Welcome to our new Blog, MarketTalk, and to the launch of our new website. As with any new venture, getting it off the ground can be a formidable and sometimes frustrating task, and this project was no different for us. Even though we design, develop and produce many websites for our clients throughout the year, and have probably produced well over 500 websites over the past 15 years, the one for MarketShare was a real challenge. We birthed our new child with lots of planning, preparation for its arrival and “intense labor”. Now our “baby” has arrived and we are all very excited!!  We want to show off the new arrival, so please stop by and say hello  <marketsharecomm.com>

Producing our new website got me thinking about how often a company decides to make a change - to add a new service, launch a new product, redo the company branding and website, or take the marketing in a whole new direction. We, as the marketing people, go in for a meeting and say, “Hey, this is not a big problem. Just do this or that and it will all fall into place”. The client can’t make a decision — they procrastinate, perseverate, ponder and postpone, they can’t determine a budget and sometimes they don’t call back for days or weeks.  However, after ‘slaving’ over our own updated website, poring over the copy a hundred times before I was satisfied, and driving our web developer crazy with “tweaks” to the style and design of the pages, I have a healthy new respect for our clients that can’t make a decision.

It is said that change is never easy. But it is necessary and inevitable if you hope to grow. In today’s cyber-tech, super-accelerated world, even small closely-held, B-2-B companies, or local retailers, must move ahead — or possibly perish. What worked ten years ago — or ten months ago — probably won’t work tomorrow; things are moving that fast. As “outsiders” who come into companies to help them with their marketing challenges, we often see multi-generational families where a son or granddaughter is working in the business, but Grandpa is still coming to the office every day.  We often hear, “Well I didn’t need a website to build this business, so why do we need one now?”  Well Grandpa (or Grandma, as the case may be), it’s time to start reading up on Web 2.0 for Dummies and Social Media in the 21st Century, and get with the program.  The company may have started in 1962, or ‘54, or ‘49 without email, a website or social networking, but it’s 2010 and the time for change is long overdue!

Staying current in today’s fast-paced business climate is an absolute must, for without moving forward you are really going backward. So take a deep breath, make a strategic plan and jump in with both feet; add that new product, plan that new expansion, hire that new salesperson, revise your branding and update your website (or develop one if you don’t have one already - aarrgghh)!  Once you get started on a new project, like we did, you’re going to be wondering how you ever lived without it.