Not so long ago, 50 years back, world commerce ran on individual success. The right project and the right business model could carry you there. But; the way success starts has changed. I am talking about a period where starting as a group counts for more than starting on your own.

  • The web and your digital presence

Even on the web side there are areas independent of each other. Some of them you can pay someone to do; others have to be done by one of your own partners. Development and design you can handle by paying for it. But; SEO and Google Ads need constant attention, and someone on the team has to take responsibility for them. In the same way, social media advertising and Google Ads advertising are separate things. Google Ads calls for logic and statistics, social media advertising calls for a creative kind of intelligence.

  • A well equipped manager

Anyone in a management role has to understand a bit of every line of work. To become a hotel manager, for instance, you have to have worked in the kitchen, in the call center, on the front desk and in the other departments. Only if you have something behind you in every department can you become a hotel manager, or a good one at least.

  • The accounting side

Before you go into a business, write on a blank sheet the total budget you are setting aside for it and the audience you are aiming at. Build your business model around that audience and manage your budget accordingly. With the right business model, do not expect a return on your investment in the first year. Expect the income in year two. And do not forget to put a cost for risk management on top of all of it. Bear in mind that the cost of risk runs at around 3% to 4% in many countries while in Turkey it is around 12%. So for a product that costs you 100 TL to buy, add the risk management cost alongside the operating cost and everything else. Otherwise a risk event can leave you with nowhere to turn. And you should know that all of this needs someone running the system continuously.

Strength Comes From Together

I go back and forth between Istanbul and Aksaray constantly. Sometimes living in a small city has its advantages. One of them is being able to reach every commercial business in that city more or less at once. And there is something rather enjoyable about that reach: you can act together. You could gather every company operating in Aksaray, list what they sell and what they make, build something like an aTicaret, and I am purely imagining this, and use it to reach Turkey and the world.

Of course, for an undertaking on that scale, only Aksaray Municipality could take on the responsibility in Aksaray. An SEO push on a project that lists the products and the companies would benefit every trader in Aksaray. Take the phrase “sheet metal pipe”, for example: give a page that lists the aTicaret companies working in that field a way to be found easily and to display products, and they can be put in front of new customers. Adding a company to it would be free, with the single condition that it operates within the boundaries of Aksaray.

When I was in Istanbul I was invited to press conferences held by a good many of our government ministers; in Aksaray I have not yet seen an initiative of that sort from a state body. And Türk SEM came first on Google in the third quarter of 2015, an organization with real achievements behind it. Seeing hundreds of things that could be done in Aksaray, where we have lived for a year and a half, and being unable to do any of them, gets to a person.

In 3 steps and over roughly 7 years, a great deal could be done for Aksaray that would be heard nationally and internationally. But; the only body that could carry it is Aksaray Municipality.

What I have described starting from Aksaray can be adapted to any city and any district.