Reactions assume ‘something’ has already happened, and you react accordingly. Waiting for leads to come to you via your website or phone is the definition of being reactive. And it’s easy.

From a freelancer or small business’ point of view, being proactive is perhaps the single hardest thing to get right. Working alone and wearing the financing, design, sales, marketing and admin hats, it becomes harder and harder to think ahead. It requires a certain lucidity and awareness of what’s coming next, and how it might affect your business, and acting (not reacting) accordingly. Continuing to identify and act on ways to make your business grow, can help you stop being reactive and focus more on making things happen.

“Control your destiny or someone else will”
– Jack Welch

Be proactive through strategy

Your business strategy is always something you intend on doing, but it always seems to be something you’ll focus on after this month’s project. Or next weekend. Or at the end of this quarter. It rarely happens because you’re stuck being reactive. Reacting to client needs equates to income, so that gets top priority.

Fortunately, devising a strategy doesn’t have to be as difficult as it sounds. You wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing if you lacked any sort of strategy.. Going freelance is a strategy (working for yourself, controlling your destiny), as is employing 5, 10, or 15 new people within 2 years or growing revenue by xx% by 2012. All a strategy does is define the ‘who, what, where, when, why and how’ of your current and future business.

Think proactive

Considering a strategy of ‘how you’re going to get there’ is the best way to start thinking proactively. You’ll start to see things that you should and shouldn’t do, and you’ll start thinking of ways to drive your business forward that might not have been clear before. The reality is, if you run a business that services clients, you’ll always be reactive. That’s obvious. But the more you consider ‘the big picture’, the more you’ll start to focus on what gets you to where you want to be. The client services becomes the norm, and the ‘what’s next’ becomes the road in front of you. You’ll focus on elements of your business that will get you to your destination, and move away from those that become obstacles.

Thoughts for the New Year

In an ideal world, this is all very easy. In reality, it’s not – but the more you consider your business, its current situation and its future, the more likely you are to stop reacting (at the drop of a hat!) to client demands just because you have to. Couldn’t we all do with less stress and better business in 2011?

Much like Twitter, the key to this meteoric growth is thanks in no small part to its simplicity – Twitter’s basic concept means people can effectively mold it into whatever they want it to be. The same goes for WordPress – it’s obviously a web publishing platform at heart, but due to it’s feature set, endless extendability and open-source nature, it can be (and has been) used for just about anything – from contact managers to full-blown CMS’ and ecommerce stores.

However, with all that said, a plain and simple WordPress install rarely gets it to become any of those things. That’s where plugins come in, and without the thriving WordPress plugin community/ecosystem, WordPress might have faded into obscurity long ago (just think of Twitter again, and imagine if there were no 3rd-party apps – just the web interface to use? Blasphemy).

There’s a plugin for that

There’s a plugin for literally just about anything you might need. Taking a quick stroll through the directory and you’re sure to find solutions for problems you’ll never have. But there are always developers toiling away at making those obscure plugins, and to make a plugin you need a solid understanding of PHP, an idea, time, and devotion. These things aren’t free in the normal marketplace, so why should creating a plugin on WordPress.org be free?

The commercialization of WordPress themes took off some time ago, and many designer/developers are now getting steady income streams solely from their passion for web design and grasp of WordPress’ backend. Their themes are licensed on a flat fee, with the extent of backend customization often the defining factor for the price points. However, I’ve noticed that the plugin community seems conspicuously free of charge, but for how long?

Recently it’s dawned on me that some plugins are crucial to each and every site I build for a client, and as such I’d happily pay for them. Yet at the same time I’m not sure a flat-fee licensing scheme would be as widely accepted as full-blown front-end themes. Paying $59.95 for a plugin just doesn’t seem right, as often WordPress themes are purchased by end consumers – not producers – in the vast ecosystem of WordPress. Plugins are targeted to the producers first and foremost, and unless the license fee is passed on to the client, most WP developers wouldn’t take kindly to paying $50 for an sIFR plugin, would they?

Go Micro

Enter the concept of micropayments. Theoretically, much like Apple’s app store and iTunes, plugin users would create an account on WordPress.org and ‘top up’ with funds, similar to a Starbucks coffee card. When downloading a plugin for a site build or other project, a small payment is made to the original developer from the account. Costs would range anywhere from $0.02 cents to $20.00, where the value and price point is based on complexity, demand, and community-powered ratings.

The main issue with micropayments is that the cost of transactions is often higher than the micropayment itself. The use of a pre-funded account would mean plugin users could ‘top up’ with more normal amounts like £20 rather than £0.02, £0.05, £1.05 and so on. The recipient/developer accounts would be tied to their PayPal accounts, and paid in once an amount threshold is reached.

More monetization on a micro level satisfies both sides of the equation – the better a plugin does, the more incentivized that developer is to make improvements, updates and create similar plugins. Similarly, the lesser quality plugins are weeded out by natural selection. A microcost for downloading reduces the barrier to something resembling free, yet based on a quick scan of the more popular plugins out there (All in one SEO pack, for instance), the daily download rate is topping 16,000. 16k! At just $0.05 USD per download, based on a micropayments premise, that equates to $800 *per day* with WordPress presumably getting a base commission from that. That’s likely enough incentive for creating a robust, high-quality plugin. The all time stats for the same SEO plugin? 3,894,00 downloads and still going strong. You do the maths, but trust me – it’s a high enough number that would have most would-be plugin developers scrambling for their keyboards, code editors and an idea for a great plugin.

I’m willing to pay in micropayments for my use of the crucial plugins I need for client site-builds. Clearly I’m not the only one, and implementing this system would only benefit the community as a whole. Sure, I realize it conflicts drastically with the concept of ‘open source’, but then aren’t WordPress themes doing the exact same thing? And doing it well, making money, and expanding WordPress’ reach in the process?

In a nutshell if any or all of the slides happen to give you goosebumps, put a smile on your face, or just simply make you go ‘wow’, it’s pretty obvious that:

• a) If you’re already in the web industry, you’re in the right industry
• b) If you’re not already in the web industry, you sure wouldn’t mind being in it
• c) Technology, innovation and the rampant growth of the web is something to get excited about, no matter how you look at it

Check out the ’87 cool things’ slideshow, you won’t be disappointed.

As humans we’re inherently 2 things: mobile and social. We like to move and we like to be gregarious.

So my answer was pretty simple – both are the way forward in web. With smartphone sales set to eclipse PC sales by 2011, we’re going mobile as a society whether we like it or not.

As for the social aspect… well, regardless of the surge in social media ‘gurus’ sweeping the web, all that was ever needed to get humans talking on teh interwebs was the technology to facilitate conversations and interaction. As a species we’re born to be wild social, and the professionals plying their trade in the social media space aren’t professional socialites per se, they’re just professionals at understanding the many vehicles and technologies – current and future - out there that enable us to be social. The current arena for social media might be our desktop/laptop and a browser, but ask any social media strategist you know about the importance of the mobile web, and I hope they stress just how important it’s going to be: very.

As mobile technology gets more sophisticated, as GPS improves, and as mobile apps and augmented reality continue to multiply and grow respectively, our mobile media use will become second-nature. Handsets will become more powerful. Our social media use is already becoming ubiquitous. We as an industry will continue to combine the two in new and innovative ways, enabling users as a collective to be more productive, more connected, and more interactive than ever before (disclaimer: one’s rate of adoption and privacy concerns notwithstanding). Web Version 3.0 isn’t about the semantic web anymore, it’s about the socimobi web with semantics and microformats already built-in for good measure.

My advice to my colleague in the end? If nothing else, keep an eye on the mobile horizon, and be social. Take some refresher classes or training in the basics, sure, but no matter what just get into it. Go social, and have fun – try a favourite social network on a data-enabled phone, and get stuck-in. Learn what value an app gives a user, visit favourite sites through a mobile browser, or try out Google Latitude. It’ll be more interesting and engaging than SEO, that’s for sure.

Having just moved flats, I’ve probably done the ‘Argos dance’ more times in the past 3 months than I care to mention. You know – the one where you:

• Enter the store
• Find/wait for a laminated catalogue
• Emphatically flip/slide/skim through the 2000+ page bible
• Find your desired product
• Check if product is in stock using a calculator-style keypad
• Write out the product’s 8-digit code on a (provided) slip of paper
• Walk over to the payment kiosk at the other side of the store
• Re-enter the product code, re-check availability
• Pay with your chip & pin debit card (or reserve item)
• Wait for your number to be announced via tannoy
• Pick up your purchased goods
• Get out

So what’s the problem?

There’s a weak link in the process above – did you notice it? It’s an expensive, cumbersome, and card-carrying member of a dying breed. No, I’m not talking about the tannoy system. Its the printed catalogue that Argos prides itself on. The huge, bulky book that Argos boasts is in more than 18m households throughout the UK.

Argos launch this behemoth twice a year. That’s 36m catalogues up front, not to mention the number of books used in-store, or made available year-round, or the ones left in the rubbish bins after being shoved into the arms of passers-by on the high street on sunny Sundays. The costs associated with the printing of these catalogues must be astronomical (regardless of where the printing’s outsourced to), not to mention the negative impact on the environment. Why bother using a printed catalogue at all? Aren’t we in the digital age?

Googleize it

Currently the physical Argos user experience is pretty easy, but it could (and should) be so much better. At the moment there are way too many components. Just as an ecommerce website is made to be intuitive and as simple as possible to drive revenue, the same principles apply to the real-world version: streamline your user’s experience and you stand to make more revenue. Google, as we know, does this with ease. Although they have access to the entire world’s online information, they never fail to offer a solitary search bar to remove all uncertainties, ambiguities and alternative choices for the user. All the user can do is search, which is what they came to do. The same applies to an Argos customer. The only reason they’re in-store is to browse, locate, buy and pick-up a product. It shouldn’t be so cumbersome.

What’s important to mention here is that Argos already take a quarter of all sales through their online channel. The effort required for that involves making available an entire database of items, able to be cross-referenced with stores across the UK to check for local availability. That’s a mammoth task, considering the sheer size of the Argos catalogue 18m households know so well. So, if there was a hard part to making the Argos in-store experience better, it seems to be done (quite well) already. If every Argos product is alraedy indexed and updated for use on the websites, why doesn’t Argos pull that experience in-store as well?

Upgrade

So, let’s catapult the Argos in-store user experience to the 21st century, Make it simpler, faster, more efficient and infinitely better than it is now by (ironically) applying the existing online experience to the real-world store.

Some first steps:

• Replace each store’s outdated and eco-unfriendly catalogue setup with an up-to-date monitor, laminated keyboard and mouse. 76% of the UK population already has a PC according to Deloitte, and 80% are online, so familiarity won’t be an issue.
• Integrate a chip-and-pin card reader to the setup above to allow for direct debit transactions.
• Index, itemize, categorize and tag every product in the central product database to make ready for search. Fortunately this, the hardest step, is done already – with 26% of sales through online channel, the Argos website already includes this functionality
• Segment the main database by store to allow for ‘local’ product search. Again already done via the ‘branch availability’ tool online.
• Create a single, unmistakable Google-style Argos-branded search interface. Make it the simplest path-to-goal possible so even the most non-web savvy in-store user can use it
• Allow the user to browse pages of products (complete with promotions/sales based on search query, much like pay-per-click ad targeting), add items to a temporary basket, and pay directly using the attached card reader and an SSL-protected payment system
• Add a permanent purchase history and login feature once a debit card is used. Membership/login details are created once, and activated via debit card chip recognition – negating the need to remember yet another password when in-store.
• Integrate membership details with online/website account for seamless offline/online transactions
• Email product purchase receipt to the registered user’s email inbox (optional, if email address provided)
• Include email marketing opt-in option for coupons, savings, advance product notices and recalls
• Send product order number to user’s mobile phone via SMS (optional) or printed receipt (optional)
• User waits and collects purchased goods as before, including the tannoy

The initial benefits

Coming from a marketing angle, the most dramatic benefit to Argos would be a substantial increase to their registrant database with rich transaction-based customer profiles. Taking a page from Amazon’s book, this data would be used to create targeted and relevant, behaviour-based messages to recent customers.

Some other possible benefits:

• Use of increased digital marketing techniques to replace the traditional ‘here, take a catalogue’ promotion marketing techniques
• Increased customer retention through incentive-marketing, cross-selling via emailed receipts
• Fully interchangeable offline and online channels, internal efforts and resources become centralized
• User experience enhanced through simplification and familiarity of one primary interface (search)
• Uplift in sales through targeted on-page promotions based on search query
• Presumed uplift in sales through higher in-store capacity from more efficient browsing process
• Increased user affinity via efficiency of in-store and online experiences
• Reduction in printed materials lessens impact on environment, lessens costs associated with print

I’m not denying the several unaddressed issues with this idea like switching from print to electronic, the massive infrastructure required, system maintenance, server downtime, etc., but in the interest of providing a better, faster user experience to an already successful business model, there’s potential. And if nothing else, it stands to be better for the environment, which I’m sure will be affecting Argos more in the near future as more companies go digital.