Jackson Constraints Group Inc has been around since 1992 or 1993 or so. So, 25 years.
Another of my businesses — Synchronix — has been operating since 1984 — 34 years — so JCG is a mere stripling in comparison.
Best Internet Strategies is not JCG’s “home” site — JCG hasn’t really needed a site until recently — but is a site I originally created 12 years ago but didn’t really take advantage of.
Now, starting from scratch, it’s becoming a Hub for some work I’m doing with small, local businesses. The owners of many of these businesses work hard for every dollar and they are experts at what they do, but they have very little concept of the business growth opportunities made available via the Internet.
There are several folks in the Best Internet Strategies team. I’m the Principal; Steve Jackson, 63, based in Vancouver, BC, Canada for 36 of the past 40 years. With brief interruptions for Ottawa, Calgary, Princeton (NJ). Originally from the UK and if you listen to any of my Videos you won’t find that difficult to believe.
I haven’t had an employer since 1984. That’s deliberate, by the way, not an illustration of a run of remarkable bad luck.
I’ve owned and managed several businesses over the years — some bricks and mortar, some online. Even though I’ve been using computers since 1971 — and I was “online” before the first website was created and before emails were publicly available — I’m primarily a businessman, not a “computer guy” or “internet guy.”
But llong the way I saw the value of using the Internet to help with my businesses.
So, we’ve become useful in applying a wide range of online tactics and strategies to our own, and others’, Businesses. We’re not stylish. A guy called Paul Rnd said that “Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.” If he’s right, we’re in big trouble. But we do know how to do stuff that most businesses don’t.
Over time (and, keeping up to date is a real challenge) we developed expertise in:
— Search Engine Optimization, SEO
— Paid Traffic (advertising) via Google, Bing, facebook and many other advertising platforms
— Video Marketing
— Email marketing via autoresponders
— ECom
— Digital product development and sales
— Affiliate Marketing
— Social media marketing
— Media/Publicity angles — using Press Releases for multiple purposes, for example
and much more. Some of it is hard to “label.” Some overlaps several “labels.”
What became clear early on was that the average awareness of Internet Marketing strategies and tactics by the owners and managers of bricks-and-mortar business is extremely weak. The missed profit opportunities are enormous; and the potential for business owners and managers, and individuals to be misled by marketers who talk up a storm but do not know what they are doing, is great.
“What’s working now” is continuously changing. Much of the instruction online at any time is already out of date and often dangerously so.
So, with one huge caveat, I re-launched BIS to open a door into helping these businesses. Then it expanded a little.
— Consulting & Services to B2B operations
— Consulting & Services to B2C operations
— Selling our own line of Information products “3 Boxes Ticked”
— BIS laboratories — constantly testing for improved performance.
I mentioned a caveat.
The caveat is that, having formed the intention, and replaced a 12-year-old website on bestinternetstrategies.com, I’m actually reluctant to make my services available beyond a few colleagues and friends.
I have committed at the moment to just TWO services that I’m making public.
- I LOVE the leverage I can get for businesses from well-researched, well written, well-structured Press Releases distributed through high quality channels. I have a few “surplus” Press Releases each month out of a “package buy,” typically 6 – 10 spare each month.
Because these offer very highly leveraged boosts to the right type of small Local business in the right size of community, and because they do not call for any ongoing commitment by seller or buyer … I’m actively promoting these on a 1st-come 1st-served basis in the USA and Canada.
- I’m providing some free information on various aspects of how businesses can take advantage of internet marketing.
I might add other services in the future. Heaven knows the need is huge and the people serving that need are often very poor at what they do. The frustrating thing is that small businesses often don’t know enough to know what they need or whether a proposed supplier is competent or offering good value.
And the time-demands on small business owners mean they don’t have the time, even if they had the interest and skills, to get too deep into these strategies and tactics and tools themselves.
So … we’ll see.