Jay Goltz, who owns five small to medium sized businesses in Chicago and who writes a column on running small businesses for the New York Times, published an article yesterday, 11th January 2011, on the The Old Man and the Internet.
In it he muses that he started out as a retailer, struggled with the fact that he was also a manufacturer, and eventually expanded into being a distributor, a direct-sales organization and now a Web marketer. The first three evolutions he opines, were slow and painful, but he successfully figured them out. This latest twist, becoming a Web marketer, is different. This time, it is not just about people and problems. It’s about understanding the realities of a whole new world.
photo credit: Daniel Marchese
There are two main points that he makes in this article:
1. Every business owner (especially the Old Farts … my personal perspective) should belong to a business group. As he states, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the insights gained from comparing notes with other business owners, in different businesses, can be phenomenal.”
2. Small business owners. especially those same Old Farts, are slow to realize that this whole Internet thing is probably the most powerful development since the Industrial Revolution. They need to understand that they now operate in a totally different business environment, and need to adjust. The Internet, social media and whatever else is missing are all changing fast, and need to be mastered.
The problem, is that: The Old Farts do not know what is going on behind the curtain. Sometimes, they think they know, they want to know, they need to know, but how could they know? No one who works in their business most likely has ever been involved with technology.
For the rest of this very stimulating article, please read The Old Man and the Internet.