All we need is a little (Business 2 Business) help from our friends

I’m not a Beatles fan but I’ve always admired their music and the way they captured hearts and minds back in the day, and continue to do so to this day. Their influence on popular music was, and is, undisputable. Imagine if…John Lennon and Paul McCartney never crossed paths or, worse still, never picked up a guitar! Today we’d most likely not have bands such as Oasis, Blur, The Verve or Pulp sounding the way they do. Even Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Coldplay drew influence from Beatles tunes.

The music community is well known for helping one another and that help often extends to up and coming bands in dire need of a “leg up”. Some of the lucky young bands (or more to the point, the talented and hard working) go on to bigger and brighter things. Even U2 were playing tiny clubs in the early 80s.

As a website design and e-commerce software business, we see plenty of starry-eyed clients walk through the door with their “next big thing” idea or product. All of them have watched the success of similar businesses, and decide to try their hand for a “piece of the pie”. Some plan for months in advance, others simply jump in and hope to hit the ground running; some have business backgrounds, some don’t. But they all have a common goal: to succeed in their goals.

Starting a new web venture or online business can be daunting, but with the right amount of planning, product or service - and capital, success will come. But doing business online attracts its own set of unique challenges. How do you drive traffic to your new website and how do you maintain that traffic? Starting out is hard going (just ask any start up business owner, very few count the cash until long after launch). Sometimes a “leg up” is required.

This week we flicked the switch on our new client Members Market, a market place for SiteSuite clients to market their products or services to other SiteSuite clients and their staff. As our client base is quite large, the potential for high numbers of traffic to visit the Members Market is encouraging. And with such good exposure, it’s an opportunity for new clients and especially start ups to introduce their wares.

Most clients who come to us do so with an effective plan in place but sometimes, and this is perhaps more relevant to a small number of start ups, smaller operators jump in with guns blazing and expect instant results (sometimes that’s okay, a healthy dose of enthusiasm drives people on!). For those struggling or even frustrated with the lack of assistance or interest from banks, advertisers and so on, we thought we’d chip in and do our bit with the launch of our Members Market. It may not be a magic bullet, but sometimes we just need a little help from our friends!