Web Strategy for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses

Shane Schick writes in the Globe and Mail today that Small businesses need online savvy for success.

I read the article and liked it. Profiled is a product I’ve been keeping an eye of for a few months now, Shopify, a simple way for anyone to set up an e-commerce storefront, display a product catalogue and take credit card payments. That’s a great product niche and in the private beta I’ve been monkeying around with Shopify seems to be delivering on its simple, easy e-commerce promise.

But what really interested me in the article comes a little later.

The problem for smaller businesses that will become apparent in the coming months is that while services such as Shopify and Clic.net might be able to make e-commerce easier, they won’t necessarily make business itself easier. As it becomes relatively inexpensive to quickly set up a payment gateway and hosted website, they could see a lot more small businesses on-line, all pitching similar products and services. This is the Internet’s Catch-22: While it means small businesses can potentially reach the same vast audience as their larger counterparts, it becomes harder and harder to stand out.

Hallelulah! Someone else preaching from the same hymn book I am. Tools are tools are tools, regardless if they’re online tools - e-commerce websites, performance-based marketing or frictionless invoicing - or tools in the physical world - hammers, trucks, calculators. Tools do not make a strategy, or a business plan, or a recipe for success. Sure tools can make new things possible, but unto themselves they create nothing. They’re no replacement for a strategic plan that understands the tools and incorporates them into a holistic view of an organization.

That’s why I have focused Work Industries on web strategy for small and medium-sized businesses. Having a website is not enough.

Why do you have a website?

In two or three sentences you need to be able to articulate why you have a website, what the website does for your business and how you know if that website is working. Can you do that?

If not, Work Industries can help. We do that.

Contact me, James Sherrett, and we’ll start to make the web work for you.