The Quarter of the Canadian Entrepreneur

Kudos to Roynat, which this year launched a bold initiative called "The Year of the Canadian Entrepreneur." As I understand it, their intent was to build a coalition of marketers interested in reaching small and medium-sized business, and together create events and content that would celebrate Canadian entrepreneurship and help inform and strengthen individual entrepreneurs.

Sadly, Corporate Canada never signed on. Rogers Wireless became a partner, and at least one other organization I know was looking to get in on it. But Roynat had ambitious plans - a monthly mini-magazine called "Essential Guide" in Canadian Business and PROFIT, and a full weekly "Entrepreneur" section in the National Post - and they required deep, deep pockets.

This month, Roynat threw in the towel, and who can blame them?

Congratulations to Roynat (and Rogers) for their vision and market leadership. And to all those organizations that make lots of money off Canadian entrepeneurs and declined to support this worthwhile initiative, may you reap what you sow.

To sell to small businesses, you have to create value for them. Roynat gets that. The rest of the market? Not so much.

Grand & Toy Gets Ambitious

I love office-supply stores, but I have always had a love-hate relationship with Grand & Toy.

As a kid I remember wandering into their store at Yonge and Eglinton in Toronto and wondering why they didn't have any toys. ("Grand" and "Toy," I learned later, were the company founders .) Later I could never understand why they had two sets of prices -- one for retail customers, and huge discounts for commercial accounts.

When Staples and Office Depot bought big, bright stores and high-tech wizardry to Canada's office-supply market, Grand & Toy seemed to be caught napping. But now G&T, which calls itself Canada's No. 1 source for "complete business solutions," is staking a leadership claim by helping small businesses get online.

According to a release published today, "To show that they understand and support the needs of Canadian small businesses, Grand & Toy has launched Website Design & Hosting services, an easy and affordable way for entrepreneurs and smaller organizations from coast-to-coast to be available 24/7."

"At Grand & Toy we know that time and money are limited for small business owners," said David Addison, General Manager, Services. "But we also know the potential of growing that business with a simple website offering. That is why with our new Website Design & Hosting services, small businesses can have a site that looks as professional as the large corporations at a fraction of the cost."

Costs? G&T offers "an impactful, customized website design" beginning at $499.95. It also offers hosting plans from $12 a month.

Many business owners have trouble knowing what to put on a website or where to find the help they need, so this service appears to meet a huge industry need. The test, of course, is in the details of the pricing, and the quality G&T offers.

Web design for small business is often handled by kids, friends of friends, or networking specialists who know nothing about design, so there is room for a quality, brand-name service.

But I have my doubts that G&T can compete on price, which, in my experience, is the No. 1 concern for most small business owners. Competing with teenagers and students is never easy.

For more information on the new service, click here.

(Bonus note on selling to business owners: Help your customers find information fast. Grand & Toy's press release commits a cardinal error by directing prospects to their home page, www.grandandtoy.com. Any busy entrepreneur who hits that page will look around a few seconds, observe that web design and hosting are mentioned nowhere, and then take off. Never to return.

Don't expect them to persevere and go, "Hmm, should I try clicking under "Home? Technology? Services? G&T Brand? Deals? Customer Service? Heck, I've got all day, I'll click them all!"

Pick an easy URL, (e.g., www.GrandandToy.com/web) and communicate directly.
Never expect entreprenurs to make an effort to find the information you've promised. They ain't that interested.)

Lie Like an Entrepreneur

I love entrepreneurs. They are some of the most accomplished, most positive and community focused people I have ever met.
But they have one bad habit: They lie a lot.

“Yes, of course we have a business plan.”
“We never looked for any outside financing.”
“We’ve got that problem solved.”
“I think our biggest challenge now is meeting demand.”

I remember telling one of our writers at PROFIT a few years ago that he should enjoy interviewing entrepreneurs. He should do his best to pull revenue figures out of them, he should dig for colorful anecdotes, but he should never forget that the entrepreneur may be lying.

They lie to make their business seem more successful than it is. They lie about the problems they’ve faced, they lie about past accomplishments, and they lie about their future objectives (“Nope, I don’t see myself selling this business ever. I’ll be here till they throw me out”).

The funny thing is, I think many of these entrepreneurs don't mean to lie. Many of them believe what they are saying is true. While a statement may technically be a lie today, that doesn't mean it isn't true in their heads. Some of what they say may become true six months from now.

I believe many entrepreneurs live several months in the future – it’s a key part of how they make their visions come true. So some of them may truly believe the stories they tell are already true.

I discussed this issue last week with a banker over lunch, and she agreed with both parts of my theory: Yes, entrepreneurs lie, and no, they don't really think of it as lying. She put into words the part that I was having trouble with.

“They lie to themselves,” she said.

"I believe what I think"

Entrepreneurs tend to be tough sells because they consider truth to be sacrosanct. But once you win their trust, it's yours forever (if you don't blow it).

Entrepreneurs may take time to come to conclusions, but when they do, they like to stick with them.

Consider this quote from a Canadian Business interview with K.Y. Ho, founder of innovative chip-maker ATI Technologies Inc.

"Truth is truth; facts are facts. That's why I never considered settling with the OSC. I wanted to fight to the end. I am an entrepreneur; I believe what I think, and I believe what I do."

The Issues that Matter

Marketers should always know what the stresses are that keep their clients and prospects awake at nights.

Here’s a look at that question from a unique source. BC-based Soho Business Report asked its readers which topics they would like to see covered more often in the magazine.

Here are their answers.

Marketing 72.4%
Networking Opportunities 67.2%
Improving Sales 53.4%
Technology Purchases 43.8%*
Money Management 37.9%
Time Management 34.5%
Home Design/Space Mgmt. 34.4%
Finding Capital 34.1%
Reducing Overhead/Taxes 32.8%
Import/Export Issues 27.6%
Diversifying Products/Service 27.6%
Dealing with Growth 27.6%
Balancing Work/Family 25.9%
Collecting Debts 25.9%
Legal/Regulatory Issues 18.9%
US Business Related Issues 17.2%
Technology Training 12.1%*

If your product addresses an issue these entrepreneurs want to read more about, your solutions should interest them too.

These may primarily be home-based entrepreneurs, and not captains of ambitious, fast-growth companies, but I think their concerns are pretty much the same as those of most other small businesses. (Except maybe for networking. Many entrepreneurs hate it.)

Find more about SBR Magazine and its readers here.

* Sigh. It always saddens me to see so many people interested in more information about technology, but so little interest in investing in learning to use it more effectively.

The Credit Card Rant

The following rant has nothing to do with selling to entrepreneurs. But it could serve as a heads-up for credit-card holders – and a warning for any business that abuses customers’ trust.

Since I paid my MasterCard bill on time last month, I was surprised to see an interest charge of $40 on my February bill.

So I called BMO for an explanation. After 10 minutes on hold, a helpful customer service rep explained it to me.

Apparently I paid my bill a few days late in December (the usual pre-Christmas bustle, I guess). As a result, MasterCard is now charging interest on all my purchases until I have made two consecutive on-time, in-full payments.

“Since when?” I asked, flabbergasted. “Since June,” she said.

So that’s how it’s going to be: Make one mistake, and your credit card suddenly becomes a high-interest loan. That’s a pretty fundamental change, and while MasterCard might have announced it last spring, I don't remember them making any attempt to draw my attention to it.

(Note: Does this penalty even make sense? Why would BMO actively encourage me to leave my MasterCard at home?)

I had barely opened my mouth to complain when the CSR graciously offered to cancel the $40 charge. Of course I was grateful, but it made me wonder how much flak the bank has received over this charge, since they are so willing to roll it back before it’s even requested.

Luckily, I have two credit cards. Guess which one is staying home for the foreseeable future.

I think there’s a lesson here: consult with your customers when making significant changes. Don't try to slip one over on them. They will find out. And they won’t be happy.

Maybe the banks figure they have all the power. They reserve the right to change the cardholder agreement from time to time. I don't have that right.

But there’s one right I do have. Not to do business with them.

Too much heartbreak leads to divorce

I’ve often called small business a “heartbreak” market. It’s a tough sector to make a buck in, because so many customers are too busy to listen and thus have trouble telling the right solutions from the wrong ones.

Today I talked to a website consultant who no longer works with business owners. His heart (like mine) is with small business, but he says entrepreneurs were just too frustrating to deal with. “They don't want to think. They just want to do.”

He complained specifically about business owners who get seduced by web designers who want to spend tends of thousands of dollars on spiffy-looking Flash-animated websites, when what business owners need is a straightforward proposition and a small investment in search engine optimization.

He said business owners were reluctant to hire consultants for a day at $150 an hour to help them choose the right strategic course for their website. Instead, they pay more in the long run by using web designers whose concerns are more esthetic than results-focused. That may seem to cost less up-front, but in the long run any site that’s not aligned with your marketing and sales strategy will cost you dearly.

All the more reason, I say, for marketers to develop stronger relationships with business owners before trying to sell to them. You can do that through newsletters, personal calls, blogs, direct mail, invitations to events – anything that sets you up as a trusted partner.

Without that trust, even the best sales proposition will almost always finish second when the business owner has a pre-existing relationship with a competing supplier - whether or not they can do what you do.

As for my friend, he says, “I directed myself a major corporations, so I have no more problems.”