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7 Habits of Successful Web Sites, P. 1
The Seven Secrets of Highly Effective Web Sites
Table of Contents:
- Overview and Disclaimer
- Secret One – Engage Your Customer
- Secret Two – Create a Web Site Mission Statement
- Secret Three – Personalize and Build Community
- Secret Four – Reward Your Online Customers
- Secret Five – Ask Your Customer
- Secret Six – Market Across Channels
- Secret Seven – Stay Up To Date (But Don't Leave Behind)
- Making It All Work - (soon)
Overview and Disclaimer
That Book
This is a booklet about effective web sites. It is based very loosely
upon Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People ®.
But this is the last page in which that book will be mentioned, and none of his actual principles are discussed or utilized in this work. If you think about it, it really is quite a stretch to assume that a book, even an excellent book, about personal growth can have applications in the high tech world of web sites. We are people. They are things.
This Booklet
What has occurred, however, is that in re-reading the book
in the context of my current profession, certain phrases jumped off the pages. And my over-caffinated mind began to apply those phrases to the many situations and techniques with which we deal
every day in the web site design business. What has resulted is simply a new approach to presenting what we have been preaching for a very long time.
The Disclaimer
Neither Paul D. Cardin nor Wheat Communications, Inc., is
affiliated in any way with Stephen R. Covey, Franklin Covey or Franklin Covey Certification Workshops.
The Style
You may notice that this work is not written in
Hyper-Hype. I know that's the way you're supposed to write these things. "You'll make a million!" in the first seven paragraphs.
"We'll show you how!" in the next seven. "Pay us now and we'll throw in these great new knives…" in the last. But that's not the way we do things here at Wheat Communications. It's that wheat and chaff thing. We have the knowledge. You have the need. If we can make a deal, then we'll both benefit. If not, the sun will still come out tomorrow.
The Purpose
The purpose of this booklet is to show small businesses
how to effectively use the Internet, particularly their web sites, to help make their businesses better businesses.
Large companies have been utilizing these techniques for some time…and successfully so. But there has not yet been a transference of these techniques to smaller web sites.
Until now…
The Secrets
Each section is divided into two parts – a General
Discussion and Specific Techniques.
Don't worry. We're not giving away real secrets here. What we'll be offering up is certainly new to the small business community and to small business web sites, but there's really nothing secret about it. Why do we tell you about it, then? Because we want you to ask yourself why nobody else ever did. And then we want you to remember our motto: "Experto Credite" - trust the one with experience.
There are
real secrets in the world. The Colonel still has his Secret Recipe and Bill Gates still has his program code (maybe, for a while). But the only secret here is why every
small business web site doesn't utilize these techniques. But come to think of it, I guess that's really more of a mystery than a secret.
The Final Note
The reason Covey's book stays on my mind is because of the
circumstances surrounding the time I met him. It's a small part of a fairly interesting story, and you can read about it on our web site at http://wheatcom.com
Thank you for your time.
Paul D. Cardin, President
Wheat Communications, Inc.
NOTES – NOT A PART OF THE BOOKLET
The 7 Habits of Effective People
1. Be proactive
- Begin with the end in mind.
- Put first things first.
- Think win/win
- Seek first to understand, then to be understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the saw
How it applies to web sites:
- Secret One (be proactive) – Engage the customer
- Secret Two (begin with the end in mind) – Plan a Positive Web Site – Don't'
take shortcuts that will hurt your image - Web Site Mission Statement
- Secret Three (put first things first) – organize and execute around priorities – put
relationship first – personalize - build community – service is more important than sales
- Secret Four (think win/win) – Reward and Be Rewarded
- Secret Five (seek first to understand…) – What Does Your Customer Want?
- Secret Six (synergize) – Cross-Channel Marketing
- Secret Seven (sharpen the saw) – Stay up to date – Lead but Don't Leave Behind
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