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What Every Business Owner Must Know About The Offline Issues Of An Online Business

by Colleen Finnegan

June 11, 2009

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Several generations have now grown up in the “PC era,” which dates to the 1970’s. Even the great inventions of the early 1980s, in fact, are obsolete already, from VCRs to brick-size portable phones. These new generations see PCs as a part of everyday life, and are completely comfortable with highly advanced video games, smart phones, netbooks, WiFi, satellite radio – and, first and foremost, the Internet. Constant virtual connection to anything you need is now a way of life.


It’s almost magical, that word “Internet,” and it certainly was the center of much fantasizing in the late 1990s. At that time, you could get a start-up fund of several million dollars by tacking a “dot-com” suffix on the end of anything – Sports.com, Poker.com, Ideas.com, whatever – and reminding the “old fashioned” bankers and businessmen that the World Wide Web had a new type of economy. Profits were not the most important thing, apparently, and were supposed to simply appear as a result of one’s being hip, slick, cool and relevant.


Reality strikes


The “dot com bust” of 2000-2001 put the lie to the fantasizing, of course, because hipness, slickness, coolness and relevance don’t keep the doors open and bread on the table. Profits do. Yet even with that big, well-documented burst of the tech-stock bubble, a certain cachet still attaches to the Internet, and the businesses that operate there. This article, then, covers what every small business must know about the offline issues of an online business, in case you are thinking of starting a web business or taking your present business online.


You are encouraged, of course, to study further about the various things that will be mentioned, since a thousand words can cover only so much territory. However, that’s enough space to get you well grounded, hit the major points and get you headed in the right direction. You will find that much is common sense (which is increasingly uncommon, of course) as well as some surprising comments, too. Do as much research as you need to do to understand exactly what it is you and your company are getting into.


Truisms of business


Remember now, this is not a “how to start a net business” advice article, but more of a collection of alert messages, such as, “Hey, don’t forget this problem,” or, “Avoid this mistake.” You know you have to have a business plan, you are doubtless aware of the technical challenges of building and running a website – and if you don’t have that plan and don’t understand website construction, put articles on those topics at the top of your reading list.


Perhaps the major offline issues of an online business involve marketing. Although the Internet’s reach is vast, and people will often find your online business while online – through links, banners, referrals, search results, etc. – there are many more people that you can reach offline. Do not neglect the traditional avenues of marketing, advertising and promotion, or you will seriously undercut yourself and narrow your reach considerably. In fact, some of your customers will be people who go online only for certain activities, such as sending/receiving e-mail and making specific purchases.


Capturing customers


Most customers for your online business will not be “cruisers” who simply stumble over your site, although there is a new online “marketing community” that is trying to find a way to make money off, well, stumbling around the World Wide Web. More often, though, customers will head to you directly, straight to your URL. This should clarify for you the type and scope of marketing that you need to do.


Some business advisors dispute the notion that there are separate models for online versus offline business. “Business either is or is not,” writes Andre Gofman at Vmarketing.biz, although he notes that “implementation” of certain activities will certainly vary according to the business location. In addition to marketing efforts, some online business people may neglect financial discipline, specifically in the area of vendor and supplier costs.


Negotiation, virtual and otherwise


Another important area for online business owners to focus on is vendor relations. The best business relationships are personal ones, and the old saying – “People don’t do business with businesses, they do business with other people” ­– is as true as ever in cybercommerce. The offline issues in this case involve personal contact with vendors and suppliers, rather than reliance on e-mails, chat windows or the telephone.


Just because your business is online, and “virtual” in some ways, does not make you or your suppliers any less real and human. And real humans want to shake hands, look each other in the eye and get “a feel” for each other. As a great amount of our communication with others is non-verbal, it really is important to get out and meet your vendors, suppliers, clients and customers face to face. There is nothing that can replace that “up close and personal” touch.


Bottom line is the bottom line


Finally – although there are many more issues you will run into in your continuing research into the matter – there is the matter of financial reporting. It doesn’t matter to the IRS where you do your business, they want their cut, as do the sales tax authorities, license bureaus, etc. You may be used to a computerized, paperless business model, but tax agencies and bureaucracies live on paper, forms, ink and envelopes. Regardless of how efficient your computerized records are, one of the important offline issues for online businesses is recordkeeping.


Sure, your Excel and Quicken and Peachtree Accounting files are fine sitting on the hard drive of your office PC, but the IRS wants hard copy of some specific things. You will need to develop, process and provide various other figures, reports and lists for local, regional, state and federal organizations of different kinds, depending on your line of business and a host of other factors. Business owners who spend too much time cruising in “the parallel universe” can forget that there are some very important things to take care of right here in our four-dimensional lives (that’s the three dimensions of space, plus time, which there is never enough of). You would be well advised to take care of the offline issues of your online business before they become real problems. Any number of mistakes might get you grounded, and keep you from your next cyberspace journey – and that would really be an issue, online and off!

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