In good times and bad, our companies have products, services, and processes to sell.

How do we sell them?

I use the “our” and the “we” in those first sentences consciously.  I live in a community.  We have a local economy.  As a community member of my local economy, I am a self-appointed agent, promoter, and cheerleader for our companies and their products, services, and processes.

How do we sell them?

Again, I use the “we” consciously. 

When I was a kid, the few wealthy citizens in my town were known.  How they got wealthy was through starting businesses and expanding them.  Their solo, entrepreneurial stories would be described in our three local newspapers, The Roanoke Times, The Blacksburg Sun, and The News Messenger.

I was gone from my town.  Now I’m back.  No one I’ve asked can name the top ten wealthy citizens in my town.  Solo, entrepreneurial stories are as rare as newspapers.

Business success isn’t solo any more.  It takes a “we.”  And, increasingly, it takes "we" online - Web 2.0.

Here are the specific challenges I hear from executives on doing public relations, marketing, advertising, and selling online via Web 2.0:

• I’ve been through Windows 3.1, 95, 97, XP and Vista.  They about killed me.  Don’t even talk to me about our accounting software.  I can’t learn one more thing about computers.

• As a business owner, I get so busy from the moment I wake up that I have to put “brush teeth” on my to-do list or it won’t happen. 

• I simply don’t have time for new media, social media, social networking, whatever you call it.  I’ve got a business to run.

• Every day there’s something new.  I don’t have enough time or know-how to evaluate which might improve my business.  So I do nothing.

• These free services make me very cautious.  What if I let my business evolve to depend on a free service that suddenly “goes away”?  I don’t want to begin a project with a disaster recovery plan.

• I like to know my customers personally.  Even e-mail seems cold.

• I’ve tried a few of these Web 2.0 things.  I like them well enough and they seem to be of value.  But I get busy.  They get pushed to the bottom of the priority list.  Then I wish I had never started because they sit like vacant lots in my business compound.  It gives a bad impression.  And yet if I did them...

• I’ve spent 25 years in this business doing it this way.  Why won’t it work now?

• I just want a balanced life.  I want to work, take care of my family, be with my family, have meaningful activities and relationships outside of work, and feel like a productive, contributing member of the business world and of my community. Those are plenty.  If I add one more thing, I’ll tip the balance.

I hear you.  You’re not wrong.  Things have changed is all.

And we can talk for hours about the goodness or badness of it.  While we’re doing that, our competitors are edging up on us by promoting, marketing, and selling their products, services, and processes online.

How do we sell ours – our local community’s products, services, and processes - online?

It will take a "we."