There is no question that change is guaranteed. It will never go back to the way it was before. It does not matter if it is the economy, environment, technology or politics.

Understanding how your competition is responding to change

The value of studying your competition is obvious but what insight can you gain from looking outside of your own direct competitor and your own field?

Plenty of insight. Why?

Because what happens in other markets is often an indication of what will happen in your market. Sometimes this can give you enough time to prepare or to take advantage of it before your direct competitors are even away that the change is happening.

I get asked a lot about building websites. People ask me where to hire a web designer, what do they need in a website, how much does it cost. I've built websites from $500 to $8M and everything in between so I find this to be a vague question.

It is like asking how much does it cost to buy a house in the USA. The answer ranges from $7,500 in downtown Detroit, to the $millions on the beautiful coastline in California or Florida and everything in between.

What you need to do to create your website depends on what you are planning to do with it. Are you creating an online business or just playing around posting pictures and having fun.

I have met many people who are looking for someone to help them with their website. They have a website and it doesn't work properly. It might appear OK but there is no traffic. Or, maybe when people sign up the links and autoresponders are broken.

I am going to share with you a step in the contact with your website developer that every business person should know about. In the professional world it is called "User Acceptance Testing"

Do make the final payment to your developer until you have performed this step.

Step 1: Log out of your website, and clear you head of all your work. Imagine yourself to be one of your prospects.