For your holiday treat, here’s a fun look at selling to small biz.
The source: PROFIT Magazine’s back-page humour column, which chronicles the adventures and opinions of archetypal entrepreneur Cumulo Nimbus (sort of the Bob Newhart of small business owners).
In June 2005, Cumulo offered Seven Simple Rules for Selling to Small Business. Some are more serious than others, but he makes good points that all marketers should keep in mind.
Here are Cumulo’s Seven Rules.
* Don't call us "Small Business." No matter what the stats say, my business is not small — it's the third largest manufacturer in our industry in the entire city of Slug Flats. A small business is the guy who prowls our neighbourhood with his pickup, offering to take down old TV antennas for cash.
* Never call us "SMBs" or "SMEs" (at least not to our faces). You say that it means small and medium-sized businesses or enterprises. I say it sounds like you're selling to a Smurf.
* If you're selling technology, don't drown me in jargon. Every time I buy a computer, all I hear is chipsets and megs and RAMs till I'm Big Blue in the face. Why not just tell me what this model can do that the others can't? Tell me how this technology makes life easier for me.
* Don't talk down to me. Just because I don't understand your new product doesn't make me an idiot. (The way your reps explain things, I'm not sure they understand it either.)
* Ask me how often I want to hear from you. So you've renamed one of your products and painted it blue; that doesn't mean I want to know about it.
* Give me experts I can talk to. I don't care if your call centre is in Moncton or Mumbai, so long as they can really help me.
* Don't make me feel like a deadbeat if I ask for a lower price. When business owners spend money, there's a reason they treat it like it's their own.
If you enjoy print-based business sitcoms (and who doesn’t?), you can peruse other Cumulo columns here.
Happy holidays!
Friday, 23 December 2005
Tuesday, 20 December 2005
What makes entrepreneurs tick?
To sell to business owners, you need to know what makes them tick.
Fortunately, Canada's major banks love to survey small business and share the results in order to prove how "in touch" they are.
Here are some of the results of a recent RBC survey that found that women entrepreneurs are often motivated less by money and more by personal priorities.
"Canadian women are starting more businesses than ever before, but for a majority of Canada's current and aspiring women entrepreneurs, the desire to own their own business may be less about the money and more about personal priorities.
"According to an RBC survey conducted by Ipsos-Reid, while 36% of men planning to open a business plan to do so to become wealthy, only 23%of women planning to open a business do so for the same reason. As well, access to a more flexible working schedule is a greater motivator for women entrepreneurs (63%) than men (51%).
"However, the majority of women and men entrepreneurs (69% and 64% respectively) seem to be equally driven by a love for what they do or hope to do.
"Women in Canada are turning to self-employment and pursuing their career dreams at unprecedented levels," said Kris Depencier, RBC Royal Bank's national manager, Small Business. "Since 1981 the number of women entrepreneurs has increased by over 200%. For a large portion of these women, building a business is not only a labour of love, but also a way to balance work and family obligations."
Fortunately, Canada's major banks love to survey small business and share the results in order to prove how "in touch" they are.
Here are some of the results of a recent RBC survey that found that women entrepreneurs are often motivated less by money and more by personal priorities.
"Canadian women are starting more businesses than ever before, but for a majority of Canada's current and aspiring women entrepreneurs, the desire to own their own business may be less about the money and more about personal priorities.
"According to an RBC survey conducted by Ipsos-Reid, while 36% of men planning to open a business plan to do so to become wealthy, only 23%of women planning to open a business do so for the same reason. As well, access to a more flexible working schedule is a greater motivator for women entrepreneurs (63%) than men (51%).
"However, the majority of women and men entrepreneurs (69% and 64% respectively) seem to be equally driven by a love for what they do or hope to do.
"Women in Canada are turning to self-employment and pursuing their career dreams at unprecedented levels," said Kris Depencier, RBC Royal Bank's national manager, Small Business. "Since 1981 the number of women entrepreneurs has increased by over 200%. For a large portion of these women, building a business is not only a labour of love, but also a way to balance work and family obligations."
Thursday, 15 December 2005
The first lesson of marketing
The first lesson you learn in marketing should be that nobody cares about you or what you sell.
If you want someone to pay attention to you, you have to earn their attention -- and then maybe later their respect.
It's amazing to me how many marketers don't get it. They think that if they advertise a product or a URL, prospects are going to eagerly devour every word, or flock to their website to learn all they can.
Things don't work that way. Not because people don't like you, but because they are too busy.
Researchers claim people today are bombarded with 3,000 advertising messages a day. How many, honestly, do you have time to proactively explore?
OK, every marketer will say they already know that. So why don't they act that way?
Why do we continue to see ads with reverse type (which actively discourages reading)? Why do so many advertisers talk on and on about themselves and not the needs of their customers? How do they expect prospects to read 400 words of copy on a page when they haven't yet established a value proposition?
These are general observations that apply to any market. But the entrepreneurial market doubles this challenge.
These are the most distracted, time-short people you'll ever know. They have disciplined themselves to always get to the point. And they have zilch respect for people who don't understand the importance of their time.
The rules of communication are clear. Show that you understand your market before seeking to be understood.
If you want someone to pay attention to you, you have to earn their attention -- and then maybe later their respect.
It's amazing to me how many marketers don't get it. They think that if they advertise a product or a URL, prospects are going to eagerly devour every word, or flock to their website to learn all they can.
Things don't work that way. Not because people don't like you, but because they are too busy.
Researchers claim people today are bombarded with 3,000 advertising messages a day. How many, honestly, do you have time to proactively explore?
OK, every marketer will say they already know that. So why don't they act that way?
Why do we continue to see ads with reverse type (which actively discourages reading)? Why do so many advertisers talk on and on about themselves and not the needs of their customers? How do they expect prospects to read 400 words of copy on a page when they haven't yet established a value proposition?
These are general observations that apply to any market. But the entrepreneurial market doubles this challenge.
These are the most distracted, time-short people you'll ever know. They have disciplined themselves to always get to the point. And they have zilch respect for people who don't understand the importance of their time.
The rules of communication are clear. Show that you understand your market before seeking to be understood.
Wednesday, 14 December 2005
What Women Entrepreneurs Want
Reprinted from my Canadian Entrepreneur blog,
Nov. 07, 2005
To sell to a specific market, you need to understand those people's needs. To help smallbiz marketers understand the problems facing entrepreneurs, here's a column I wrote last month about the problems discussed by some of Canada's top women business owners.
Today I moderated a roundtable discussion among seven distinguished women entrepreneurs. They all rank on PROFIT’s 2005 list of Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs, and were tremendously successful and articulate.
Nonetheless, the goal at the W100 Idea Exchange, held at the Vaughan Estate in Toronto, was to discuss the challenges these entrepreneurs are currently facing. Graciously, they each came up with one or two.
Here’s a sampling of the issues they are facing, and the solutions offered by their peers.
1. One business owner asked for help improving the margins in her business. Suggestions included raising prices, hiring consultants to cut costs, and selling the company’s real-estate assets. When the entrepreneur said she was reluctant to raise prices, another participant said her company raised prices 15% last year. When it received no complaints, it raised them again.
2. One participant complained about the high cost of buying custom end-to-end management software. Several entrepreneurs said they had found it cheaper to hire their own IT staff to produce home-made solutions where the mass-market packages leave off. Another said she actually asks competitors for advice on topics like this, as they understand her needs best.
3. “I need help finding, contracting and keeping sales people,” said another entrepreneur. “’Good sales people’ is becoming an oxymoron.”
Among the suggestions from the table: Ask more process-oriented questions in the interview to better understand a sales candidate’s abilities and experience; revise commission structures to better reward desired behaviour; offer better training to encourage good people to stay; hire two or three salespeople at a time to reduce training costs and hope that at least one makes the grade.
4. One entrepreneur said her business is ‘plateauing,’ and competitors are eating into her margins. What should she do? Did she need an exit strategy?
One peer picked up on the real problem: “Are you bored with the business?” The table offered several solutions, such as delegating the parts of her job she doesn’t like, or investing in new startups to give her the growth fix she seems to crave. She seemed pretty happy with the feedback.
For more on PROFIT’s W100 list, click here.
Nov. 07, 2005
To sell to a specific market, you need to understand those people's needs. To help smallbiz marketers understand the problems facing entrepreneurs, here's a column I wrote last month about the problems discussed by some of Canada's top women business owners.
Today I moderated a roundtable discussion among seven distinguished women entrepreneurs. They all rank on PROFIT’s 2005 list of Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs, and were tremendously successful and articulate.
Nonetheless, the goal at the W100 Idea Exchange, held at the Vaughan Estate in Toronto, was to discuss the challenges these entrepreneurs are currently facing. Graciously, they each came up with one or two.
Here’s a sampling of the issues they are facing, and the solutions offered by their peers.
1. One business owner asked for help improving the margins in her business. Suggestions included raising prices, hiring consultants to cut costs, and selling the company’s real-estate assets. When the entrepreneur said she was reluctant to raise prices, another participant said her company raised prices 15% last year. When it received no complaints, it raised them again.
2. One participant complained about the high cost of buying custom end-to-end management software. Several entrepreneurs said they had found it cheaper to hire their own IT staff to produce home-made solutions where the mass-market packages leave off. Another said she actually asks competitors for advice on topics like this, as they understand her needs best.
3. “I need help finding, contracting and keeping sales people,” said another entrepreneur. “’Good sales people’ is becoming an oxymoron.”
Among the suggestions from the table: Ask more process-oriented questions in the interview to better understand a sales candidate’s abilities and experience; revise commission structures to better reward desired behaviour; offer better training to encourage good people to stay; hire two or three salespeople at a time to reduce training costs and hope that at least one makes the grade.
4. One entrepreneur said her business is ‘plateauing,’ and competitors are eating into her margins. What should she do? Did she need an exit strategy?
One peer picked up on the real problem: “Are you bored with the business?” The table offered several solutions, such as delegating the parts of her job she doesn’t like, or investing in new startups to give her the growth fix she seems to crave. She seemed pretty happy with the feedback.
For more on PROFIT’s W100 list, click here.
How NOT to market to small business
Strange “special feature” in yesterday’s National Post [Nov. 21]. Roynat Capital took out an ad that wrapped around the business section to salute the winners of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards program.
Instead of telling us anything intelligent about the winners, this 1.5-page supplement showed us black-tie pictures of some of the winners and their spouses – along with a lot of sponsors (the publisher of the National Post got in there somehow).
The pictures were taken at the unveiling event, held in Ottawa, um, Nov. 3. The text identified the various winners, but actually spent more time talking up the sponsors (look! there’s the publisher of the Post again!).
So here are my questions:
Why is Roynat paying to promote the National Post and Ernst & Young?
Why were the entrepreneurs short-changed in an ad that was supposedly a tribute to them?
Why did it take so long (nearly three weeks!) to recognize these winners?
Why is there nothing in this ad addressing the needs of Roynat’s customers?
And why is this newsprint wraparound called “Special Feature to National Post / Presented by Roynat Capital” instead of just being called an ad?
I have nothing against Roynat. In fact, I appreciate that it is one of the most aggressive supporters of small business in the Canadian marketplace. I just don’t understand why it pisses so much advertising money down the drain.
This “feature” ends with a full-page Roynat ad much like those it has been running every week in the Post. These ads showcase boring, nearly unreadable profiles of supposedly interesting Canadian companies. I actually complained about these ads recently to a Roynat exec, because I think they are the exact antithesis of anything that will help, inform or impress an entrepreneur.
To get entrepreneurs to read this profile, it should be short and punchy, with lots of color and personality, and end with the entrepreneur’s best experience and advice. Entrepreneurs don’t care about your company, they want to know what you know that can help them.
Instead, Roynat runs a 900-word profile, with lots of unnecessary history and product detail. No subheads, no boldface, no sidebars to break up the tedious columns of copy. And no advice, no lessons. Which means this is all about him (the profiled entrepreneur), and not about you (the person reading the ad). Which makes for bad advertising, no matter how much they spend.
The executive agreed with me. But he wasn’t in marketing, so he wasn’t about to rock the boat.
Originally printed in Canadian Entrepreneur, Nov. 22, 2005
This post generated one Comment:
Donna Papacosta said...
Amen, Rick! It's amazing how many companies waste their money on piffle like this.For the sake of small biz everywhere, I hope they listen to you. ;-)
Instead of telling us anything intelligent about the winners, this 1.5-page supplement showed us black-tie pictures of some of the winners and their spouses – along with a lot of sponsors (the publisher of the National Post got in there somehow).
The pictures were taken at the unveiling event, held in Ottawa, um, Nov. 3. The text identified the various winners, but actually spent more time talking up the sponsors (look! there’s the publisher of the Post again!).
So here are my questions:
Why is Roynat paying to promote the National Post and Ernst & Young?
Why were the entrepreneurs short-changed in an ad that was supposedly a tribute to them?
Why did it take so long (nearly three weeks!) to recognize these winners?
Why is there nothing in this ad addressing the needs of Roynat’s customers?
And why is this newsprint wraparound called “Special Feature to National Post / Presented by Roynat Capital” instead of just being called an ad?
I have nothing against Roynat. In fact, I appreciate that it is one of the most aggressive supporters of small business in the Canadian marketplace. I just don’t understand why it pisses so much advertising money down the drain.
This “feature” ends with a full-page Roynat ad much like those it has been running every week in the Post. These ads showcase boring, nearly unreadable profiles of supposedly interesting Canadian companies. I actually complained about these ads recently to a Roynat exec, because I think they are the exact antithesis of anything that will help, inform or impress an entrepreneur.
To get entrepreneurs to read this profile, it should be short and punchy, with lots of color and personality, and end with the entrepreneur’s best experience and advice. Entrepreneurs don’t care about your company, they want to know what you know that can help them.
Instead, Roynat runs a 900-word profile, with lots of unnecessary history and product detail. No subheads, no boldface, no sidebars to break up the tedious columns of copy. And no advice, no lessons. Which means this is all about him (the profiled entrepreneur), and not about you (the person reading the ad). Which makes for bad advertising, no matter how much they spend.
The executive agreed with me. But he wasn’t in marketing, so he wasn’t about to rock the boat.
Originally printed in Canadian Entrepreneur, Nov. 22, 2005
This post generated one Comment:
Donna Papacosta said...
Amen, Rick! It's amazing how many companies waste their money on piffle like this.For the sake of small biz everywhere, I hope they listen to you. ;-)
Tuesday, 13 December 2005
The Growing Clout of Small Business
There are encouraging signs that entrepreneurship is on the march again.
In good times, everyone gets excited about working on Bay Street or going to work for big companies. But when shocks appear – and this summer’s oil price spike was an 8.8 on the Richter scale of business confidence – people get nervous about the prospects for big, dumb corporations, and they look again to the opportunity and security afforded by small business.
A few weeks ago, RBC Financial produced a survey that found more than a million Canadians are thinking of starting up a new business.
At the same time, a Scotiabank survey found 90% of Canadian entrepreneurs believe their business will perform as well or better one year from now than it does today. "It's encouraging to the business community on the whole that small business owners are generally enthusiastic about the potential for increased earnings," noted Diane Giard, Scotia’s VP of small business banking.
A CIBC World Markets study estimates 80,000 Canadians will become small business owners this year, swelling the national total to 2.5 million. Even better, says CIBC, "nearly one in four Canadians say they will be self-employed at some point in the next five years."
And today, I got an e-newsletter from VISA promoting discounts for small business (itself an indicator of the market’s clout) – and several articles geared to entrepreneurs (altho’ they’re a bit dull).
In one story, writer Chuck Davies quotes CFIB economist Ted Mallett musing about the positive forces behind today's startups."We know that two thirds to three quarters of people who enter self-employment do so for positive reasons, they go in with their eyes wide open. It's part of their plan,” says Mallett. “The rest do it because they're forced into it, either because they haven't been able to find paid employment opportunities or because they've been laid off or downsized."
Mallett also notes suppliers’ growing interest in the small-business market. "Banks and financial institutions have realized that small business owners are a very profitable segment for them. A startup may not have much to go on, but the fact that the person starting it up is 45 years old, has finished a mid-level career, has a nice amount of equity in their home, is driven and has a good credit record – this person is going to be very profitable for a bank if treated right."
Mallett sees other suppliers joining the trend. In particular, providers of information technology are starting to realize “they've got to target a class of business that's considerably smaller than the ones they've been used to dealing with," he says. "That means their solutions and their pricing models have to be different."
In fact, yesterday the Globe ran an article saying more telecom firms are viewing small business as a market segment worthy of its own products and dedicated strategies. This isn’t new (anyone remember BellZinc.com?) – but it seems a broader initiative than we’ve seen before.
In future posts, we'll see how they do.
In good times, everyone gets excited about working on Bay Street or going to work for big companies. But when shocks appear – and this summer’s oil price spike was an 8.8 on the Richter scale of business confidence – people get nervous about the prospects for big, dumb corporations, and they look again to the opportunity and security afforded by small business.
A few weeks ago, RBC Financial produced a survey that found more than a million Canadians are thinking of starting up a new business.
At the same time, a Scotiabank survey found 90% of Canadian entrepreneurs believe their business will perform as well or better one year from now than it does today. "It's encouraging to the business community on the whole that small business owners are generally enthusiastic about the potential for increased earnings," noted Diane Giard, Scotia’s VP of small business banking.
A CIBC World Markets study estimates 80,000 Canadians will become small business owners this year, swelling the national total to 2.5 million. Even better, says CIBC, "nearly one in four Canadians say they will be self-employed at some point in the next five years."
And today, I got an e-newsletter from VISA promoting discounts for small business (itself an indicator of the market’s clout) – and several articles geared to entrepreneurs (altho’ they’re a bit dull).
In one story, writer Chuck Davies quotes CFIB economist Ted Mallett musing about the positive forces behind today's startups."We know that two thirds to three quarters of people who enter self-employment do so for positive reasons, they go in with their eyes wide open. It's part of their plan,” says Mallett. “The rest do it because they're forced into it, either because they haven't been able to find paid employment opportunities or because they've been laid off or downsized."
Mallett also notes suppliers’ growing interest in the small-business market. "Banks and financial institutions have realized that small business owners are a very profitable segment for them. A startup may not have much to go on, but the fact that the person starting it up is 45 years old, has finished a mid-level career, has a nice amount of equity in their home, is driven and has a good credit record – this person is going to be very profitable for a bank if treated right."
Mallett sees other suppliers joining the trend. In particular, providers of information technology are starting to realize “they've got to target a class of business that's considerably smaller than the ones they've been used to dealing with," he says. "That means their solutions and their pricing models have to be different."
In fact, yesterday the Globe ran an article saying more telecom firms are viewing small business as a market segment worthy of its own products and dedicated strategies. This isn’t new (anyone remember BellZinc.com?) – but it seems a broader initiative than we’ve seen before.
In future posts, we'll see how they do.
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