Hutchinson, KS (PRWEB) April 02, 2012
Gone are the days that businessmen and women had to travel the world to cultivate a broader client base and grow their business. Diane Potter has clients all over the world, yet she wont set foot on an airplane.
Its only fitting, then, that she is the owner of an Internet marketing firm giving other businesses the tools to expand their presence in a high-tech marketplace. Potter has expanded her business into todays Springboard Designs which is launching a new website April 2.
With an Internet presence, you have the power to do business while you sleep. Your business is open 24 hours a day. Without a website, you are missing out on a lot of exposure, she said.
As an entrepreneur herself, Potter can easily relate to her clients, many of whom are trying to broaden their market or even create a business from scratch with a web-only company.
Potter and her business are at a turning point. While she began in 2008 as a virtual assistant doing administrative tasks online ? she quickly learned that the true demand was for more specialized online marketing skills. And, as Potter became trained in keyword research, shopping cart programs and list-building skills, an evolution began from a VA working at home to a full-fledged Internet marketing firm with an office staffed with a project manager, marketer and programmer/coder managing a team of web techs.
With Springboard Designs, clients get a professional experience with a dedicated office staff, as opposed to one person working from her home, Potter said. With a team of people, Springboard can handle more clients, better meet deadlines and do quality work at affordable prices.
If theres an entry-level car and theres a Cadillac, we are somewhere in between, Potter said. We are like the high-end Chevy.
Potter wants to be a good choice for any business. She has high-end retainer clients that pay by the hour, but she also wants to serve small and medium-sized businesses that need a nice website and Internet marketing work without extraordinary rates.
The new Springboard website, http://www.springboarddesigns.com, offers many tiered packages to allow customers to customize what they need at the price they need. Maybe they want only a new website and some help with keyword research and blog promotion, Potter said. No problem. Then again, maybe they want only help with a highly technical project, like a teleseminar.
When clients work with Potter, they are working with someone who understands their challenges as business owners and the importance good marketing plays in their success.
When Potter started working in the field, she had to take a big risk with her familys future. Their finances were resting on her shoulders as she began initially working as a virtual assistant out of her home.
She had a 6-month-old son, Rylee, while building up her business and learning new skills. She would sometimes work until 4 a.m. while the family was sleeping, then get up with her son and care for him during the day, trying to coordinate client calls and naptimes.
We gambled and it paid off, she said.
Potter understands how difficult it is to launch a business, or work to grow a business, without knowledge of all the methodology. That is why she tries to empower her clients by helping them understand Internet marketing practices. She offers them tutorials so they can post their own blogs or do their own blog promotion on social media sites, and she helps them understand the purpose behind keyword research and Google rankings, so that they have a better understanding of the service they are buying.
Potter is also honest with her clients. She will not make claims that she can make anything happen for them. We know what were good at, and we want to stick with what were good at.
Linda Finkle, a business coach with the website IncedoGroup.com, offered a testimonial that echoes that statement. Springboard Designs team members are smart, capable people. They not only know a lot, they know what they dont know and dont pretend. They have no problem referring you to someone else if its outside their expertise its refreshing to be working with someone like that.
Potters goal is not to be the highest-level web design firm in America. Her goal is to be the Burger King of Internet marketing: Have it your way at an affordable price.
Im not sure Internet marketing is right for every business, she said, but I havent heard of a business yet that it would not benefit. Everybody is using the Internet. Phone books are becoming obsolete. Kids do all their research online. And consumers are getting smarter. They research products before buying, and they read reviews before they shop. Cyber Monday sales beat Black Friday sales by 33% in 2011. If you are a business owner, and you dont have a website or properly market that website, you are missing out on a lot of exposure.
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