If it worked for me, surely it will work for you.

Let me explain.

About a year ago I decided to start my own online business. This was a new experience for me. I knew absolutely nothing about running a business.

However, I consider myself to be a lifelong learner and believe that anyone can learn to do just about anything if they set their mind to do so. With that in mind, I began to research and collect information on starting and running an online business. Needless to say that I was attending graduate school fulltime and consulting at time.

These three tasks proved to be more than I could handle. I won't go into great detail about how I became overwhelmed. But, I was spending an average of 16 hours per day reading and researching information on Internet for my new online business and reading & writing for my graduate courses and consulting contracts.

After 2 months, I was at point of desperation. Tired! Agitated! Frustrated! Stressed! My body felt totally depleted. Oh, pressure! Too much to do, too little time to do it.

Was I ready to give up on my dream of owning my own online business? No! Was I ready to give up on my dream of finishing graduate school? No! Could I relinquish my consulting contracts? No! I had to eat and pay my bills.

What could I do? Where could I turn? I knew I had to find a solution.

Those are politician's facts - meaning I just made them up. My point is, we're living on a planet that gets more wired every day. As commercial says "We're changing everything". Maybe not. Some things never change, or maybe I should say they shouldn't change.

You can buy a pair of designer shoes on web and have them delivered right to your door, or desk. Or, you can go to a shoe store and get personal attention from sales associate, get shoes properly fitted, chat about one thing or another and leave with your purchase. Which is more satisfying experience? Unless you're a serious Type-A personality, it's got to be latter - and maybe even then.

Why? You got personal service from someone who at least seemed to be interested in your wants and needs and took pains to satisfy you. With former situation, if shoes prove unacceptable you have to email vendor for a return authorization and ship them back - about as personal as a parking ticket. At store, you know before you leave how happy you're going to be and maybe how much your feet are going to hurt.

Am I a Luddite advocating abandonment of web as a commercial platform? Not hardly. I'm suggesting there are ways to combine technology with attention to individual. Here are some possibilities:

1. How inviting is your homepage? Is it friendly, easy to read and reassuring? Reassuring? Yep. You doubtless know there are many more people wary of buying on web than there are those who do so fearlessly. So you need to put them at ease from first contact, just as you would greet and welcome people entering your store. Empathize with them regarding their concerns (riptoffphobia, I believe), act accordingly and you will improve your return.

My completely unscientific poll of web surfers confirmed my suspicions: People are put off, even threatened, by an abundance of whirling doodads, flashing thingamajigs, and critters popping in and out all over a site. You won't have a chance to provide personal service if they won't stay a while. You have to set scene in first ten seconds. How about a text-only welcome message that pops up while site loads?