What The Shift?

What on Earth is Small Business Shift? Why “shift?”

On the one hand, it’s a reference to the different hourly shifts employees may work. But more significantly, it references the shift that is happening as businesses really take advantage of the web, for everything from marketing to their day to day operations.

The Internet has been transformative in many ways. It’s changed the way people communicate, the way they consume media, get the news, and find entertainment. It’s also changing the way we do business, and I’m afraid that many small businesses are going to be left behind.

To start with one of the more talked about changes, studies increasingly show consumers turning to the Internet more frequently than the Yellow Pages (the lifeblood of some small companies), and yet they also state that a large portion of small businesses do not have a website! Even among those that do have a site, most of us are familiar with the 1997-high school student designed sites that pop up all to frequently.

Sure, for a long time small biz websites did very little – despite the hype, most people didn’t use the Internet for that type of information. However, as the search engines improve and people become more enamored of their fancy cell phones, this shift online has been rapidly taking place, reaching the point where it does matter.

And websites are just the tip of the iceberg. On the topic of marketing alone, email newsletters, social media, local search, and various paid advertising venues are only gradually being tapped. When one moves into the operational side, progressive companies are taking advantage of a host of products which allow very small companies to get some of the benefits traditionally reserved for the very large. These may include services such as web-based VoIP, accounting, CRM, project management, payroll, etc.etc.etc…

Much like in the early days of the web, some of this gets overhyped – Twitter’s presence in every business mag in the country last year is a fair example. Still, there are big gains to be made by companies that take advantage of the right emerging technologies. This is what Small Business Shift is all about. Follow this site (RSS / Email or Twitter / Facebook.)to keep up with the changes taking place, and get the advice you need to stay ahead of the curve.

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One Response to “What The Shift?”

  1. Jason Hyman April 21, 2010 at 9:11 pm #

    I hear what you’re saying and agree with you, however, you need to dig deeper into the quality of leads coming from the source(s). I wrote a post the other day and would like your take.
    http://www.localsearchpilot.com/local-search/local-search-reliable-organic-answers-or-not