I thought I was on a roll at a recent Solid Cactus Boot Camp. I was holding a seminar, extolling the virtues of the “new marketing,” encouraging the attendees to spend less time and money on advertising and more effort on public relations where the advertising is free. Sadly, one person in the audience rained on my parade. She sells aftermarket parts for an auto maker and she was scared because the car manufacturer was initiating its own big push in e-commerce. She assumed the car maker, with its budgets and billions and warehouses full of parts would soon roll right over her. She asked, when the sleeping giants awaken and discover the Internet, how can small companies possibly compete against “the big boys”?
Let me sum up my answer in two words: WITH EASE!
The simple fact is you have a tremendous advantage over the larger, richer, slower brick-and-mortar companies now lumbering into e-commerce. I have worked for big corporations in marketing and advertising. I know what they do well and where they are deficient. They go with what they know. They go with size. Which makes sense, because that’s they’re strength. However, size is no advantage in the nimble world of e-commerce. Your strategy and tactics are just as valuable as theirs and arguably more valuable because in e-commerce, the focus is on small. Trust me; you have nothing to fear from “big.” Below are 7 reasons why smaller is better when it comes to internet marketing and sales.
Reason #1: Now the big boys are playing by YOUR RULES!!!
Never forget the defining law of e-commerce: equality. No matter how rich they are, everyone gets the same one home page. GeneralMotors.com with its international brand gets the same one page in cyberspace as, say, MotorGenerals.com with their home office space. Their billions mean nothing. Their work force means nothing. In that strangely egalitarian world of the Internet, you are exactly equal. Advantage—you.
Reason #2: You are more motivated…
They may have millions, or even billions. Is that an advantage? The larger a company becomes, the more layers they have in their organization. With more layers come more people, each one less invested in the outcome any single process. I’ll explain. Imagine an order comes in to your business and also to a larger one. You have yourself watching every step from the moment the order comes in until a sale goes out. How many people do they have? One for each step of the sales chain? Can that larger process care about the customer as much as you can? Do they have as much invested in a correct order or a happy customer? Can they possibly be as nimble and sensitive as you are? Of course not. They think customers come by the thousands and “someone else” ultimately takes care of them. You know better. They can’t possibly appreciate what they’re doing as much as you appreciate what you’re doing. Advantage—you.
Reason #3: You are more fluid.
Or to put it another way, their bowels are cast in concrete. The larger the organization, the harder it is to get anything done and the longer it takes. Everything requires a meeting and almost nothing gets decided at just one meeting. In large organizations, everyone wants to make sure the “right” people are invited to a meeting or a decision-making moment. Everyone is afraid to proceed because they’re worried to make a step out of place. It’s no surprise that automakers still need years to solve the gas mileage problem. Imagine how many meetings (and how many years) it took to agree there is a problem! You don’t have such worries. At least, you shouldn’t… Advantage—you.
Reason #4:
They never EVER have good ideas.
My father spent his entire life in corporate America. One of his favorite phrases of indictment was: “A camel is a horse, designed by a committee.” In other words, once you start voting and altering and changing, you can screw up almost anything. It happens in advertising every day. I know—I write their ads! Large companies are forever calling me back after an ad submission and they always say, “Kev—we love it. We just want to change two things.” I know before they tell me. They want to “change” the one thing that made the ad interesting and the one thing that made it funny, thereby guaranteeing that it won’t be either interesting or funny. Basically it comes down to this statement.
The majority NEVER makes the right decision, in anything. This gives you and your little autocracy a HUGE advantage over the larger, slower—dumber people you’re competing with.
Reason #5: When someone has a
good idea—they don’t stop until they screw it up.
You don’t have to look very far to see a wonderful advertising idea that has morphed into something grotesque. My current favorite is the AFLAC duck. When the duck first appeared, the quack sounded like the company name and it was brilliant. AFLAC sales soared and the duck became an instant favorite. In that first ad, the duck was in the park, where ducks belong, listening to two guys talk about insurance. The duck quacked “AFLAC!” and the ad worked. How the ads have changed. It’s clever when a duck quacks on cue in a park. It’s something very different when it ends up in your bed, on a roller coaster or behind the wheel of a race car. That isn’t clever, it’s stupid.
As a side point on advertising, you have an advantage there, too. Traditional mass advertising costs vastly more and is less effective than ever. But remember we’re dealing with corporations, where they think BIG. Whom do you think gets the most attention from corporate? The guys spending millions on TV ads using movie star voices or the newcomers, the folks in the basement grinding away on the internet? Advantage—you.
Reason #6: You listen. They don’t.
Think about that. When a customer calls you, it counts. When they complain, you pay attention or you’re out of business in a hurry. But when companies get big, who’s listening then? Or is it more likely that whoever hears a complaint will file a well-meaning report that higher-ups might read in a day, or a week, or never? The speed with which concerns are addressed varies inversely with the size of the company fielding the calls. The bigger the company, the longer and slower the process of seeing and dealing with customer issues… Advantage—you.
Reason #7: You know the Internet shopper better than they do.
Big companies often commission demographic surveys because they have lots of money. But do they bother to read or heed them? This is a serious question. Many large companies think it’s enough just to do the study. Even if they do read the surveys, is it an advantage over what you have? You have a pulse. You can feel your business and the industry beyond. Can’t you? Can’t you feel which promotions are working, which products are selling and which services are more popular? You have that sense because you are smaller. You listen to people more closely and their business counts more to you because you are smaller. You can react quickly and change quickly to profit from mini-spikes in activity because you are smaller. You know the internet at a gut level better than the big boys because you are smaller.
The big boys are playing in your court by your rules. You have the advantage in cyberspace. That’s the good news. The bad news is you can’t use the big boys as an excuse for not winning. They’re not better, just bigger. You have an edge in every other area.
