b-commerce Glossary
This is the place to look if you aren’t quite sure what I mean by a word or phrase.
I will use a few terms and sometimes you may be unsure exactly what I mean. I don’t intend to build my own lexicon but at times words will develop meanings of their own.
b-commerce – The holistic approach to building sustainable long-term business success by thinking and acting for the 'big picture'.
Apathy - Apathy is a lack of engagement with yourself, a product or process. The opposite of Love and Passion.
B2B – Business to Business sales and transactions. It must be remembered that at all times businesses are really people too.
Blog - Web Logs of articles and comments. A form of Social Media, blogs are an important part of many sales processes.
Branding – Creating your own identity in the minds of consumers. Physically, brands tend to consist of logos, colours, and an overall style or approach to the market… but in reality the Brand is created and held in the minds and hearts of the people.
Closing Sales – Absolutely necessary if you want to stay in business but often the wrong place to start. A “Close” is the point where the salesman asks for the business. Some closes become heavy handed which I think damages the relationship. See Opening Customers and Hard Sell.
Community Interaction – Without a community your business ceases to exist. Get involved in your community. Community involvement doesn’t mean charity or doing ‘good deeds’ but having an open back and forth with your users.
Consistency – Nothing with a long life happens overnight. You must stay the course and be stable. Remember, “don’t wobble”. See Passion and Long-Term.
Content – The reason for it all. Content is what makes life exciting. Be part of it. Content is technically the words and pictures on the page separate from the Template which is common to all pages.
Customer Profiles – Know your customers. The better you know your customer’s habits, wants and needs the better you can serve them with what they want. Building a profile can be a very rewarding experience that allows you to see new opportunities. The profile can also help keep you on track.
Differentiation - You are you so be you in the fullest, brightest possible way to attract your own followers. Being different is vital. Making the same product as your competitor makes it hard for you to be different.
Dumb - Dumb is when you care so little about yourself that you care only about yourself, to the exclusion of your greater good. See Healthy Self-Interest.
Forum - Forums are places for people to discuss. Forums form the basis for almost all social media and can be wonderful places to build your own community when used well. See Social Media.
Gallery - A Gallery or Portfolio is a collection of your works to prove how good you are at what you do.
Good Web Site – Good means that they achieve their aims. Generally that is sales.
Google – The Emperor of the Web and the place we all hope to be seen close to the throne. I will often use the word Google to represent all Search Engines. May be unfair to the others but Google is the dominant engine so…
Hard Sell – Hard Sell is the process of putting pressure on customers to purchase. Something that I think should never be done as it shows poor respect.
Healthy Self-Interest – A core concept. Be selfish. Smart selfish. Everything you do comes back so prepare your world with success. If you treat yourself and the world around you with passion then passion is what you will receive in return. See Dumb, Passion and Win Win.
Information Flow – Information is the reason for the Web and people need to get to it. Flow makes this easy. Every information containing structure must be built for ease of use.
Long-Term Success – A core concept. This is what we should all strive for. Flash in the pan and a quick buck often does more damage than good. See Hard Sell and Win Win.
Love - A core concept. Customers who love your product are easy to serve and bring you more business. Love is a sign that you are doing it right. See Apathy and Passion.
Marketing - Marketing is what you do before you start selling things. Marketing tells you what to build and where to build it. Marketing has to come before Sales and is a separate process. Marketing defines the market you sell to and the product you sell.
Opening Customers – The easy, low impact way of selling. b-commerce puts a lot more emphasis on developing a strong reason for the customer to want to do business with you. Opening seems to take a bit more work initially but it pays dividends in Love and referrals.
Opportunity Cost – Opportunity Cost is the cost incurred by every decision. If you go the beach you cannot go to work to earn money. If you go to work you can't be at the beach having fun. If you don’t hire a specialist you will save money but you will be losing sales. If the sales you lose are worth more than the cost of the specialist then the opportunity cost is more damaging then the cost.
Passion - A core concept. Passion lets you know you are truly alive and on the right path. Experience it every day. If you express your passion, people will see that and be drawn to you. Passion supports Love and is Healthy Self-interest in action. Passion will keep you in the game for the Long-Term.
Product – A product or service equally that you sell to customers.
Sales - Sales are a sign that you are in business and interacting with your community. We all want more sales but be sure you choose the right ways to grow or you will be building in a time bomb.
Sales Flow - "Flow" is when users of a system are engaged and become passionate about the activity (and buy the product).
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – The act of helping search engines to find your businesses. Please note the word “help” does not mean “bully” or “spam”.
Shopping Cart – An automated database to help build part of a web store. Take care with these as if you let the cart get before the product you will damage sales.
Simple – Sales & Marketing should all be simple. If it is complex then it will probably fail. Always look for the simplest expression of what you need to say to get your Passion across. All sales and marketing must be honorable or you will be building in one of them nasty time bombs.
Social Media – Social media is the term that covers all of the interactive tools on the web like Blogs and Forums. It is a process where the people are part of the news not simply the receivers of it.
Terms of Trade - Terms of trade are the mutual agreements that hold businesses and people together. Terms must be mutually beneficial or destruction is the only possible result. See Win Win.
Trust - People used to blindly accept what they were told. Now they need to believe for themselves. Trust can only be built from Passion, Truth and a Win-Win approach to life. Being Dumb destroys Trust.
Truth – Anything but the truth will cause problems that cost more than any possible gain made from the lie. Truth is Simple and simple is efficient and Long-Term. Truth can support Passion and lead to Love.
Understanding – Saying that you understand your customers is easy but really seeing the world as someone else does is a challenging thing to do. Luckily the rewards are great for those that do.
Web 2.0 – An overall catch phrase for the 2nd generation of the web where humans are becoming the most important part of the process.
What’s In It For Me (WIIFM) – People only ever do something that they perceive will benefit them. To assume otherwise is to fail. See Healthy Self-Interest. This is expressed in my Richer Sexier Happier Rule.
Win Win – Anything in business (and life) that doesn’t bring equal benefit to all parties involved is a failure. It is tempting to take more than you give but doing so will create a failure that will catch up with you. Win Win is the easiest way of doing business.
If you want me to work with your business then please visit BRM Web Consulting
