Do Business Well

Free agency. Choice. Accountability. Life-affirming values. They are the most effective tools for coping with the legion of personalities that arrive at your electronic door. Don’t depend on convergence to allow you to limit the playlist. Do you know the e-customer? If you sing it, I can play it. You will never guess what they all want so let them make their own world. Guide them to it. Play the part of mentor.

Don’t rush on the first date. There is plenty of time to pop, sparkle and slide messages past his eyes and into his brain. First he has to be open to the new ideas and most e-customers aren’t ready when they are acclimatizing themselves to your little place. A new world for him. Take it easy.

If it isn’t usable then it isn’t useful. If it isn’t useful you won’t be able to give it away. Oops! Did you try and give it away? Get to the point. Make it clear how you can help to solve his problems. Say it in less than 20 words. And then keep on saying it through the design of every picture, paragraph and pointer.

Don’t spread yourself too thin or lay it on too thick. You really cannot be the best at everything that the e-customer wants. It may be easier to get it from you than clicking to the competition. It may be more reliable. Unclutter your rhetoric. Tidy up your offer. It is better to be known for a little of something than a lot of nothing.

Make sure that the team understands all 2001 dialects of gibberish. The stuff you don’t understand can still kill you. Keeping the blindfold on won’t stop the bullets. Learn a smattering yourself so that you can at least follow the conversation. Having smart interpreters in alien worlds is good but relying on them for every nuance is foolish. The faster the pace of change the more you will need to know. Keep the learning habit and get past the addiction to the way it was.

Being afraid of what is to come or greedily trying to get your piece of net pie is insufficient. It will not sustain you in the hard times to come. When the flurry of easy money has evaporated, when the world starts to see things as they really are, ignorance, fear and covetousness will be unmasked. Maybe you will get away with it but there is a better way to live.

The e-customer is returning to his profoundest desires and his most outlandish wishes. He wants the real thing. More than the real thing, he wants experiences. To find a life. He does not believe that life can be bought or that the purpose of life is in celebrating its pointlessness. He is moving beyond modernism and post-modernism to a post-ironic peak. He aims to get a life through living. Helping the e-customer get connected to the world is a business worth being in.

When he gets mad simply channel his passion into a relationship with your service. His anger is not something he wants. It is frustration caused by not getting what he wants. He raises his voice when he feels that he is not being heard. Give him alternatives and bond.

Rise above the lists. Above the possible providers. The e-customer owns himself and will choose his friends. Be his best mate. Really! Work for him and make sure you get paid for the effort. Don’t take or be taken for granted. You earn your right to be considered worthwhile just as he pays for the right to have your help. If the exchange is good for both of you then you have a chance of staying together.

Don’t build your future plans on the successful flukes of the past. If you can’t remember why your business is successful then your e-customer will eventually forget you. Avoid becoming irrelevant or upgradeable. Keep the focus on the simple benefits that you bring into his life. Change the style and substance of the stuff that you do for him as his lifestyle and expectations change.

Keep it real. Get in among the crowds. Glad-hand and listen. Change yourself, your team, your systems and your business. It’s a relationship thing. The e-customer wants real trust, real relationships and real integrity. Anything Less than transparency in intent and implementation will create suspicion. There are no walls, there are no secrets. It’s an open world.

Unshrink the people. Let their personalities out to fill up the place with humanity. It’s the most valuable, priceless, attractive part. The network gives the world back its interaction. What else is being multimedia, two- way, and real time about? People: hundreds of millions, then billions, until the air is used to connect every last one of us. Be part of making that work better and enjoy the ride.

So that’s it. My impassioned plea to do more. To think further. To believe that what you can offer is more than exists. That your life’s work can make money by making the world a better place. Build your kingdom where the e-customer has his heart.

The internet has a spirit. Connecting people creates innovative power. It has a culture. An approach and ethos. It is possible to make money without understanding the way the stream is flowing, but it could all be so much more successful. My fear is that too few will settle for survival of the average rather than use electronic channels for what they exist to achieve.

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