Levelling the Playing Field

About 20 years ago if you started up in a business you had to go down the “traditional” route to growth of that business.

You had to trade in your local area – usually from an expensive shop or commercial premises. You had to turn a profit doing so, you had to market yourself in the mediums available, such as in the newspaper on the local radio or via leaflets hand distributed… Then when you finally had a firm footing in your local patch, you expanded. Not far, usually into the neighbouring town, but you expanded all the same. A new shop, or new offices, more over heads to eat into the profit you were starting to make, but you did it in the knowledge that you were eventually going to make even more profit. Nothing like the “big boys” of your industry of course, who had gone before you and done as you’d done – grown their business bit by bit until they were (sometimes hundreds of years later) at the top of the tree.

Then came along the internet and shook that very tree.

It levelled the playing field and meant that even the smallest of new businesses could compete with the “big boys” in their industry. Whoohoo!

The advent of the internet bought us emails, website that have become “virtual shops windows” the ability to market in a much more time and cost effective way. Social networking sites are now morphing and being used to business ends…A good example: on my Facebook account, I was contacted by a random person I didn’t know who simply shares the same unusual surname as me…we got chatting, discussed what we each did for business and from there he’s now interested in taking one of our franchises. For me the benefits are clear…how long would it have taken for me to find this potential franchisee and how long before he would have known about us – him living in the South of the country and us working in the North? Not only is the internet levelling the playing field cost wise for SME’s to large corporates, it’s also changing the time that it is required to build a business, allowing fast paced growth to take place.

So, how’s the internet moulding your company?