In other words, it may not be a REAL budgetary, skill, or time constraint, but the perception that these factors prohibit online ventures. Plus, they don’t really know where to start. They probably know that either they’re going to have to learn (script: “I don’t have time for that”) or hire somebody on to manage it (script: “I can’t afford to hire someone to manage an unproven tool”). Perception trumps reality every time.
Though new Technology for Small Businesses can save money and make tasks easier in the long run, and online ventures don’t have to cost an arm and a leg, if the perception is that such things are going to be expensive with questionable ROI…
But it may also be more fundamental. Small business owners get a bright idea, or have a skill, and want to turn it into a business. They decide they need a website. Then, usually much to their distress, they discover that they will have to be in 2 businesses. One of them is the one they want to be in, and the other is something, that vaguely dawns on them, under the heading of internet marketing. They aren’t sure where to turn. They don’t know who to trust. They discover that if they don’t get a grip on technology and marketing, they probably won’t have a business.
Have you heard the expression, “surrounded by people and no one to talk to”? The whole ‘technology and marketing’ thing is so vast, with so much information, much of it conflicting, that they wind up frozen in place. They don’t know where to turn, or what a reasonable first step might be.
