BBO Institute

Yesterday I posed the question, “What Is A Real Business?” A real business is made up of two basic elements and these two elements should be the main focus of every business owner. If you find yourself working on other things, you need to shift your focus.

So what are the two elements? They are Traffic and Conversion. Any business activity, whether the business is online or bricks and mortar, can be summed up in these two elements.

Traffic:
This is perhaps the most important element in building your business. Lots of people think that if you have a good product, the customers will come running. But most of the time, that isn’t the case. Here’s an example why. Lets say, there are two men who own hotdog cart businesses and they want to sell hotdogs around the superbowl stadium. The first one has all the best hot dog toppings one could imagine, and he gets a spot a few blocks over from the main entrance to the stadium. The second man just has the basic toppings but he gets a prime spot located right in front of the superbowl stadium. Which one is going to make more money that day? Of course the guy with the basic toppings but a prime location. This is the reason why McDonalds is so successful. McDonalds focuses on prime traffic locations. That should be your focus too. It isn’t uncommon for a savy internet business owner to start building traffic before they finish or even start the website.

Conversion:
The second most important aspect to running a business is conversion. Once you have the traffic, you’ve need to get them to buy. You might be asking, “Don’t you need to worry about your product before thinking about conversion?”

My answer: No. Athough both are elements of conversion, good marketing is more important than a good product. The product is important in the sense that you want happy customers who buy and keep buying from you. But no one will even understand the value of your product without good marketing. It’s up to you to let them know that you’ve got something of great value and why it’s of greater value than the amount of money you’re asking for it.

Now, pretty much any aspect to business will fall under one of these two categories. Your job as a business builder is to find the most effective ways for you to achieve these two things. Sometimes that depends of the market but often when you’re starting out, much of it depends on you.

A Real Business’s success depends on how well you can focus on traffic and conversion.

I could go on, but I’d like to hear from you. What are the most important activities you find that fall under one these two categories?
Or would you like to share what your thoughts about traffic and conversion, feel free to leave your comments below.

Matthew Glanfield