Swiss Meats has been online for just over a year (www.swissmeats.com), and in that time, the Internet has proven itself to be a valuable tool for expanding their mail order sales.

Bill Sloan had been selling his homemade German sausage at the counter of the country store he operated with his wife.

Bill´s son Mike now runs the business, and Bill continues to take an interest in the company he created over 30 years ago.

"He still comes in on payday!" jokes Mike. The second generation is extremely active in the business.

In fact, the entire family is involved: Mike´s sister Sharon is the office manager, shipping coordinator, and manages the company´s website; His sister Vicki is involved in production, and sisters Dina and Janice work for the company part time.

Swiss Meats had been opened as a local outlet for local products, but over the years, many farms and businesses closed. Mike knew that he would have to expand and diversify in order to keep the company afloat.

"When we started the company in 1969, it was a small, custom meat processing operation for local farmers and ranchers. They would bring in cows and hogs and we would butcher them for the local farmers.

But through the 70´s and 80´s, a lot of these people died off or the farms began to disappear. That took a big chunk of our revenue. We had to come up with other avenues of revenue to stay in business through the 80´s and 90´s, so slowly but surely, we started to expand our mail order business."

"We got customers in our retail store because we´re near a tourist area. The store itself is in Swiss, Missouri, which is a small, one-road, no stop sign town— if you blink, you´ll miss the town.

But we´re close to Hermann, Missouri, which is known for its wineries and its German heritage, so we get a lot of overflow from the city of Hermann, and we get tour busses coming from Branson."

Customers to the retail store frequently enquired about mail order. Initially, Mike says, mail order was not an option they had seriously considered, but customer requests suggested that the demand was there, and Mike understood that diversifying the business was key to its ultimate survival: "To be a small company in the meat business today, you need to diversify. Some companies know that, and some haven´t found it out yet."

And Swiss Meat is certainly diverse. At present, their company has multiple operations that run the gamut from retail sales and catering to wholesale, and from deer season processing to mail order.

To grow the mail order component of their business, the staff has been collecting email addresses via in-store sales, through the website itself, and by requesting information from customers placing phone orders.

Their site is capable of handling online orders via credit card. Their e-commerce features are powered by Microsoft.NET´s Passport system, which provides businesses with online shopping capabilities without requiring dedicated personnel or expensive servers and hosting arrangements.

In addition, the site serves as an entertaining and informative virtual press kit, providing ample information on all of Swiss Meat´s varied services, their award-winning products, and the family behind the business.

Like so many of the other companies we have profiled, Swiss Meats is using the Internet to expand tenfold on the information they might put in a Yellow Pages ad or a 30-second commercial spot.

Mike feels that the biggest challenge to longevity facing family businesses like his lies in preparedness—both being ready to embrace new trends and technologies like the Internet, and having plans in place for business succession.

"A lot of the businesses in the meat industry don´t have the next generation to pass the business on to. Many of them are in their 50´s and beginning to think about retirement.

Those are the companies that aren´t going to be there in ten years. The ones who have a successor need to look outside the box and see that what was successful for them twenty years ago isn´t necessarily going to be successful in the next twenty years."

"Eating habits have changed, people want pre-cooked food, time is an issue to them. People in the business have been hearing this for years, it´s not new news, but some of them have been slow to realize that these changes affect them, too. But it costs money to get there [to the next level], and they´ll need to make a decision."

Mike feels comfortable making these decisions and planning for the future. In 1997, the company underwent a major expansion, building a 6000 square foot addition to increase their productivity, which in turn helps to guarantee their stability in the years to come.

"It didn´t change the business over night, but in our minds, we wanted to be ready for the next generation to have the ability to do things that other companies are just now beginning to figure out. And that´s worked out very well for us."

The same can be said about their Internet presence: it gives them (and their successors) an edge over their competitors while at the same time broadening their customer base. Both of these factors will help Swiss Meats prosper as the 3rd generation prepares to take the helm in the years to come. Mike is certain that if they hadn´t made the decision to grow their sales online, the company´s future growth would be limited.

"We aren´t using the Internet to its full potential, but we know we will. We know enough and see enough, and we have enough confidence in our product to know that we´re going in the right direction."