3 Tips to Convert a Brick and Mortar Business into an Online Business
In Collaboration with Path to Summit LLC
As an instructional design firm, I’ve gotten the question: “How do I go from a brick and mortar business to an online business?” “How do I train my employees?” This is a super valid question and while I can talk all day about training employees in-person or online, I had a hiccup with the holistic view of this process.
I realize that being in Learning and Development, I see only one part of the whole. So, I tapped into my good friend Kirsten Ebey, Founder and President or Path to Summit LLC, a project management company.
I knew Kirsten would be able to give me some good, first steps as to this transition. And sure enough, she was able to pinpoint a great, 30,000-foot view of this process in three simple steps.
This was originally a video interview. Here are the highlights of our conversation. You can find the video on the Miranda Park Learning LinkedIn page for July 2, 2020.
Tip #1: Look at your existing business plan and ask yourself: “How do I make it virtual?”
Your brick and mortar business plan and your virtual plan may turn out to be two very different plans. Try and look at your existing business plan through the eyes of virtual. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What does the operating section look like for the virtual version of the business?
- What’s your new executive summary? Does it look the same?
- What’s your new mission?
- What would marketing look like? No tall sign on a brick and mortar, so… what other kinds of advertisement would you do?
- How else would you get the word out?
- How do you convert your employees to online employees? Is this possible for your business?
Make a draft of your answers and when you’re ready, continue to Tip 2.
Tip #2: Make a landing page for your online business.
Set up a landing page with the who, what, where and why of your product. On the page, set up a Call to Action (CTA) such as, “Sign up to learn more.” This allows you to see where people are coming from and their level of interest.
A landing page is a good, low cost, low risk, way to perform a test with your audience. This page will give you a view also into the feasibility of this idea. Is there any forward momentum coming from this page?
Once you have the results, move on to the next step.
Tip #3: Decide. What do you want to do from the results of your test?
Should you, after you see the test results, engage with a marketing professional, an SEO expert and a web developer? Be clear on what you want out of your business website and how you want it to perform for you. Then, determine the cost.
If you decide to go for it and transition your business to online, you can do it gradually. Stick with what’s working in your brick and mortar, and convert online concurrently. Start migrating step by step, especially if time is on your side.
In Conclusion
These three steps are a great start to converting your brick and mortar into online. Of course, they’re not the only ones. When you’re ready to start this migration, contact Kirsten Ebey at www.PathtoSummit.com for the steps and processes best suited for your online business transition.
Who Are We?
We are Miranda Park Learning, your instructional design services experts. To get started on instructional design for your team, contact Cassy Huidobro at 720-722-9998 or via email at [email protected].
Picture: Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
This blog was made in collaboration with Kirsten Ebey of Path to Summit LLC and Cassy Huidobro of Miranda Park Learning and has been verified as unique by Copyscape.
