Expert Advice For Online Business

About twenty years ago I saw a "crotch rocket" sport bike and decided it looked like fun. I really had no experience with motorcycles and did not know anyone who had one, but hey, how hard could it be? I bought one of the most powerful street bikes available and set off tooling around town. It was fun, but I could not do any of the things I wanted to do. I would take a sharp corner and lay it down. Every time I got over 90mph, the bike would shake and scare me. It was fun, well, probably more scary than fun. I did not have the right bike, the right protective gear or the right training. I sold the bike after a year or so after I bought it. In retrospect, I am lucky to be alive.

Now, twenty years later, I am hopefully a little wiser. I still like bikes, but have put aside a little of the hubris that prevented me from asking for help when I needed it most. I went and spoke with some licensed expert motorcycle racers I knew. They told me which bike, equipment, training and tracks would likely be right for me. I followed their advice to the letter and hung on every word and recommendation they offered. There would be time enough for experimentation, but without a baseline, I would never be able to tell if my changes were helping or hurting.  My buddies told me what I was doing wrong, where I could improve and items I could use to go faster and do the things I wanted to do.

I studied, purchased the right equipment and hung on every word of advice they gave me. I took and passed my track license and my amateur racer license. In a little over a year from the time I first rode my new bike, I was on the podium at an amateur sprint bike motorcycle race, placing second in front of many other smaller bikers with bigger bikes and much much more time at the track. That picture to the left is some of my on-track advisors (guru-Randy was just too fast to make the shot) in Calabogie Canada the day before yesterday.

What was the difference? I now know what I do well and what I do not. I also know that I do not want to waste time researching an answer someone else has on the tip of their tongue? I just did not want to reinvent the wheel. I had experts at my disposal, why not use them to help jump to the top of the learning curve? This advice applies even more so to companies looking to expand their internet presence. You can do it yourself, but enlisting the help of internet experts in law, marketing, blogging, capital management, customer service, whatever your company needs to conduct online business.

Do not lose that entrepreneurial spark. Just learn the track before you start cracking the throttle open here and there. Let the experts get you on the right track and headed in the right direction.  After a few laps, you should have a feel for what you might change to make things flow even better.

Otherwise, you can try it on your own for a while. You still find people like that at the racetrack. While I have yet to see one of them on the podium, they do get frequent flier miles from the trackside ambulance team.

Comments

[John Schneider]

Great post, and I especially enjoyed the motorcycle analogy... Having had dramatically similar experiences.

Your point about seeking expertise and perspective is well made, and extends really to all aspects of one's business. The interactive marketing component is definitely one to call out, as the intricacies and complexities of navigating this medium pose scary challenges to those unfamiliar with it. The same can be said about the myriad of legal, talent and market challenges we face. Knowing when to bring in the reinforcements (the experts) is often key to initial and sustained success.

What I often struggle with, and know that others do as well, is balancing the advice/input/perspective of the experts with our own instincts and intuition. I can think of one Des Moines entrepreneur in the publishing arena that despite the advisement of a battery of experts still forged ahead... and to tremendous success. The takeaway here, though, is not that this advice is to be disregarded... But folded, at some level, into the ultimate decision.

--John