. It won’t get you out the door! More businesses die from lack of effective effort than die from bad effort. Smart people learn from bad effort, so even the wrong thing is better than nothing! At least you’ll be moving, and learning what doesn’t work!

• It means that you have to get out, meet people, and keep showing up if you are marketing offline.
• It means that you have to post to forums, networking guestbooks, and fill out your profile on networking sites.

If you don’t, you are mute, and invisible. Where does that leave your business?

Being human, it is easy to assume that the advantages we have are available everywhere. That the rules of marketing and business are the same everywhere. I’ve been guilty of making those assumptions, and I’ve been on the receiving end of many of them.

We’ve had some suggestions made for marketing our business which made assumptions. If we lived in a metro area, or in 80% of the other locations in the US, the assumptions would be true. But we live in an isolated area, and the rules are different here.

Local advertising does not work, due to the particular demographics of our business in relation to the areas we have to market into. Someone suggested we use a cell phone to overcome the limitation – fine and dandy, but a cell phone won’t work where we live – no signal.

I think the cell phone suggestion was the real eye opener. The person who suggested it could not imagine a place where there was no cell signal. It never would have occurred to them.

There are other things that can be unique to a particular region, business owner, target market, talent pool, etc. Assumptions are made with the belief that everything fits in a box. It doesn’t.

Consultants, coaches, and service providers have to really listen and find not only how their clients fit the rules, but how they DON’T fit the rules. Then they can give good counsel that tailors the solution to the client in a way that is successful.

It is in the exceptions that truly personal service is found, and where success is found for those who have to deal with those exceptions.

I’ve noticed a few drop outs. Is it because I am Conservative? Overweight? LDS? Or perhaps just that I tend to be a bit outspoken on the topic of internet marketing, and a bit of a radical in that arena? Given the volume of hit and run marketers on FaceBook, I’m willing to bet the latter as the most likely cause!

That will happen though. And it should happen if you are conducting business well. High integrity makes good friends. Longlasting ones. But it also makes enemies, even if you are not setting out to offend or annoy.

It should be noted, I’ve never spammed anyone on FaceBook, the only Pms I’ve sent have been offers of help without pay, and I do not send invites or any other annoyance. I don’t leave a signature line on anyone’s Wall, even. I just try to build relationships. So it isn’t that – at least I know I didn’t TRY to annoy anyone!

If this rambling commentary has a point, it is merely that on a venue like FaceBook, where you cannot tell anything about people until after you’ve made the connection, drop outs are inevitable. And they don’t mean anything more than the connection meant in the first place – that is, next to nothing!

The term “business system” and the term “marketing system” have been corrupted and used online to mean something far removed from what they actually are. They are not quick, prepackaged solutions that run on auto-pilot to make money (and absurd concept to begin with). They are, in fact, customized, individualized, and carefully practiced routines and tools, which, in combination with skill in using them, will make your business and marketing faster, more effective, and more predictable.

The catch is, that for virtually every small business, you cannot buy them. You must either create them yourself, or hire an expert to help you create it. Sounds pretty daunting, but let me explain a little more, so you can perhaps catch the least, and the fullest, meaning of the concept.

If you have email come in every morning from clients, friends, online networks, and other, you may eventually decide that you have too much to sort through efficiently. You may decide that you’d rather deal with all of your network email at one specific time each day instead of having it disturb your work. So you set up a folder for it in your email program, and a filter which takes all of the email that comes in with the network subject line (or sender), and puts it automatically into that folder. Then you look at it at the end of the day, or over your lunch, or whenever you’ve designated for that set of tasks.

That is a very simple example of a system! You spotted a problem, and you developed a standard method of handling it, partly through routine, partly through customizing a tool to do part of it for you.

Most businesses have many systems, which, combined, give you a full functioning business. When someone packages the whole thing and sells it, it is called a “Franchise”. But even a franchise takes time to learn, and is not a magic formula for success!

Look at what you do each day. Are you doing anything that is repetitive and time consuming? How can you make it more efficient? How can you make the outcome more predictable? Can you use a form, boilerplate text, an automated tool, a piece of software, a set of containers, or anything else to make it faster or more effective?

You can do this with marketing also.  Store frequently used text for repeat use. Create multiple sizes of logo graphics for use across the net, and a standardized personal photo for use in networking. When you fill out a form and it asks for info that you are likely to need again, copy it and save it. Set goals for specific numbers of networking contacts or backlinks each week, then pay attention to thinking of ways to make it faster to do it. Analyze the performance rules for your business, and record them to be used again. Develop guidelines, test them, and if they hold over a series of tests, adopt them as business policy.

Successful systems are one of the key differences between successful businesses, and those that struggle perpetually and never quite make it. If you want to make the break into success, then you need to apply some science to developing effective systems to make the tasks you do ever day more efficient.

The power is inconceivable until you experience it.