Selling software (especially websites and eCommerce products) to businesses is fascinating. Many businesses dismiss you straight away with “that’s not how it’s done here” or “we do that in-house”. The really fascinating thing is examining the nature and quality of what they do in house and how limited it often is. It can be nearly impossible to explain to a business that…
- their own IT personnel are disinterested, useless or both
- their website is poor
- they know little about IT but are too afraid to admit it
- they’re convinced that their business model won’t have to adapt to take new technologies & trends into account
Over the past week I’ve encountered several companies where branch offices recognise there’s a problem but headoffice doesn’t think the business model can be streamlined or modified in any way. It’s time for a bit of objectivity here. Personally, I’m too pedantic as we should have launched our main site ages ago but I’m still fine-tuning the content (as opposed to this blog which is deliberately slapdash) However, many businesses that I’m encountering have no clear idea of why they have a website, what it can do for them and how important the design is in establishing them as a credible organisation in the year 2005.