You don’t *have* to have a website

(say whaaaaaaaaat!!??)

Oh yes, I said it.

A web designer just told you that having a website isn’t necessarily essential to your business.

Why?

Well the short answer is that you don’t have to do anything other people tell you to do in your business (except maybe taxes, unless you have a raging curiosity to see the inside of a jail cell).

The long answer is this…

It is possible to have a successful business without ever having your own website

There’s a chap in my village who’s a tree surgeon. He’s the guy in our area who you call if you want work done and he’s always busy. He puts ads in the local newsletters and that’s about it. He doesn’t have a website, and he doesn’t need one, he thrives on local knowledge and trust.

I can also list several places to eat in Bristol which don’t have their own websites, yet always have epic queues of people eager to buy food from them. Again, they don’t absolutely need websites to get customers. They succeed by serving delicious food, having prime locations, online reviews and people spreading the word.

It comes down to your business model

What do you offer?

Who are you selling to?

How will you connect with them?

…Do you actually NEED a website?

If your answer is NO

…(or ‘not right now’) then that is absolutely a-ok.

This is a gigantic permission slip for you to stand true in your NO and find your own way to reach customers. Trust can be built in many different ways and the human race managed to survive and run businesses for a few thousand years before websites came along.

If your answer is a big HELL YES

…then that is a-ma-zing.

I am a huge advocate for websites and the fantastic home we can build for our businesses online.

By removing the ‘have to’ element and looking instead to why you yourself need and want a website, you can get super aligned and excited about the possibilities a website can uniquely offer you in your business. The simple existence of a website isn’t going to do much magic for your business, it all comes down to the meaning and purpose that fuels it.

The world seems to be so full of people telling us that we ‘have to’ do things to run a successful business, but success looks different to each and every one of us. There are a trillion and one different ways to run a business, and it’s bloody ok to do things in whatever way works for you.

Can a website be an amazingly important and integral part of our business? YES.

Can it help to build trust, automate processes and connect us with a global audience we might otherwise be unable to reach? Absolutely YES.

I can go on and on about the benefits of having a website – I’m not diminishing the enormous potential it can provide to our business. My own website is my home and centre in my business, but that doesn’t automatically mean that this should be the case for everyone else.

Look within, and ask yourself why a website is important – or not – for you, and use that as your guiding compass to create a business that is super aligned to your own vision and values.

Ultimately, remember that at the heart of any strategy to get clients and customers is human connection, and there are so many different ways to cultivate that.

Want to explore this more with me? Check out my mentoring packages!