Welcome to the Escape Blog

One of the things that identifies so many success stories is that the people ‘making it’ online just got on and done it. The didn’t have meetings about creating systems to cope, pontificating about getting it accurate first time… they just got on and did it. After all, they can refine it later (ask Amazon).

It’s easier now than ever before with online tools. You could (no question) have a website live on the internet within an hour from now, although you would need to wait for global DNS to update, even that only takes about 24-48 hours.

Don’t scoff, it can be done. It may not be perfect but hey - welcome to the web! My answer to anyone who disagrees is this - what’s more important, really; the way something works or the result it gets? It’s a marketing and sales thing, not about technology and systems. They just make it easier to deliver and manage the work flow.

A system [online] is based around the process and results and these can be optimised over time - in fact that’s a necessity.

Example: Truly Scrumptious Beauty (my fave case study and my own online project for my wife’s beauty salon). We want newsletter subscribers so we offer an incentive (the process) of free vouchers to sign up (process). I manually respond and send the vouchers on a daily basis (system) by e-mail.

The process has delivered a list that now boasts 720 people (result) using a FREE system that takes up less than five minutes a day. It’s not perfect and I’d love to not have to do it but it works. Would it justify the cost of developing a bespoke system? No, and I know that now rather than having to pay to find out upfront.

Other examples include websites using Wordpress, Free Blogs, Facebook Pages, Squidoo Pages, Hub Pages, Wikis, Forums… the list goes on.

One last thought. The reason some people have succeeded from scratch is because they have taken this attitude and stuck with it, only spending money on systems when they needed to, almost delivering a work-in-progress. When the process is justified, the systems get developed.

After all, you can buy the best football boots in the world but it won’t guarantee to turn you into the next David Beckham overnight.