If you’re like most eCommerce business owners I know you probably didn’t study online selling at school.

You came up with an offering, found some customers the “traditional way” and bang, you had a real world business. Well, not quite that easy, I know.

Then you went ahead and put your business online, did your SEO and Adwords and they came and bought your wares. Yay! Your online sales are growing!

One day you realised that running your online business was almost equally as challenging as running your real world business, if not even more so.

The reality hit you that you are, in fact, running TWO businesses.

And the buck stops with you.

Succeeding online AND offline is about a lot more than just being great at what you do or having the right products to sell. Your business systems and processes need to demonstrate and convince your customers at every step that you are the best, most reliable and trustworthy choice in the market.

And that’s not easy.

You have to master many skills. Source excellent products, deliver a great customer experience, look after long-term customers and continuously find new ones. And don’t forget to look after your team.

It’s a real challenge!

When I started running my own businesses more than 20 years ago almost all of these were new to me.

I had to learn about software development, how to package services to make them a solution and how to win customers.

It wasn’t easy and I made lots of mistakes. After taking my main business through multiple “iterations” I eventually discovered that in order to get things done I needed systems that exchanged critical data when it counts.

Eventually, I had all the key components to support the entire customer lifecycle and integrated these allowing me to grow the business the way I had always wanted.

And so, through a process of trial and many errors, this is what I figured out:

Removing labour-intensive and error prone manual effort in as many areas of the business as possible freed-up resources that could be dedicated to higher-value tasks. Of course, this isn’t rocket science but finding those areas of the business where this can be done successfully without compromising the quality of of your customer’s experience is pure gold.

If a business can eliminate duplicate effort between real world and online operations that’s smart. If a business can remove bottlenecks and the dependency on knowledge held in the heads of individuals it can truly scale – and do it without the need to add to the payroll.

That’s what integrated online business is all about: Expand your market, reach new customers, scale your business – and all of that without the need for more human resources. That’s smart eCommerce. That’s the kind of business everyone wants.

And that’s also how you build an online business that is actually fun to operate and own.

Otherwise, what’s the point?

Over the past 8 years I’ve been helping online businesses save significant amounts of time and effort through eCommerce integration.

So, if you’re looking for practical advice that can actually help you ensure your online business is fully streamlined and integrated with your real world business then you’re in the right place.

Step one is to book a FREE Integration Assessment with me to discuss your unique situation. I will personally show you the key steps  to turning your real world and online businesses into a single fully integrated smart eCommerce business that will allow you to free up valuable resources in your organisation.

I look forward to speaking to you.

Mark Presnell, aka Mr Integration

PS: If you’re not ready to talk, feel free to download a FREE copy of my eBook titled “The Definitive Integrated eCommerce Roadmap”