Ricky’s Online Business Blog

Two weeks ago I conducted a knowledge sharing session to a group of businessmen. It was about creating and running effective business model on Internet. I’m not an Internet marketing guru. It was just a personal knowledge sharing of what I have learned to a private group.

I always plan and assess an Internet business on three levels, that is, business, marketing and technical.  Internet business is much more than just technicalities such as web design and Flash. It is also more than mere selling and marketing.

Instead, we need to think and rethink the way to attract visitors, leads, enquiries, and then convert them into customers. It is the business model that is most important.

In the session, I shared 7 general steps in details to set up an Internet business:

1. Plan your Internet business
2. Register your domain name
3. Get server hosting service
4. Develop your web site
5. Set up online payment and e-commerce facilities
6. Market your Internet business
7. Maintain and evaluate your business online

I also shared 7 ways, among others, to market a business web site online:

1. Search engine marketing
2. Trade and business directories
3. Email marketing
4. Advertisements (including banners and pay-per-click ads)
5. Blogging
6. Social media
7. Mobile marketing

It had been a fruitful non-technical introduction for business people to know how to go about starting and doing Internet business online. The feedback from attendees was quite good. I love learning, and I love sharing

Calling all business owners and managers! Would you like any of your businesses or divisions being featured in an MBA course? I can help. Please contact me and let’s discuss.

You may have read about companies being taught in business textbooks, or mentioned in management courses. Your company too, no matter public-listed or sole proprietorship, can get such exposure among the business community, starting from the nascent circle of business students.

Your company will be covered in areas of mutual agreement, such as management, leadership, marketing, human resources, finance, operations, strategies and so on. Please share your success stories too and how you cope with challenges, whether in the past or now.

So you not only get your company name out, you also get free consulting service as we work to analyze your issues faced and propose solutions to them. And by the way…

Have you seen many business students come out to work only to find themselves unable to cope with real world issues? Please help reform our management education and train our students by contributing a part to give them real business issues to solve as their case study.

Please don’t worry about any trade secrets, strategies, financial information and anything being leaked out. We can discuss on how to cover up and disguise these information for win-win situation for all.

Please contact me here. Your contribution will go a long way toward improving the quality of our business education.

Recently a friend started a discussion on Facebook about boy-girl relationship. Then people started to liken courting boys and girls to marketing.  I commented about it and guess it might be funny to post it on my blog too…

Marketing is applied everywhere, whether we like it or know it or not. Maybe we can learn from Peter Drucker on what he says about selling and marketing in his book Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices..

“There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service available.”

Now let’s apply and adapt marketing vs. selling (courting) to boy-girl relationship and see if we can get any insight from the wisdom

“There will always, one can assume, be need for some courting. But the aim of marketing is to make courting superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the guy/girl so well that you fit the target and sell yourself. Ideally, marketing should result in a target who is ready to accept your proposal. All that should be needed then is to make you available!”