My Hong Kong Trip And Your Internet Marketing Business Audit
I’m prepping to head over to Hong Kong to join the wife and family and take a couple days off with the family. I remember when I was actively trading in stocks, I was like a crack addict, constantly checking the value of my portfolio, hitting the refresh button every 15 seconds to bring up updated prices, or waking up at 3am to check how mid-afternoon trading was going on the Singapore stock exchange. Sure I made a couple of thousand dollars during my vacation, but on hindsight, it sure lowered the quality of the vacation (or quasi-work trip/vacation).
But hand on a second. If you’re constantly checking in on your business, you’re missing the one element that separates a business owner, from a sole proprietor: freedom of time.
If you’re constantly tethered to the office via your cell phone, crackberry or laptop, you don’t have much more freedom than the investment banker or management consultant camping in their office.
The only difference is that you’re probably sitting in front of your computer in your boxers, or catching the occasional movie at 3 in the afternoon.
What you need to have a successful business is its ability to operate without you.
If you’re newer at this, the business can probably run a day or two without you. If you’re more seasoned like some of the business owners I know, you could go off on 6 month cruises and check in every week for a status update.
I’ve not hit that stage yet, though I’ll be headed to Hong Kong for about 5 days for some vacation time.
Unfortunately, to nearly the rest of the world, clocking in 36 straight hours of Warcraft 3 doesn’t exactly constitute a vacation.
Entrenching yourself in the Internet Marketer lifestyle also changes your perception of the world too.
Working with direct response copywriting typically found on sales pages and landing pages, can you imagine my frustration at navigating through the pages of the Hong Kong Tourism board?
Pages of fluff, fluff and more fluff. No clear call to action. A series of pretty slideshow pictures.
I bet if they swapped over to a “You’re in Hong Kong for a) business? b) pleasure?” [Then using flash technology to present a customized list of options: “While you’re in Hong Kong for business, would like like to stay in the city center? Close to your meetings?” and so on, it’d significantly bump their “conversions”
One immediate improvement for an information site such as the tourist boards would be the inclusion of a search engine box. For those note clued in to heading to Google and doing a “site:discoverhongkong.com disneyland” search, it could be as frustrating as navigating through the IVRS (interactive voice response system) prompts on a PABX.
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But back to Hong Kong. I’ll be headed for the Hong Kong Shopping Festival:
And headed to Hong Kong Disneyland.
If I’m lucky, I might get a chance to see a Chinese Snow White.
That’ll certainly be worth taking a picture of.
Amit
August 9, 2007 at 9:32 pm (17 years ago)Hi Andrew,
Great Post! Enjoy your vacation in HK, you deserve it! 🙂
My wife and I are on our way to Bermuda for vacation as well.
Yian Tay
August 12, 2007 at 8:10 am (17 years ago)I disagree with you Andrew. Maybe it’s just me – but I live breathe my business. Maybe that makes me a more boring person, but I’ve been a workaholic since I”ve been in kinder school. If I stop living life like this – it moves too slowly for me. haha..weird huh.
I love HK, the only problem I have is that these people can’t really speak mandarin – and have problems communicating :p
You know the morning rush hour on the MTR? Fell down once trying to get into it, and I’m not that small, and I got edged out of entering the train once – but it was all good fun. Hope you have a good time in HK, and dun forget to drop by the Big Buddha and eat vegetarian food – the fried stuff are reallly good. Don’t need to be a buddhist to have a reason to eat good food. It’s just too good to miss – it is a sure main stop for me each time I”m there.
Yian Tay
August 12, 2007 at 8:28 am (17 years ago)Hi ANdrew, sorry 2nd comment, go read my blog – talked about u.
And hope u read this in time – if u got time, drop by sai yeung choy st – there is a great place there for tea, its near a basketball court/park. The carrot cake is out of this world!! of course HK style Carrot cake lah – Sg style is pirated one.
Andrew Wee
August 15, 2007 at 4:09 pm (17 years ago)Amit,
You deserve the rest, buddy!
Look forward to catching up on your adventures when you get back!
Andrew Wee
August 15, 2007 at 4:13 pm (17 years ago)Hi Yian Tay,
I’m not sure which point you’re disagreeing with me on.
If you enjoy entrenching yourself in the ‘sole proprietor’ mindset and if it excites you, by all means go ahead…
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Well, if you can’t get Hong Kong to speak mandarin, why not learn cantonese?
Andrew Wee
August 15, 2007 at 4:15 pm (17 years ago)Hi Yian Tay,
I didn’t get to eat carrot cake this trip, but I had a lot of other good stuff at various ‘cha chan tang’
Perhaps next time.
Yian Tay
August 21, 2007 at 11:10 pm (17 years ago)Hi Andrew, so what did you eat in HK? Did ur kids enjoy disneyland? Hehe, yeah I enjoy super-duper what I do – anything less would be veggie state for me, but I do – overdo it sometimes too hehe. And my cantonese is disgraceful 🙁
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