Old business principles never die
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
We've just been rebuilding and redesigning our websites at Harvard Managed Offices, and learning a great deal in the process about our own quirks and preferences online and, more importantly, the online behaviour of our prospective clients. Like many SMEs in a highly competitive marketplace we understand that marketing is not a tap to be turned on and off but a discipline that has to be conducted day in, day out. As with so many businesses, be they consumer or B2B, much of that discipline now takes place online. As a result we've also been on a steep SEO learning curve.
However, for all that internet marketing appears to represent new and unchartered waters, I've been struck by how many old business principles still apply. For example, I remember many years ago being advised by a very successful entrepreneur "you don't have to get it right, you just have to get it going." The truth is, of course you DO have to get something right, otherwise you'll never make a profit and your new business idea will fall at the very first hurdle. Nevertheless, at the time I understood what he meant. I took his advice as encouragement not to procrastinate and also not to allow any pursuit of perfection to prevent me from getting out into the market and actually selling my wares! We've applied this principle to our online marketing efforts for our serviced office business. We're now in the "going" phase and find ourselves constantly reviewing and revising to make sure we are getting more and more of what we do online right.
In some ways I find it depressing that so much of the world has shifted online but then I'm reminded that many of our serviced office and meeting room clients also keep another timeless business principle alive for us; the power of personal recommendation. Time and again we have benefited from their recommendations to other companies. Personal recommendation is such a powerful tool. Rarely will a company or individual take the time to recommend a product or service unless they truly believe it will suit the others' needs. And so, one of many business cycles continues.
Philip Parris, Chairman, Harvard Managed Offices
