How is Professionalism Different on the Web?

It isn’t! It’s difficult for me to even comprehend how anyone can believe that an online business is excused from showing anything other than the very highest degree of professionalism. If anything, it’s even more important to display a high degree of professional behavior on the Internet. Your customers don’t have the benefit of personal contact with you.

If in doubt as to how you might reach these heights with your online business, put it to the test. Ask yourself exactly how you would run your company if you had an office downtown! Consider how you would expect the same type of business to be run if it were set up in the outside world, rather than in your spare bedroom.

See? It isn’t all that difficult to figure it out! It may be a little bit more difficult to demonstrate, however.

I realize that some of the processes we go through to run an online business are a bit different from those that we used before the advent of Internet businesses. Working with these processes efficiently - and professionally - is what I hope to provide for you in this series.

Signs of True Professionalism

1)  A professional isn't afraid to make mistakes. Nor, does a professional hesitate to admit those mistakes and maintain accountability. If something isn't right, professionalism demands that it be corrected without placing blame on other sources - and in a timely manner. A "timely manner" is often dictated by the customer's needs!

2)  Professionals know when - and what - to give away. Then, they do it! And, they do it in such a way that the receiver knows they've been given a gift. A coupon to be used only for an upsale to a more expensive product isn't a gift. It's an incentive, disguised as a gift.

Nor is a "free report" that leads to a sales letter a gift. Get the terminology right and you'll avoid the negative feelings of potential customers - and other business owners - who are smart enough to know the difference.

3)  Professionals follow up. They will try to be certain that agreed upon situations are satisfactory. They will show you the work you ordered - in its entirety. They will ask for - and give - feed-back. They will also take negative feed-back under consideration rather than assuming that it is an insult and becoming defensive, or worse, downright belligerent.

4)  Professionals give legitimate guarantees. If we can't guarantee our work, we have no place in the business world. Guarantees need to mean something - even if they are conditional. Promising work - then not getting it done in a reasonable (or the agreed upon) amount of time IS a legitimate reason for the customer to ask for a refund.

Professional-ism is a way of doing business. I've seen rank amateurs with more professionalism than some highly paid executives. The very first sign of a true professional is the way they treat other people. Whether those other people are their colleagues, employees - or their customers. I cannot make that statement too many times! The "new ways of doing business" on the Internet are not exempt.

Why do some people act as if their Internet business is a con game? Because they get away with it! Others are operating on the assumption that nobody will ever know whether they have the skills to run an effective business or not. Trust me - they'll know. Still others simply don't know any better and could use - even appreciate - some help.

Being an amateur isn't a bad thing in itself. We were all amateurs at one time or another. Remaining an amateur - never learning the skills of a business person - not caring about your colleagues and customers - is another thing altogether.

So where do people learn these skills? In the same place you would learn it in the outside business world. You go to school - or you find a mentor. Someone to teach you how to run a business.

---

These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License

To re-publish articles from this site, please incude the following byline - with live links - after each article you use.

-----> Begin

* dr. jl scott is the Founder of the International Council of Online Professionals (iCop™) - and also the publisher of the Internet Marketing Trade Journal™ - the ezine that keeps you up to date on Internet marketing coming of age. For your FREE subscription: http://www.i-cop.org/trade-journal.htm

------> End

Back to the Article Index