Four ways to beat bigger competitors

How can your small town business take on the bigger competitors? Whether you're facing the big boxes, the big city shopping, or the online big boys, you can try these four ways to beat them back.

1. Tell your human story. Your business came from somewhere, was founded by someone, touches real people. When you tell your story, you build relationships.
2. Your culture and place matter. You have a better connection with what your people want, how they like to be treated, and what touches their emotions than any big company can.
3. When you have a competitive or better price, hammer on it. You have to overcome people's perception that small town businesses have higher prices. It doesn't have to be on every single thing, but I'll bet you can be competitive on many prices. Plus, you may represent a better value because of what all you add. Make sure you show people.
4. When you have better quality, tell that story. This is where people's perceptions work in your favor. The general perception about quality at big companies isn't good. Take advantage of it.

You can tell these stories in your ads, in your online presences, in signs and displays, and most importantly by making sure all your people know and share them, too.


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Mistakes: Missing menus

My friend Chaz French just emailed me from the road: 

I'm at a take out falafel place that apparently does delivery but nowhere in here can we find a menu to take and they didn't come up in a web search for delivery in the area.

If you aren't sharing your critical information with your customers, you're missing out on sales.


Solutions:
Take time for a quick information audit. How would a person new in town find your business? Are there basic info pieces, like menus, that you need to share? How is your online presence? Once you think it's in pretty good shape, be brave and ask a friend to check your work.

And as a bonus, do you give customers an easy way to share problems with you? What if the restaurant had offered a way for Chaz to give that feedback immediately?

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DARPA hard

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, likes big challenges. They don't want to touch projects that are merely hard, or just really difficult. They only want to take on those that are so hard, so seemingly impossible, that no one else could solve them, no one else would ever invest in them. Challenges that big are called "DARPA hard."

Bill Reichert, from Garage Technologies Ventures, told that story at the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds Conference in Oklahoma City.

Look for your own "DARPA hard." Find the problems that are so hard, or so specialized, that you are the only one who can solve them. 

Image source: DARPA.

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The basket I forgot to put a title on

Every week, I open a new Basket. I call it the Brag Basket, but it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing. I started this so you can introduce yourself, share some good news about yourself, or congratulate a friend. 

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community. 

This particular basket is open from Feb. 5-7, 2010.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post. You tell something great about your week, or you give plaudits to someone who did good stuff this week. Or you celebrate a terrific failure. It's not an ad; it's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other!

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Do we even still need business cards

Are business cards dead? 

Every so often, the "business cards are dead" meme goes around. High tech business people are more likely to exchange Twitter addresses than business cards. (@beckymccray, by the way.)

Some people use cards that just say "Google me" or only have their name. The implication is that you can find them so easily through a simple search, that they don't need to give you any contact details. (See an example from Rex Hammock, plus a link to his "real" business card.)

At conferences, we're seeing technology solutions that automatically exchange contact info, like the cute Poken devices or the "bump" application for some smart phones. These things come and go. Remember when Palm Pilots used to be the cool tech solution? They've all but disappeared.


However
In the non-tech savvy world, business cards are very much alive. Here are three ways I'm still using business cards:

• My liquor store business cards with drink recipes are popular with customers. 
• In my consulting business, I find that most people in Northwest Oklahoma still say, "Do you have a card?" Out here, no one asks for my Twitter name.
• At conferences full of tech geeks, I still go through a few. I am very selective about handing them out.

Our friend Des Walsh re-examined the design of his business cards, and the discussion is well worth following. And we went through some ideas for great business cards of our own, too.

If we need a moral to this story, it's this:

• Order new cards, not too many, and keep them current.

How about you? Are you using business cards? Where do you tend to hand them out?

Photo (cc) by Chris Brogan.

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Annual IRS Small Business Survey

A small business related announcement from the Internal Revenue Service:

The Small Business/Self-Employed (SB/SE) division of the IRS will begin conducting its annual telephone survey of taxpayers starting January 18, 2010 and running through mid-April, 2010. This survey is targeted to small business and self-employed taxpayers who file certain income tax forms, including: 1120, 1120S, 1065 and 1040 with schedules C, E or F.

As in previous years, the survey is designed to gather opinions about the delivery of SB/SE products and services. Taxpayers selected at random to participate in the survey will receive an advance letter from the survey contractor, Pacific Market Research (PMR), which will also include a letter from SB/SE Commissioner, Christopher Wagner explaining the purpose and importance of the survey. PMR will conduct the actual surveys by telephone, with each interview typically lasting about 15 to 18 minutes.

Completing the survey is strictly voluntary, and all individual responses will remain anonymous to the IRS.

The interviewers from PMR will not ask for any personal or financial information, including Social Security or Employer Identification Numbers, or banking, or credit card information.

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Invite your visitors to rehearsals

When I visited Peru, one highlight was watching a rehearsal parade. It was the day before the Inti Raymi, the Festival of the Sun, in Cusco, Peru. The main festival draws a crowd of thousands and thousands.

But this was the day before. The local bands and performing troops held a rehearsal. The crowd was relatively thin, almost all local people. Everyone was relaxed, casual, and having a good time.

We were able to easily get a space at the rail to watch the performances. (The rest of the tour group went to tour a cathedral instead.) It was an amazing experience. We were, for a moment, part of the locals.

How can you share this kind of experience with your visitors? 

See the full set of Inti Raymi photos by Becky McCray.

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Things that scare people about social media

To get ready for an upcoming presentation, I came up with a list of things about social media that scare small town governments, or roadblocks that keep them from participating in social networks. I think there are lots of similarities to small businesses.

1. We don't know what to do.
2. We don't want to lose control (of the message, the conversation).
3. We might draw negative comments.
4. We could run into legal issues.
5. Does this create Open Records Issues?
6. What will it cost?
7. Where will we find the time or the staff to do it?
8. This is not seen as serious business. We have important things to do.
9. If we spend money to get help, we might face public outcry.
10. Will there be any return on this investment?
11. How does this fit with what we do now?
12. Who will do it, and what are they NOT doing while they are doing it? 
13. What if we mess up?
14. Why? What for?
15. People will expect follow up and better performance. 
16. What if it's a failure? 
17. The Mayor, Council, or the Public might not like it, or don't like it. 
18. What if we accidentally reveal too much information? 
19. We don't know the guidelines or rules. 
20. We can't keep up with changing technology. 
21. What would we say? 
22. This might create jealousy when one employee gets to do it, but not others. 
23. We're too small.

What are the Answers?
If you've tried to help people with these issues, what answers have you found effective? Are there some techniques that help get past some of these internal barriers?

I'll do a follow up with some of the best solutions. I'll be speaking on this topic twice in the coming months, so I've been thinking about it quite a bit!

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4 ways to manage multiple businesses

On the SBBuzz chat this week, we talked about managing multiple businesses. Some great points came out.

I was reminded of this old, old business card I found. It lists more businesses than you can make sense out of! This guy is buying and selling and trading, and running a restaurant, motel and club.... How can we be smart in managing our own multiple businesses? Here's what we came up with in the chat.

sbbuzz: How do we integrate disparate businesses/interests into a manageable effort?
View Tweet

Perspective one: Cut down and focus

lindadessau: In my case, I've had to sometimes put one thing down for awhile to focus my efforts and get some momentum. View Tweet
lindadessau: Also I've had to be really clear with my marketing - which hat do I wear in which setting, etc. View Tweet

Timberry: There's a lot to be said for cutting the disparate lines and focusing on doing better in the most promising. As an option, maybe. View Tweet

r: Chasing too many opportunities can prove costly. View Tweet

Perspective Two: Find common themes or consolidate

ginabee: I think of it as a tangle of yarn and if I just pull the right one in the right direction, it will all straighten out and be cohesive View Tweet [This is my favorite! -Becky]

scoblitz: I'm working on consolidating the similar for now, looking for bigger impact opportunities. Disparate will have to wait. View Tweet

bradfordshimp: For me, it starts by bringing things under one brand, one roof so to speak. View Tweet
bradfordshimp: Working on doing this with my blog and my design/marketing work. Started w/ the blog, but now want it to offshoot from biz. View Tweet

BeckyMcCray: I specifically looked for common themes, areas of overlap. It started to make sense when I thought of the right theme. View Tweet
BeckyMcCray: I did a lot of noodling around on the ideas before I found the central theme. View Tweet
BeckyMcCray: My theme: Small Town Specialist. That pulls together my consulting with small town govs, my blog at Small Biz Survival, etc. View Tweet

Perspective Three: Manage your time

selahsynergy: Blocking out time on my schedule 4 priorities.Plan. Delegate, Dump, Outsource. Always re-assessing time. View Tweet

rogersanchez: The priorities define the schedule, it's a walk, not a race. But when it is a race, coffee is awesome! View Tweet

nrohrbach: I wrote a blog post on @ideaanglers http://bit.ly/96MHYI and I put those same concepts to work 4 week/month/qtr/yearly time mgmt View Tweet

Perspective Four: Build a portfolio

BeckyMcCray: "A portfolio of profit centers": see @joblessmuse's post today: http://is.gd/77wIh View Tweet

Your Perspective

What works for you?

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Come share in the Basket

Every week, I open a new Basket. I call it the Brag Basket, but it's not really about bragging. It's about sharing. I started this so you can introduce yourself or share some good news about yourself or a friend. 

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others' stories brings us a bit closer to being a community. 

This particular basket is open from Jan 29-31, 2010.

How does it work? You write a comment on this post. You tell something great about your week, or you give plaudits to someone who did good stuff this week. Or you celebrate a terrific failure. It's not an ad; it's a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other!

New here? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Subscribe.

Read more...