Collins Street Business Centre
Chapter Five: global communication, networking around the globe
The world is yours – do business around the globe from your home office
You can be a long-distance entrepreneur, and grow a global business, with Australian government help. Visit the Business Entry Point site for a wide range of options. This site covers government initiatives to get your business started, e-business, tenders and contracts, and importing and exporting, and includes information on obtaining financial assistance.
Making contact with people in other countries
With just your computer and an online connection, you can be part of the global marketplace. The best way to make contact with people and companies in other countries with whom you'd like to do business is via a referral. Email anyone on your current contact list that you think could help.
Referrals ensure that you make contact with legitimate businesses. You can also make independent contact with companies. If you choose this route, ensure that you Google the business first to check their background. Google should always be your starting point for company research – even if you feel you know the company well, and that they’re legitimate. Not much escapes Google. (See Google linking, below.)
Finding overseas companies to do business with
Other than a direct referral here are some ways to find businesses:
Hoovers Online: Hoover's delivers comprehensive information on companies and industries. Some of the information is free, most is chargeable at various levels;
The global news: visit Refdesk to access newspapers around the world. At least half of newspaper content is pulled directly from news releases put out by companies. Scan the business sections of the news sites to find companies that you could approach with a business proposal;
Google linking. In a perfect world, the Web would be the first place you would search. However, it's risky to use only the Web to find companies. For a safer route to find reputable companies, use Google, to establish whether the company has other companies which link to it. Here's how: use Google's linking search. Enter your link-search into the Google query box: as "ink:URL". For example, to find companies which link to Microsoft, you'd enter (without quotes): "link:www.microsoft.com". An established, reputable company will have many other companies which link to it.
Before you establish a relationship, do a Google search to establish a business's bona fides
When you're Googling a business, enter the business's name in the search query box. Then enter (without the quotes): "+problems"; "+bad business"; "+scam warning" or a similar word or phrase which is likely to elicit any problems that others have had with the business. You can also enter the name of the business's principals. If you're interested in news stories about the business, try Google News.
Your Web site
All telecommuting entrepreneurs need a Web site. Without a site, you're crippled: you can’t access the global marketplace. Even if your customers are local, you need a site. It tells your customers who and what you are. Your site gives you a 24x7 presence. If you site is well put together, that is, you've considered that it will be visited by computer programs (Web indexing program coming from the Web search engines), and have included key words, after a few years your site may be the only marketing that you need to do for your venture.
You don't need to be a technological wizard to create your own site. When you use one of the many companies which offer Web templates to host your site, creating a site takes only an hour or two, and is as easy as typing into a word processor.
Companies which offer easy Web-site creation and hosting solutions:
SiteSell: creates and hosts ecommerce-enabled sites;
Perfectory: creates sites for creative professionals, and offers hosting packages;
iPage: offers low-cost site creation and hosting;
Homestead: site creation and hosting, with good IT support.
Make your presence felt online with a blog
Blogs burst into prominence in 2004. What's a blog? A blog is a Web log, or online journal. From a humble beginning as personal online diaries in 1998, blogs have become a powerhouse Web marketing tool. Marketers love the elegant simplicity of a blog, because where Web sites take months to be listed on the major search engines, blogs are indexed and listed in mere DAYS. Therefore as a low-cost or no-cost (if you choose a free blog service), blogs take the crown. If the majority of your customers are online, a blog is a must-have.
The benefits of a blog are:
Credibility . The old saying "on the Internet no one knows you're a dog" couldn’t be more true. Every evening news broadcast mentions a new Internet outrage, so people who want to do business with people they don't know, hunt for signs of credibility and legitimacy. You blog tells people who you are;
Almost-instant listing on all the search engines. Your blog will be listed on Google within days, giving you no-cost advertising;
Relationships . Blogs are a social medium. You will be able to establish instant online connections that you could gain in no other way. The comments and linking functions of blogs are the key to these relationships. If you leave a comment on a blog posting, the blog owner immediately sees the comment. If you link to a blog, or blog posting, the owner also sees it. If you're aiming to get known by the leaders in your industry, leave a comment or create a link to their blog, and you've established an instant relationship.
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