If you run a small business, you probably consider a major player in your industry on a regular basis. It might be another smaller company, but in most cases, there seems to be a handful of giants who dominate the bulk of the market. Those big companies with their high-rise offices, huge rosters of suit-clad employees and easily recognizable stock ticker codes can be intimidating for many small business owners.
It’s an understandable sentiment. The small business owner may be working out of his or her garage, wearing jeans and working the phone while trying in vain to repair a broken fax machine. The small business owner might spend late nights worrying about whether his or her new company will ever take off and become profitable. Meanwhile big corporate CEOs are sleeping in their private jets en route to lavish parties thrown by other tycoons on the Riviera.
The small business owner worries about having the money to make that next car or house payment. The mega-corporation’s CEO is busy negotiating an extra few million in stock options to for her eventual retirement.
If you ever start to feel that way, don’t chastise yourself for being a little green with envy. Instead, retrain your thoughts on some of the unique advantages you have as a smaller player and how wonderful it will feel as you use your “invisible” position to make rapid gains.
When the large competitor wants to tailor its offerings to consumers, they rely on time-consuming focus groups and large-scale market research projects to inform them of the changes they need to make. The decision makers often haven’t seen or interacted with a product end-user or actual everyday client for years.
You, on the other hand, know your customers. You know how to reach them. You know what they liked and the things about which they had complaints. You can custom-tailor your offerings to meet their exact needs and expectations—and you can do it much faster than the folks in the high-rise can. Your adjustments can be implemented before they interview their first focus group panel!
When the big shots decide they need to make a change in their advertising strategy, they call the ad firm upon which they rely, their in-house marketing team, a dozen division heads, their media expert and assorted others together in hopes of eventually hammering out an alternative.
Meanwhile, you can have an epiphany while driving to the grocery store and put a new test advertisement into the rotation by the time you go to bed. When you see an opening, you can take it without having to fill out requisition forms or consulting with higher-ups.
You may not have your own jet (yet). You may not have a silk parachute, nonetheless a multi-million dollar gold variety. Your concerns may seem a bit pedestrian compared to those at the so-called “top.” However, your opportunity for rapid growth and improvement swamps theirs.
The small business owner can be faster and more creative than the big boys can. With size comes bulk. With bulk comes delay. You are able to run circles around the competition in terms of flexibility and responsiveness.
All it takes is the ability to keep your eyes and ears open and to combine that attentiveness to the market with a proven marketing strategy designed with a small business in mind. Once those elements are in place, you will be on the fast track to a new fax machine right away, and a lot closer to vacationing on the Mediterranean coast than you might think.
Don’t develop an inferiority complex. Of course, it’s unrealistic to compare your small operation with an established player right away. Yes, it is true that the big boys do have some significant advantages over the upstarts. However, not all of the news is bad. Instead of focusing on the areas in which you feel deficient, recognize that your position gives you some very exciting opportunities in the areas where your lack of size actually makes you quite superior.
