Part 5: The good, the bad and the e-builders

Do you think the web world is ready to accept your arguments and approach, or is the lure of the big e-builders and others simply too strong?
A great question, but our experience is quite the opposite.

People are finally taking a hard look at the sites the big e- builders have been providing and asking themselves a) why do they cost so much and b) why do they work so poorly? In just the past few weeks there have been probably a dozen articles about the e- commerce failures of the big e-builders and a resulting shakeout at that end of the industry, and Forrester Research recently ripped the majors, by name, for creating sites that are so indefensibly expensive and yet are so full of performance problems.

The cachet of a big brand is small comfort when your business is running out of cash. Let me ask you a question: have you ever heard of a customer who said, "This site is terrible, but I'm going to buy from the company anyway because (insert a big name developer here) put it together."

Another thing I'm sure many of your readers have noticed is the impact Jakob Nielsen has had in the area of usability and Mark Hurst has had in the area of customer experience, work we certainly respect. What Future Now has proven is the incredible power of going even further, not only implementing Digital Salespeople™ but also funneling everything else through the question, "Will it, or will it not, increase sales?"

I should also mention that we have partnered with traditional developers already and are more than open to partnering with others in the future. By adding an expert sales perspective, we can help them do what they do even better. Everybody wins, especially the client.

Your readers should know that prior to creating Future Now, each of us struggled and succeeded in building successful businesses of our own. We care passionately about the success of our clients. We also know in the end there is only one metric that matters: sales. It is both professionally and personally frustrating to see a company that is struggling because their site is already too graphics heavy, only to be sold on the idea that they will do better if they add more graphics. Or their site is impossible to navigate, but someone sells them on the idea that the solution to their sales problem is adding a flash demo. In the end, online sales success is based on a relentless focus on the basics of online selling. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

Plus, what we're saying and doing really is compelling. We're truly flattered by this interview, but you wouldn't have invited us if we didn't have something to say that was important to your readers. In addition to constant approaches from new clients and also potential investors, we are getting picked up in the media, both online and off, several times a week. Obviously we're not just saying something refreshingly new, we're saying something really important. People are beginning to realize there really is a solution to low conversion rates, high customer acquisition costs, low retention rates and low lifetime values, and, all the big name big price developers notwithstanding, a startup called Future Now has it.

Sure, there will always be people who are blinded by the brand, or are afraid to break out of the old paradigm, and or who are already doing well and prefer not to face the question of could they could be doing even better. But those that are willing to embrace this new approach are going to eat their lunch.

Interesting statistic: in the offline world, the top 4% of salespeople outsell the other 96% combined. (In the online world, the curve is even more skewed.) What's important is it's a proven fact the 4% are so much more successful than the other 96% because they are constantly looking for and using the very best resources out there.

You know we're the total opposite of arrogant, Mark, so you know we don't mean to sound that way when we say the question for e- business owners really is simple: do you want to be part of the 4% at the top or the 96% spread out along the bottom?

Continued...