1. What motivated you to establish a web presence? Before I left corporate life to set up my own business, I had worked in the e-commerce divisions of a couple of high street retailers and therefore already possessed a well-developed faith in multi-channel strategies. Our web site was therefore always going to be an integral part of our operation.

2. What is the overall goal or mission of your website(s)? Our web site reflects our company products – virtual personal assistant services, but its overall goal is to communicate what we do, the exceptional quality of the service we give and the ease of its use. Its design is simple and personal, though we are looking to develop our web site to include online bill payment and membership.

3. What was your first year like? Extreme to say the least! Thoroughly exciting as the business began to grow, but as we launched a week before 9/11 growth was much slower than we expected, so times were a little hairy. Operationally we were breaking new ground, with a bespoke software system a brand new team and a virtually new business concept to promote it was tough. Completing years one, two and three have all been major milestones, but one can never sit back and relax.

4. From where do you draw inspiration? Anyone and everyone, anywhere and everywhere. I try never to be too proud to listen and learn, though by my very nature I tend to be pretty egotistical. Often inspiration from other people comes hours or days after I’ve met them or talked to them, and then I realize they’ve said something which has inspired me and given me food for thought.

I was hugely inspired by my father who always said it is important to spend your days doing something you enjoy, rather than toiling your guts out in a thankless job. How right he was!

5. Why do you think your customers choose you? Often it’s because our other customers have recommended us, but for brand new customers it’s often because first impressions count. We offer a top-flight service, and that’s got to be clear in the first seconds when a potential customer talks to one of our people. Then we’ve got to live up to what we promise, which, more importantly, is why our customers stay. Clearly having a web site that encourages people to contact us is vital, so it’s got to be reflective of our service, professional, friendly, reliable and good value.

6. What’s the best advice you have ever received about website development and marketing? Probably that analogue values still apply. I think this was a big lesson to everyone caught up in the over-optimism and overly-high expectations that existed during the dot com boom. Having a web site is no different to having a shop front and selling on line is no different to selling anywhere else. Building a business of any description still takes hard work, a solid product range, great people and appropriate marketing amongst other things.

7. What are some of the trends you are noticing in your industry? Much increased competition. I suspect that the move of traditional call centre operations overseas has led to call centre landlords looking for alternative revenue, so they’re leasing call centre desks to people who set up as virtual PAs. A number of our new customers come to us because they’ve been let down or their service provider has gone bust. Core Business Network is one of the longer established companies in this market and we’re sticking to our original values, so we feel no pressure to reduce our service in order to cut costs or compete with inferior products.

8. What significant partnerships have played a role in your success? The fact that just about every technical supplier we have worked with is a customer is something we are very proud of, it reflects the strength of the business partnerships we have and everyone’s faith in our service.

9. What is it about your job that might keep you awake at night? It can be an array of things, and as one can never become complacent, I’m not sure you can ever be free of it as an entrepreneur. However to date, it has usually been cash flow or getting, motivating or keeping great people, as both are the lifeblood of a successful business in my opinion.

10. If you could only offer one piece of advice about ECommerce to our readers what would that be? Your web site is just the front end of what your business is likely to be about, so don’t neglect the operational part, this is what will keep you ahead of (or behind!) your competition. Having a flashy web site doesn’t mean you have a great business necessarily.

11. How do you measure success? I suppose society measure success through financial measures, so profitability and turnover growth is definitely one. However it’s not all about money; a happy, motivated team and a base of customers who clearly benefit from our service is a huge measure of success, it’s what keeps me going!

12. What’s the best advice you have ever received?
Trust your instinct. It’s never let me down, and if any decision based on my own gut feel has turned out to possibly be the wrong one, then I take refuge in knowing that at least I was true to myself.

13. What are your website URL’s?
www.corebusinessnetwork.com (remote pay-as-you-use personal assistant service for small businesses and one-man bands), www.thesellerspack.com (home for sale by owner service) and www.modernheirlooms.co.uk (furniture and home-ware boutique)

© 2006 - Heidi Richards is the author of The PMS Principles, Powerful Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business and 8 other books. She is also the Founder & CEO of the Women’s ECommerce Association, International www.WECAI.org (pronounced wee-kī) – an Internet organization that “Helps Women Do Business on the WEB.” She can be reached at www.HeidiRichards.com.