Hello all,
Sometimes, when people learn I’m a computer guy, they tell me something like “Oh, really? Could you help me with something? My mom has a small clothes store and she’s considering creating an e-shop and she doesn’t know where to start.”
Although I’m not in the e-shop business, I’m always interested in such discussions. “Why do you want to have an e-shop? Why do you think it will help your business? How are people going to learn about it? Why will they buy from you rather than from a well-known e-store?” With such questions I let them understand the seriousness of the undertaking and help them discover whether it’s justified.
I may make the questions while thinking “there’s an 80% probability that this person will back off when he realizes the costs in hosting, photography, product database management, support, marketing, etc.”. In this case, my attitude will come out as discouraging.
I may make the questions while thinking “there’s a 20% probability that this is a daring businessman with crazy ideas about how to expand his business”. My attitude will then come out as encouraging.
On the surface, the discussion may be the same, and the person may back off anyway. But if I’ve been having an encouraging attitude, I might help the seed that’s in his mind germinate and flower at a later stage.
Unfortunately, I may have often been discouraging. Like today’s CEOs who have lots of pressure to show ROI within a trimester, I’ve often been looking at the costs and the ROI in a short-sighted manner.
It was COVID19 that helped me make this realization. I’m confident that many people who invested in e-shops were paid off in the last two months. What’s more, COVID19 only accelerated and intensified something that was already happening.
Regards,
Antonis