That’s the question asked by a reader of this blog after visiting Hewlett-Packard Canada’s website.
As an entrepreneur, he was reading up on printers at HP’s sub-site dedicated to small and medium-sized business. On this page HP offers an ambitious slogan: “No one understands you like HP.”
Well, let’s see.
From the page at http://www.hp.ca/portal/biztown/colour_printing_centre/printing_imaging.php, he clicked on what looked like an interesting link under "Solve Business Problems" called "Success Stories".That click took him to HP’s U.S. site. But what the heck, he figured, a success story is a success story.
Except that the graphic box entitled "Printing solutions success stories for Small & Medium Business" offered this stark message: "None currently available. Please check back."
HP has hundreds of customer success stories on its site. But apparently not one deals with printers in small-business environments. That seems pretty strange when printers and imaging constitute HP’s most profitable division.
What would it take, my correspondent wondered, for HP to talk to a couple of its millions of printer users to see how they’re faring, and post a story or two on its website? “Hell,” said our reader, “they could give me a call.”
What would it take for HP to show its small-biz customers some respect? Especially when it likes to tell business owners that “No one understands you like HP.”
MORAL: If you talk the talk, walk the walk.
Monday, 30 January 2006
Wednesday, 25 January 2006
Entrepreneurship - Act of Faith
Australian entrepreneur Yaro Starak runs several Internet-based businesses, as well as a thoughtful blog at http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com
He wrote recently about the passion entrepreneurs have for their businesses, comparing it to religious faith. It’s essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how business owners tick. You can read the whole post here, or my condensed version below:
"I have a few friends that I meet with regularly who share my passion for business… For some their business enjoys the majority of their daily headspace, even surpassing the time contemplating sex (yes, these are male friends). Business has become a part of who they are…
Business provides an entrepreneur with purpose. When times are tough faith keeps an entrepreneur working long after other people would have given up. While blind faith is not a good thing, certainly strong faith and courage of conviction are vital for any business person to carry on despite whatever obstacles are thrown at them.
Business provides an entrepreneur with meaning. An enlightened entrepreneur works towards building something that enhances many people’s lives. By creating a business that employs people, provides helpful products or services and creates prosperity for many, the sum effect is an expansion of positivity…
When business people get together they share the faith. Entrepreneurs discuss commerce, opportunities and advise each other on the best course of action in a given situation. It’s as if there are a set of rules, some written, some intuitively understood that are guiding these people. When entrepreneurs network they call on their collective understanding and knowledge to help each other and create something greater than the sum of the parts. It’s as if they are divinely inspired."
I think Yaro's right about how entrepreneurs getting together and discussing commerce is really an act of shared faith.
The best entrepreneurs I know are extremely generous about sharing ideas, connections and resources with fellow keepers of the flame. I think they see society as a closed loop. By helping you they believe they are helping themselves by supporting the greater ecosystem – even if they never see you again.
Of course, the other reason they help each other is because they don't believe anyone else will.
Which is a huge opportunity for marketers who understand it.
He wrote recently about the passion entrepreneurs have for their businesses, comparing it to religious faith. It’s essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how business owners tick. You can read the whole post here, or my condensed version below:
"I have a few friends that I meet with regularly who share my passion for business… For some their business enjoys the majority of their daily headspace, even surpassing the time contemplating sex (yes, these are male friends). Business has become a part of who they are…
Business provides an entrepreneur with purpose. When times are tough faith keeps an entrepreneur working long after other people would have given up. While blind faith is not a good thing, certainly strong faith and courage of conviction are vital for any business person to carry on despite whatever obstacles are thrown at them.
Business provides an entrepreneur with meaning. An enlightened entrepreneur works towards building something that enhances many people’s lives. By creating a business that employs people, provides helpful products or services and creates prosperity for many, the sum effect is an expansion of positivity…
When business people get together they share the faith. Entrepreneurs discuss commerce, opportunities and advise each other on the best course of action in a given situation. It’s as if there are a set of rules, some written, some intuitively understood that are guiding these people. When entrepreneurs network they call on their collective understanding and knowledge to help each other and create something greater than the sum of the parts. It’s as if they are divinely inspired."
I think Yaro's right about how entrepreneurs getting together and discussing commerce is really an act of shared faith.
The best entrepreneurs I know are extremely generous about sharing ideas, connections and resources with fellow keepers of the flame. I think they see society as a closed loop. By helping you they believe they are helping themselves by supporting the greater ecosystem – even if they never see you again.
Of course, the other reason they help each other is because they don't believe anyone else will.
Which is a huge opportunity for marketers who understand it.
Friday, 20 January 2006
Questions every business owner should ask
Bank of Montreal is one of the smarter banks in using its website to provide useful, easily accessible information for business owners. (It’s not very well structured or promoted, but you can’t have everything.)
Worried perhaps that some of their clients are sleeping at night, BMO offers a long list of questions that entrepreneurs in growing businesses should be asking themselves. It’s also a useful checklist for anyone who sells to small business, to help them better understand their customers’ needs.
Questions for the owner of a growing business
You are in business and making a profit. Orders are coming in and you are considering expanding your product line or adding a new location. Keeping an eye on the fundamentals - cash management, your competition and managing staff and expectations - can help sustain your expansion for the long run.
Questions to Ask Yourself
Do I have the necessary capital to finance my growth?
Am I doing everything I can to keep a healthy balance of work and personal life?
Do I know what the competition is doing?
How will the competition react?
Am I expanding too quickly?
Can I handle the stress of managing a much larger business?
Do I want to grow for growth's sake or because it will be more profitable?
Things to Watch For
Staffing up too quickly
Accounts receivable that are not being collected
Increased inventory costs
Expansion without a solid capital base
Overworked staff
Organization growing out of control
Inefficient Cash flow management
Keys to Survival
Follow your Business Plan
Keep your financial partners informed of any major expansion or change
Expand in areas where you have experience and can make a profit
Listen to your customers and adjust your approach
Delegate more
Have proper control systems in place to manage growth
To find this checklist and more like it, click the link below. Once you're there, go to the right-hand menu and click on “Business Planning Resources.” Take your time – there's lots of good stuff here.
Click here for BMO’s Business Planning Resources
Worried perhaps that some of their clients are sleeping at night, BMO offers a long list of questions that entrepreneurs in growing businesses should be asking themselves. It’s also a useful checklist for anyone who sells to small business, to help them better understand their customers’ needs.
Questions for the owner of a growing business
You are in business and making a profit. Orders are coming in and you are considering expanding your product line or adding a new location. Keeping an eye on the fundamentals - cash management, your competition and managing staff and expectations - can help sustain your expansion for the long run.
Questions to Ask Yourself
Do I have the necessary capital to finance my growth?
Am I doing everything I can to keep a healthy balance of work and personal life?
Do I know what the competition is doing?
How will the competition react?
Am I expanding too quickly?
Can I handle the stress of managing a much larger business?
Do I want to grow for growth's sake or because it will be more profitable?
Things to Watch For
Staffing up too quickly
Accounts receivable that are not being collected
Increased inventory costs
Expansion without a solid capital base
Overworked staff
Organization growing out of control
Inefficient Cash flow management
Keys to Survival
Follow your Business Plan
Keep your financial partners informed of any major expansion or change
Expand in areas where you have experience and can make a profit
Listen to your customers and adjust your approach
Delegate more
Have proper control systems in place to manage growth
To find this checklist and more like it, click the link below. Once you're there, go to the right-hand menu and click on “Business Planning Resources.” Take your time – there's lots of good stuff here.
Click here for BMO’s Business Planning Resources
Wednesday, 18 January 2006
Know Your Market
Anyone know what Sony is doing in this VAIO personal notebook ad, which ran in a recent issue of PROFIT Magazine?
Don’t get me wrong. This is a must-have machine, a fully functional notebook that almost fits in your pocket. But I’m disturbed by the claim that this little beauty will “keep you productive and entertained at home in the office or on the road.” (BTW, doesn’t Sony believe in commas?)
I know why an ad targeting small business stresses productivity. But entertainment? Maybe Sony thinks businesspeople by day become cinephiles at night. In the tight white type, Sony claims that the 10” LCD display and unique compact design “deliver a movie-viewing experience like no other computer.”
Sorry, friends. My experience tells me entrepreneurs don’t watch DVDs when they’re travelling. They barely watch TV at all. On the road, the entrepreneurs I know catch up on work after dinner, watch the news and go to bed so they can get up early, finish the job and go home. The last thing they’re gonna do is waste two hours watching a movie – especially on a compact screen. Why do you think they bought their $5,000 home theatre?
And let’s face it: if you want to burn DVDs, you’ll do it on a desktop computer or an ordinary 14” laptop. You could buy both machines for far less than the $2500 pricetag of this VAIO.
Why don’t Sony and its agency play up the true value of this product – its sexy design and extreme portability? This machine turns heads. It fits in your briefcase. It’s thinner than my cellphone. It’s easy to work with in tight spaces. It’s the smallest, best looking and hardest-working notebook on the market.
It says you’re a player.
Not a watcher.
Friday, 13 January 2006
Key Small Business Insight No. 2: The Truth about Growth
The “small business market” is a deceptively simple name for a huge, sprawling non-collective that in Canada covers everything from farmers and fishers to dry cleaners, consultants, landscape architects, sophisticated equipment exporters and software developers.
There’s not much shared experience, and no consistent self-image. Their most common needs are those we all have simply as people: to keep food on the table, to be respected, to make more money, to cut costs, to make our lives easier. This is a major reason why B2SB (business to small business) marketing has as much in common with B2C (business to consumer) as with B2B. (The other main reason, of course, is that you are asking them to spend their own money, not someone else’s.)
But there’s one thing all businesses have in common, right? They all want to grow?
Wrong. Research (by Barb Orser and Rena Blatt) has found that half of small business owners don't want their businesses to grow at all.
For many, it’s a lifestyle issue – they’re happy with things as they are. They’re making enough money, they don’t want to work harder. And they certainly don’t need the headaches (longer hours, hiring new people, opening new locations and supervising people at a distance) that come with success.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t market to growth-oriented companies – after all, they're 50% of the market, and they're the ones mostly likely to buy your business solutions. But if you are going after the whole market, do keep in mind that growth is not always a positive. And success is not always a matter of size.
There’s not much shared experience, and no consistent self-image. Their most common needs are those we all have simply as people: to keep food on the table, to be respected, to make more money, to cut costs, to make our lives easier. This is a major reason why B2SB (business to small business) marketing has as much in common with B2C (business to consumer) as with B2B. (The other main reason, of course, is that you are asking them to spend their own money, not someone else’s.)
But there’s one thing all businesses have in common, right? They all want to grow?
Wrong. Research (by Barb Orser and Rena Blatt) has found that half of small business owners don't want their businesses to grow at all.
For many, it’s a lifestyle issue – they’re happy with things as they are. They’re making enough money, they don’t want to work harder. And they certainly don’t need the headaches (longer hours, hiring new people, opening new locations and supervising people at a distance) that come with success.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t market to growth-oriented companies – after all, they're 50% of the market, and they're the ones mostly likely to buy your business solutions. But if you are going after the whole market, do keep in mind that growth is not always a positive. And success is not always a matter of size.
Wednesday, 11 January 2006
Separating Entrepreneurs from Employees
As part of a column I do for MoneySense Magazine, I was talking to a financial planner the other day who specializes in serving business owners. He says he's spotted an intriguing difference between entrepreneurs and employees.
An employee's greatest fear, he says, is not receiving a cheque every week.
An entrepreneur's greatest fear, by contrast, is having just one source controlling their paycheque.
So are entrepreneurs risk-oriented -- or risk-averse?
(Leave a comment, if you're not comment-averse.)
An employee's greatest fear, he says, is not receiving a cheque every week.
An entrepreneur's greatest fear, by contrast, is having just one source controlling their paycheque.
So are entrepreneurs risk-oriented -- or risk-averse?
(Leave a comment, if you're not comment-averse.)
Tuesday, 10 January 2006
Key Small Business Insight No. 1: Don’t call them “Small Business”
Yes, this blog is called “Selling to Small Business.” That’s because it is not designed for small business.
To marketers, ‘small business’ is a useful name for a market segment. But just as you would not address a “Single White Male” (another perfectly useful marketing descriptor) as “Single White Male,” I urge you to avoid using the phrase “small business” when talking to entrepreneurs.
(I hardly ever use the phrase on my other blog, Canadian Entrepreneur. Because small-business owners read it.)
Years ago, when I joined PROFIT Magazine, it was called, er, Small Business Magazine. That name did a great job of describing our market niche – but it was a name many readers shunned. In English, the word “small” is a pejorative. It often means “inconsequential.” We talk about “small talk” (idle, meaningless chitchat). “Small potatoes, small beer, small-town thinking…” are all negative concepts.
If you think about the work it takes to build even a three- or four-person business, you may understand the resentment many business owners feel when you call their company “small.”
At, um, Small Business magazine, we held focus groups and learned that some readers didn’t mind the name, but most did. One owner said he hid the magazine inside the pages of another magazine, so none of his employees could see him reading something called “Small” Business. Another attendee summed it up perfectly: “A small business is any business that’s smaller than my business.”
When you call a business ‘small,” you are (probably unconsciously) judging it. Sure, it's small compared to the banks, Alcan or Loblaws. But judged by its own markets and aspirations, it's not small. I remember meeting a guy who talked about running "the third-largest steel fabricator in the Ottawa Valley.” By most national standards it’s a small business – but not in his eyes. He’s a significant player in his markets.
Marketing 101 says you must view the world through your customers’ eyes. Please toss the word “small business” out of your copywriting vocabulary.
What’s wrong with the word “business?” (Or “business owner,” if you’re getting personal?) 98% of businesses are small and medium-sized businesses – so they’re the norm, not Air Canada, Bombardier or Chrysler.
To marketers, ‘small business’ is a useful name for a market segment. But just as you would not address a “Single White Male” (another perfectly useful marketing descriptor) as “Single White Male,” I urge you to avoid using the phrase “small business” when talking to entrepreneurs.
(I hardly ever use the phrase on my other blog, Canadian Entrepreneur. Because small-business owners read it.)
Years ago, when I joined PROFIT Magazine, it was called, er, Small Business Magazine. That name did a great job of describing our market niche – but it was a name many readers shunned. In English, the word “small” is a pejorative. It often means “inconsequential.” We talk about “small talk” (idle, meaningless chitchat). “Small potatoes, small beer, small-town thinking…” are all negative concepts.
If you think about the work it takes to build even a three- or four-person business, you may understand the resentment many business owners feel when you call their company “small.”
At, um, Small Business magazine, we held focus groups and learned that some readers didn’t mind the name, but most did. One owner said he hid the magazine inside the pages of another magazine, so none of his employees could see him reading something called “Small” Business. Another attendee summed it up perfectly: “A small business is any business that’s smaller than my business.”
When you call a business ‘small,” you are (probably unconsciously) judging it. Sure, it's small compared to the banks, Alcan or Loblaws. But judged by its own markets and aspirations, it's not small. I remember meeting a guy who talked about running "the third-largest steel fabricator in the Ottawa Valley.” By most national standards it’s a small business – but not in his eyes. He’s a significant player in his markets.
Marketing 101 says you must view the world through your customers’ eyes. Please toss the word “small business” out of your copywriting vocabulary.
What’s wrong with the word “business?” (Or “business owner,” if you’re getting personal?) 98% of businesses are small and medium-sized businesses – so they’re the norm, not Air Canada, Bombardier or Chrysler.
Thursday, 5 January 2006
Sleepless in Small Business
What, I hear you asking, stresses entrepreneurs most? Is it the banks, government regulation, high taxes, or that underperforming sales manager in Tucson?
Last year, international consultants Grant Thornton polled more than 6,000 CEOs in 24 countries to find out what keeps them awake at night. Here are their 10 biggest sources of stress:
Increasing competition: 43%
Economic environment: 38%
Cash flow/pressure on profit margins: 37%
Regulation/red tape: 36%
Not enough time with family/friends: 32%
Shortage of leisure time: 32%
Keeping up with technical developments: 24%
Change in audit requirements: 23%
High volume of e-mail: 21%
Wealth and how it's tied to the business: 20%
Stress Factor No. 11 is also worth noting: relations with partners and shareholders (19%).
So what do you do with this information? You’re in great shape if your products or services give businesses an edge on the competition or insulate them from economic swings. If you can help them boost profits or master technology, you’re in like Flint.
Plus, focus on how you can save business owners time. For many, that's a scarcer resource than money.
And think twice before trying to sell them on e-mail-based services. They already have more than they can handle.
(Canadian entrepreneurs, by the way, ranked middle of the pack in terms of stress levels. Most stressed were business owners in Turkey, Poland and Russia [wonder why?]. Least stressed: Netherlands, Italy, France and the UK.)
But the stress-free life isn’t always best: Canadians ranked near the top (and well above the above nationalities) in terms of their outlook for their country’s economy over the next 12 months.
Last year, international consultants Grant Thornton polled more than 6,000 CEOs in 24 countries to find out what keeps them awake at night. Here are their 10 biggest sources of stress:
Increasing competition: 43%
Economic environment: 38%
Cash flow/pressure on profit margins: 37%
Regulation/red tape: 36%
Not enough time with family/friends: 32%
Shortage of leisure time: 32%
Keeping up with technical developments: 24%
Change in audit requirements: 23%
High volume of e-mail: 21%
Wealth and how it's tied to the business: 20%
Stress Factor No. 11 is also worth noting: relations with partners and shareholders (19%).
So what do you do with this information? You’re in great shape if your products or services give businesses an edge on the competition or insulate them from economic swings. If you can help them boost profits or master technology, you’re in like Flint.
Plus, focus on how you can save business owners time. For many, that's a scarcer resource than money.
And think twice before trying to sell them on e-mail-based services. They already have more than they can handle.
(Canadian entrepreneurs, by the way, ranked middle of the pack in terms of stress levels. Most stressed were business owners in Turkey, Poland and Russia [wonder why?]. Least stressed: Netherlands, Italy, France and the UK.)
But the stress-free life isn’t always best: Canadians ranked near the top (and well above the above nationalities) in terms of their outlook for their country’s economy over the next 12 months.
Monday, 2 January 2006
Guess who owns SmallBusiness.ca
It’s time I started praising B2SB marketers who are doing a good job of marketing to business owners. So kudos to BDO Dunwoody.
Today I wondered who owns “smallbusiness.ca”. When I typed the URL into my browser, up popped the home page of small-business accounting firm BDO Dunwoody Canada. It looks like they registered the name in October 2000 (back when most organizations could only get one dot-ca registration each), so good on them for clearly communicating their market positioning over the long term.
But why, I wonder, don’t they make something more of this?
When you type in http://www.smallbusiness.ca/, you come to the same home page you would if you’d typed “www.bdo.ca.” There’s nothing special to explain why BDO secured the smallbusiness.ca address. There’s nothing that addresses the likelihood that whoever lands on this page wasn’t looking for an accounting firm.
Why not give visitors a landing page worthy of the initiative they’ve shown? Congratulate them on their cleverness in finding BDO, since the firm is so committed to the small-business market, and its website contains so many useful features for entrepreneurs. Then help users find them.
And then, in case BDO doesn’t have what the visitor is looking for, why wouldn’t they offer “Other Links” to alternative Canadian small-business resources? There’s About.com’s small business section, Strategis, PROFIT or Canadian Business magazines, the Globe’s Report on Small Business section, the CFIB, Enterprise Magazine, the Canada Business Service Centres, CanadaOne – and so on.
Business owners are always looking for an edge. Connect them to a useful resource they didn’t know about before, and they’ll be your friend for life. Or at least a few weeks.
BDO took a visionary step in securing the smallbusiness.ca address. Now it needs to show some imagination to prove that vision was no fluke.
Today I wondered who owns “smallbusiness.ca”. When I typed the URL into my browser, up popped the home page of small-business accounting firm BDO Dunwoody Canada. It looks like they registered the name in October 2000 (back when most organizations could only get one dot-ca registration each), so good on them for clearly communicating their market positioning over the long term.
But why, I wonder, don’t they make something more of this?
When you type in http://www.smallbusiness.ca/, you come to the same home page you would if you’d typed “www.bdo.ca.” There’s nothing special to explain why BDO secured the smallbusiness.ca address. There’s nothing that addresses the likelihood that whoever lands on this page wasn’t looking for an accounting firm.
Why not give visitors a landing page worthy of the initiative they’ve shown? Congratulate them on their cleverness in finding BDO, since the firm is so committed to the small-business market, and its website contains so many useful features for entrepreneurs. Then help users find them.
And then, in case BDO doesn’t have what the visitor is looking for, why wouldn’t they offer “Other Links” to alternative Canadian small-business resources? There’s About.com’s small business section, Strategis, PROFIT or Canadian Business magazines, the Globe’s Report on Small Business section, the CFIB, Enterprise Magazine, the Canada Business Service Centres, CanadaOne – and so on.
Business owners are always looking for an edge. Connect them to a useful resource they didn’t know about before, and they’ll be your friend for life. Or at least a few weeks.
BDO took a visionary step in securing the smallbusiness.ca address. Now it needs to show some imagination to prove that vision was no fluke.
Sunday, 1 January 2006
Staples stumbles
Make no mistake: In future I will be praising companies for good examples of marketing to small business.
But in the meantime, justice demands that we excoriate Staples/Business Depot today.
I'm on their e-mailing list, and I just received an e-mail to fill out a survey on purchasing business forms. My initial thought was "Good for them." Taking time to research your target market is a sign of interest, openness and respect that many small business owners will appreciate.
Then I read the first question.
But in the meantime, justice demands that we excoriate Staples/Business Depot today.
I'm on their e-mailing list, and I just received an e-mail to fill out a survey on purchasing business forms. My initial thought was "Good for them." Taking time to research your target market is a sign of interest, openness and respect that many small business owners will appreciate.
Then I read the first question.
Where do you buy your business forms? Staples, Staples or Staples?
That does not strike me as a sign of interest or respect. It suggests an unearned sense of entitlement or arrogance - and is guaranteed to annoy or frustrate any customer or prospect who doesn't solely patronize Staples. Why not offer the customer a chance to cite other sources -- especially since there are so many software alternatives that eliminate the need for most preprinted forms?
I bet a lot of customers will abandon the survey right there. At question 1.
That same inflexibility occurs throughout the survey. At several points, the survey asks if you would buy a product if it was similar to your favorite brand at the same price, or if it cost a little more, or if it was a better product. Your choices are "yes" or "no." There's no "maybe" to reflect the complexity of the purchasing process and the variables involved in the decision. (Maybe it's another brand name I'll recognize? Maybe its packaging will look like crap. How can I know if I will buy it based on the vague information you've given me?)
At the end, Staples does a good thing. It offers a chance at a $500 gift card for people who divulge personal information. Building (or filling out) lists is always good. But Staples doesn't say what it will do with the info, thereby restricting what it can do in future.
Then the very last screen on the survey gives the game away. The host of the survey software, Zoomerang, offers you the chance to send your own free survey. It's possible that Staples is paying to conduct this survey, but it sure doesn't look that way. We all know retail margins are tight, but I think most customers expect national retail chains to operate on a more professional plane than Bob's Home Business.
Lessons learned? Honour your prospects. Make your research about their world, not yours. Make your questions reflect their behavior, not your needs. Offer more options, not fewer. And use professional tools that reflect your stature in the marketplace.
Every customer contact counts.
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