A Blazing Fast Internet Connection May Make or Break Your Next Deal

This is the scene.You have spent days if not weeks on this bid. This could be your moment! Yours is a relatively new small business, you have been working hard and getting by, but it would be nice if there could just be a little breathing room for a change.

And now, that opportunity has come along. The client is in from out of town to meet with you and if you can win his or her heart and mind it will be a life changer.

But everything has to be just perfect.

The office is clean. The staff is impeccably dressed. Your presentation is ready, just need your laptop to cooperate and the Internet connection to work so you can show off your wares.

Introductions all around, you sit down, start to chat. . .open a browser window (your anxiety level is already high, while you think to yourself, “please work!”) and you see that infernal hourglass sign showing it’s taking time to load. Oh yes, everyone is trying to work using that same Internet connection. Office employees and remote employees all trying to get in our network-to-cloud resources to do their job, leaving us with a slow Internet connection.

Time is Money

In business, time is money – and presentation is everything. If you are trying to impress, you cannot show weakness in areas of importance and your Internet connection is high on that list. Bandwidth has never been more affordable in large quantities as it is today.

A solid, fast Internet connection shows strength and knowledge to today’s business professional. Your visitors will almost certainly use your guest Internet access and they WILL get a sense of how important your guests are when they make that connection. The bare minimum you can offer shows frugality in matters of importance. Frugality has its place, but it’s not in your best interest to appear as though you cannot afford something integral to your business.

Like it or not, to do business you need to show a semblance of success, especially if you hope to land the bigger deals. Minor details in your mind could, in the client’s mind, mean risk. One iota of doubt is a game changer. If your visitor can’t do something as simple as use your Internet connection, to them it may mean operational weakness.

The True Cost of a Fast Internet Connection

How much does an increase in bandwidth cost? Your mind likely went to the dollar amount you get charged by the provider. Right? But what is it costing you in terms of staff productivity?

If you agree that time is money, then you can’t ignore this fact. A slow Internet connection is COSTING you money. If your employee has to sit and wait because a Web based application is slower than it should be, then you are trading time for money.

Your also killing team morale if your employees cannot be efficient because of access issues they cannot control. How do you feel when you can’t get something done, or you know that the process will take considerably longer than it should and the problem could be fixed but it’s out of your hands?

Poor morale slows productivity, thus costing you money.

Productive workers, on the other hand, are efficient workers. Good employees want to get things done. When the tools they work with on a daily basis do what they are supposed to do with less or no restrictions, morale is boosted. Increased production, less time required, more profits. And its much easier to sell a happy team to a client.

In today’s technologically advanced world, with all of these devices and the expectation of guest WiFi access, and our lack of desire to wait, it is very important to make sure you have the Internet connection that doesn’t just handle your needs, but far exceeds it. Fiscally, it just makes sense.

So How Do You Decide How Much of an Increase You Need?

Many providers measure such things as data usage and bandwidth throughput. The usage is not the important part (unless you’re paying based on usage and not pipe size). You could check with your provider to get their recommendations based on measurements they may be taking.

I personally believe you want a pipe that is at least twice that of your average throughput. That is, if you’re already showing signs of slow speeds, you should consider doubling it. The goal here is to be sure that at full capacity, you still have plenty of available bandwidth for guests and those moments where usage may spike.

Fast Connection Photo via Shutterstock

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