Ugh! Marketing

I need a new chair mat. Before I headed out to to buy one, I checked the website of Office Depot Canada to see if they're doing anything special for "Boxing Week." Sadly, the site remains as dull as it is the other 51 weeks of the year.

But check out Office Depot's U.S. site.

It's full of colour, pictures, and discounts. Also known as, reasons to linger and reasons to buy. What have Canadians done to deserve such lacklustre merchandising? Business owners deserve special prices, promotional deals and exciting new products. Where's the pizzazz?

In a recent survey cited at a November Warrillow conference on marketing to small business, Staples Business Depot ranked as one of the top brands for business owners. Too bad Office Depot isn't giving them much competition.

Winning the "Space Race"

Congrats to Encelium Technologies Inc., winner of the 2007 “Markham Space Race.”

And congratulations to the organizers – Town of Markham, Innovation Synergy Centre in Markham (ISCM), Great West Life Realty Advisors, FIT by Design, and Jim Brown of Colliers International – for creating a contest that promotes small business and actually aims to help promising companies achieve their potential.

Markham-based Encelium develops energy-management systems that help building managers control lighting and other building loads to dramatically reduce energy costs. Last March Encelium made the papers for selling its ECS system to Toronto’s Rogers Centre (SkyDome), which was expecting the system to save it $300,000 a year.

A panel of judges selected Encelium as the Ontario small business “most likely to grow” over the next year, based on its compelling growth strategy. The company wins a $63,100 prize package that includes use of a furnished, 1,000-square-foot Class A office space for a year in the Town of Markham, a telecommunications package from Telus Business Solutions, thousands of dollars in business, legal, accounting, financial and HR consulting services, and printing and furniture moving services.

Maple Lake Ltd. of Markham and Maxxian Integration Inc. of Thornhill placed second and third in the contest.

Telus was the contest's Title Sponsor, with Creechurch International Underwriters, Cushman & Wakefield LePage and PowerStream Inc. as gold sponsors. The Markham Space Race was open to export-focused, entrepreneurial companies in Ontario that have been in business for at least two years and have at least three full-time employees. Participants submitted a growth plan demonstrating how their company is positioned for rapid growth.

This blog rarely quotes press releases, but this next paragraph from the official announcement rings true to me:

"Regardless of the contest’s prizes, [Innovation Synergy Centre CEO Bob] Glandfield emphasizes that every company that participated in the Markham Space Race comes out a winner, just by developing a growth plan – something many small businesses neglect. “Developing a plan that must face the scrutiny of a third party forces a sense of realism into the process. Entrepreneurs tend to overstate the opportunity, and understate the challenges and timelines, when moving to market. Creating and implementing a realistic plan for growth goes a long way in ensuring the future success of a small business,” he said."

Congratulations to the winners and the sponsors for a rare win-win.
(Crossposted to Canadian Entrepreneur.)

Look! Up in the Sky!

On a warm Friday evening earlier this month, Allstream took an unusual approach to marketing its small business solutions: it flew a UFO over downtown Toronto.

From a distance, the helicopter that towed the huge red Allstream banner was almost invisible, so the ad – which was only intelligible on one side – seemed to be free-floating. My two passengers and I in a car headed downtown took some time to figure out that it wasn't an alien invasion, but merely an ad. Then it took a while longer to realize what the message was.

The big red banner got a lot of attention – but was it the right attention? Does the hard-working target market mill around downtown with time to decipher a hard-to-read mystery ad hovering 2,000 feet up? And even if they do, does a sign that basically promotes your brand name do anything to turn prospects into customers?

I doubt it. I don't think this type of ad shows much respect for the needs of its marketplace.

While I’m generally in favor of marketing innovations, I think this one sends the wrong message. If Allstream (the former AT&T Canada, now owned by Manitoba Telecom) thinks its branding in Toronto is so weak that it needs this kind of aerial extravaganza to sell bundled telecom services, what has it been doing for the past four years?

To learn more about Allstream's small business services, click here.

Go ahead, make me feel small

I received an interesting phone message today from UPS, which seems to advocating a candid approach to contacting prospects. The caller’s name has been withheld, because it’s not his fault: Who gave this man a telephone?

Here’s the message that followed his name and phone number:

“If you can get back to me I’d appreciate it. I just got your name from a trade show we did and I wanted to know if there was any interest on your end or if you were just dropping by, to close out this potential lead on my screen here. Thank you very much. I look forward to speaking with you.”

If you ask me, that's taking transparency too far.

Memo to marketers: I don't want to know that I'm just a blip on your screen. I want to know that if you're calling me, you really care about my business, and you have a very special deal for me.

Don't expect me to remember what form I may have filled out at a trade show. And don't think I filled it out so that a salesman would call. If I won the door prize, tell me. If I didn't win the draw and you're just following up on a sales lead, make me a compelling offer.

Don't treat me like I’m a chore – or just another item on a checklist you want to finish up by noon.

It's just one more reason why entrepreneurs keep beating big business: because you have to sweat the details.

"Big money in small business"

Vancouver-based Backbone magazine has a great article on the challenges facing technology vendors selling to the SMB market.

Author Gail Balfour sets the tone by noting that 97% of all firms in Canada are small- and medium-sized businesses. Vendors such as IBM, Dell, HP and Cisco covet the market, but as Balfour notes, for a long time “even the vendor pitches targeting SMBs amounted to little more than a product tweak and a revamped marketing message.”

But this is slowly changing, says Carmi Levy, senior vp, strategic consulting, with Toronto-based AR Communications. “You cannot underestimate the importance of the small- and medium-sized enterprise. Vendors are starting to realize that there’s real money in providing proper support to SMBs.”

Why so much interest in small business? As Levy notes, Internet technologies are making it easier for smaller companies to compete with big competitors, creating a growing market for tech applications. However, big companies have to learn how to service smaller firms.

Among the challenges noted by Chris Ellsay of Ottawa-based Workshift.com:
* SMB customers demand 24/7 tech support, and on a much more intimate level than enterprise clients
* Often they don’t have a dedicated IT person or staff, and are sometimes not very tech savvy.
* SMBs are price sensitive.

Sellers can’t simply downsize a larger product offering and expect SMBs to buy it, says Levy. Vendors need to build packages of products and services from the ground up. Levy says typical SMB customers are driven by “consumer thinking” and emotional impact, not by the “harder-nosed” enterprise attitude.

One more point: Don't think your brand power is going to crack open the SMB vault and keep you there. Changing brands is much easier to do in small biz, says Jayanth Angl of Info-Tech Research Group in London, Ont. “If a [competing] company is going to give them a better solution, [SMBs] are in a much better position to make that shift, whereas in a very large enterprise that is just not as likely.”

That also means that one negative experience can push SMBs to change vendors. “They base the decision more on emotion,” writes Balfour, “and their smaller size allows them to migrate to a new product without much pain or downtime.”

For more on this subject, and how Dell and HP are responding to this market, see the original story at http://www.backbonemag.com/Magazine/SMB_09070702.asp

Why Small Business Isn't Buying From You

To help computer resellers in Canada sell more to entrepreneurial clients, I write a regular column for Tech Data's Tech Times magazine. "SMB Spotlight" looks at how small business owners think, and what makes them buy - or not.

From my first Tech Times column, published earlier this year, here are four reasons why business owners don't buy.

1) They're too busy. This is the same reason they don't return messages or finish half the projects they begin. They work much harder than the average Canadian. The stats show most entrepreneurs work at least 50 hours a week, compared to 35 to 40 hours for salaried sorts. (That’s a difference of nearly two 8-hour shifts a week.) And PROFIT Magazine’s research finds that the CEOs of top growth firms – the companies most marketers most want to deal with – work more than 60 hours week.

2) They’re not listening. Business owners face more challenges and choices every day than most people face in a year. Do I raise my price? Fire that person? Borrow money? Upgrade my ERP system? If you expect them to put everything on hold to listen to your pitch, you're dreaming.

3) They throw loonies around as if they were silver dollars. Many marketers have noted that business owners tend to be more frugal than most corporate decision-makers. They treat their companies’ money like it was their own. Which makes sense, because it is their own. Business owners are as keen to throw their hard-earned cash at new solutions as you are eager to spend yours.

4) Your offer is too complex. Business owners have too much to do, too much to read, too many problems. They cope by tackling the easiest decisions first. If your solution requires too much thinking, chances are it will be put on hold while the entrepreneur looks at simpler problems with quicker paybacks. Your turn may come tomorrow – unless other more manageable problems surface in the meantime.

These are the primary obstacles facing anyone marketing to small business in Canada today.

Fortunately, overcoming them is easy. You can capture their interest by developing trusted-partner relationships, pressing all the right buttons, crafting simple but compelling product descriptions, advertising more often and effectively, and stressing value, value, value, like a jukebox with just one record.

More excerpts from SMB Spotlight will appear here in future.

Dell's small-biz stumble

Dell became a huge success by selling no-surprises computers direct to consumers and business. I can’t argue with their success, but I’ve never been a fan of the way they sell to small business. They run ads that only computer geeks understand!

Look at the mess they sent out this month.

When I got this 4-page brochire in the mail a few weeks ago, I thought at first that maybe Dell was catching on to the special needs of the small business market. The cover says boldly: “We believe: Small business deserves computers designed just for small business.”
“And now they are.”

Good start, no? But then they mess it up by showing us two ugly, black computers that look not much different than any other computer on the market. Way down at the bottom, in small print that is white on light green, is the sell line: “Small business customers told us they wanted more from a computer – and more from a computer company. We listened. Dell VOSTRO is a new idea. It is a suite of systems and services designed just for small business... You get advice, software of your choosing… and services tailored to your business.”

So let’s see. Pictures of computers that have no apparent connection to the headline. And overwritten “sell” copy that’s in small, indistinct type that virtually shouts “Don’t read me!”

Most entrepreneurs would have thrown the thing away by now, but I persevered. Turning to the next page, though, didn’t help. It’s a two-page spread of identical ugly computers, with the usual technobable that passes for “features” at Dell: 15.4 WXGA Display with TrueLife (glossy), 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2SDRAM, and so on. They do mention a few benefits, such as finding WiFi hotspots without having to open your computer, or “no trialware,” but they are too weak to fulfill the promise of that headline on Page One.

The back page is better: it promises “support that's as dedicated as you are,” and tools from Dell’s “Small business 360 virtual community.” I would have liked to learn more about this last thing, which sounds pretty novel: “find resources and connect with your peers… to assist and enhance your performance potential.”

But no more details are available – not even a URL to visit to learn more about this community. Instead, Dell launches into 16 lines of fine print. Much of it seems stupid or unnecessary (“Remember to back up your data;” “GB means one billion bytes”).

Worst of all, the most important point is hopelessly buried: the fact that the prices quoted on this brochure are good only from July 10 to 19, 2007.

One of the key tenets of marketing is to give prospects a reason to take action right now. Dell tried to do that – but fails utterly, since its deadline is so underplayed that I’ll bet not one recipient in 100 realized that the advertised prices were only good for 10 days.

So let’s see: Good headline. Bad graphics. Underplayed sell copy. Weak benefits. No (apparent) reason to act. Plus, if you tried to order the products after the 19th, Dell tells you the price has gone up!

I bet they’re still wondering why the Canadian small business market is so unresponsive.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Large IT vendors continue to blunder in targeting the small business market.

ConnectIT, an email newsletter for the computer channel community published by Richmond Hill, Ont-based Integrated mar.com, takes IBM to task for not respecting the uniqueness of the SME market. A June 20 story by Paul Weinberg quotes Wayne Kernochan, senior IT analyst at New Hampshire research firm Illuminata Inc., as saying, “I continue to sense that some vendors don't feel the SMB market is worthy of focus."

He noted that IBM has only managed "modest success" in its push with SMB-targeted products and services, because it has concentrated on the upper level of SMB (which includes far fewer firms than the small-business mainstream).

Kernochan also points to IBM’s Informix division, which he says pumped one release of database software “indiscriminately” into the channel without distinguishing between large enterprises and SMBs. As a result, "The SMBs didn't see much value in it."

Neglecting the small truths of the small business market can be expensive. Kernochan says Informix took six months to recognize its error, “but by then the financial damage to the company had already occurred.”

Although big companies say they value the small business market, he urges IT vendors to do more to reach that type of customer. "Vendors have to figure out how to get at that market in a cost-effective way. They tend to focus their innovation efforts on the large enterprise market."

Kernochan urged IT vendors to broaden their channel coverage beyond VARs and resellers, and reach out to SMB-oriented independent software vendors (ISVs) or solution providers.

He says technology products for small business have to be simpler to use and require less administration. And he warns that small business’s dissatisfaction with the IT industry is “getting higher and higher.”

This article suggests that the solution for big companies such as IBM is the same as that for everyone targeting small business. Acknowledge the special characteristics of this market. Don't dumb your products down: just make them easy to sell, easy to understand and easier to use. Recognize that these customers are intelligent professionals, but not specialists.

And understand that no matter how big you are, you only have one chance to prove yourself.

How to really win friends and influence people

Note: This entry is cross-posted from my other blog, Canadian Entrepreneur.

What do you think when you see the words? “Please help us serve you better.”

You figure they're asking for something that will mainly help them and not you, right?

That's what I thought today when I got an e-mail from Ottawa sales coach Colleen Francis with that cheesy headline. I only read it because I decided not to do whatever it was they wanted me to do.

To my surprise, though, Colleen’s business manager, Casey, had written a very friendly letter explaining how they were upgrading their database. “We currently have 3 databases (UGH!) and we are streamlining them into 1,” wrote Casey. “In order to help us ensure you continue to receive the sales information you want, we would love you to update your profile.”

By using real language (“love”) and a little humour, and by giving us some insight into the human side of their database search, they got me onside.

But then they added the flourish. "Now, you are probably wondering "What's in it for me?" - right? Well - I will tell you. When you update your information I will personally send you a CD! A $79US value for simply filling in 10 little fields.”

You could choose a CD on coommunicating through "gatekeepers" and email, or another on “Turning No into Yes.”

"Once you have completed the form please reply to me with your choice of CD and I will pop it in the mail,” writes Casey. “We do hope you will help us with our spring cleaning.”

Congrats to Casey and Colleen for demonstrating how to turn No into Yes - using positive, informal language and appropriate incentives to motivate and engage people. Which could be why their company is called Engage Selling Solutions.

How could you use these techniques in your next communication with busy business owners?

Canadian Bacon

I’ve been phoned recently by two banks that want to lend my business money.

Never mind that my business assets consist of two computers, a printer, one-eighth of a car and 12 shelves of books.

TD Canada Trust pre-approved me for a $15,000 loan at 1 percentage point below prime. Of course, it set some harsh conditions. Neither my business’s assets nor its annual revenue may exceed $500,000. (If they do, though, I’m pre-approved for a loan at 1.99% above prime.)

About six weeks after I received the direct-mail piece, which was cleverly designed to look like a personalized cheque, they called me. The telemarketer was very effective. She sounded concerned and genuinely puzzled that I might not take advantage of this cheap money, and asked if there was anything else she could do to help me.

She actually made me feel guilty for not borrowing their money. I was very impressed.

Not so impressive was the guy from Wells Fargo who called the other day to give me a credit line (I think it was for $40,000). The rate: prime plus 1%. I told him I didn't need that much money, and that a competitor in the marketplace is offering me funds at prime minus 1.

No problem, said my mechanical friend. If I didn’t want to open the account today, he said, I could access the offer later on the Wells Fargo website. He then proceeded to spell out a long URL, and then some other long access number, both of which I politely pretended to write down.

A couple of lessons from these interactions:

* Listening is so important. I felt the TD marketer listened to me. She responded creatively and genuinely. Mr. Robot from Wells Fargo had a job to do and did it, whether I wanted him to or not.

* Reputation is key. I know Wells Fargo has been active in the Canadian market for 10 years, but I don't think it has ever been part of the market. I don't see ads from them, I don't know if they have any physical Canadian presence, I don't see their name sponsoring business events. (The pony-express logo on their “Canadian” website certainly doesn't seem to fit the Canadian character. And why no maple leaf on the stagecoach?)

TD we all know. Whether we patronize them or not, we know them as a civil, reasonably positive force in the community. Who would you rather deal with?

* Mixed media work. TD’s letter alone was shrugworthy, but adding the phone followup makes for a very compelling sales pitch.

Occasional “one-off” offers may meet short-term objectives, but thoughtful, integrated campaigns will always bting home the bacon.

They care about their people!

I had an interesting conversation today with a retired Canadian entrepreneur. They never really retire, you know.

I’ve met this man several times, but not in the year since he left the company he founded. Last month that firm announced a major strategic change, so I called him up to see what he thought about it. He outlined the business case for what they're planning to do, although with little enthusiasm, so I guess he’s onside but not ecstatic about it.

But here’s what he was passionate about.

He complained that he’d heard the news from a friend who used to work for the company. Then he heard about it from a stockbroker. He’s the former CEO, and still a major shareholder, and he obviously feels the company has an obligation to inform them about these things. You can take the entrepreneur of the company, but it sure is hard to get the company out of the entrepreneur.

Here’s the other thing he got hot about. This change will affect a lot of longtime employees. He expressed more regret over what might happen to them than he did about the change to the business as a whole. “It’s a different company now,” he said, but it was clear that he hoped the company would treat the affected employees well.

He also noted hopefully that with the general skills shortage around the country, some employees might be better off, and actually get better jobs.

Clearly, he still retains that entrepreneurial ego, even in retirement, But I was impressed by his concern for his former employees. They’re still his people, and he still cares.

Bottom line: If you’re marketing to business owners, remember their commitment to their teams. If you can make things better for their people, entrepreneurs may just listen to you a little more closely.

Make it Clear

Marketing Profs, a US site offering marketing advice, takes on the small business market today with a short piece offering three ways to get your message across to business owners. “Get to the point,” they say.

“The vast majority of small business people will respond with interest if you clearly outline what you can do for them.”

* Simplify your pitch. Small business owners don’t want to see your binder filled with charts and graphs. They care about ROI. Demonstrate how your services will pay for themselves.

* Let others pat you on the back. Testimonials from current and former clients provide credibility. They should highlight solutions implemented or problems resolved.

* Put on a good face. If you're selling marketing services, wow prospects with the quality of your Web site and collateral. If you look good, they know you’ll make them look good.

The unnamed profs believe small business owners to be tight with a cheque – a point we have made made here ourselves. To sell them your service, they say, you have to prove its value.

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.”

Read the mind of an entrepreneur

Libby Znaimer does great interview with entrepreneurs for the Weekend Financial Post. She asks not so much about their businesses, but how they get business done.
It’s must reading for marketers who want to know how entrepreneurs operate. How they really think.
Here are some gems from her Jan. 27 interview with Nick Laperle, president of Sonomax Hearing Healthcare Inc. of Montreal, which develops and manufactures hearing aids and earpieces for hearing protection and digital wireless applications.

Note how entrepreneurs’ missions really are their jobs:
"As founding president of Sonomax, I spend most of my time telling people that hearing loss is a global epidemic and that we have a new technology to put hearing on the same plane as vision and dental. I also build strategic alliances with market leaders. We are opening the fourth of many retail stores [within] Wal- Mart stores in Canada."

On carving a personal life out of a 50-hour business week:
"I start at 8:37 a.m., so I can put my six year- old daughter, Emmalyne, on the bus. It's not a lot of time together, but that walk to the bus stop is often the best part of my day."
(Note from Rick: Nick may actually believe that. But in my experience, few entrepreneurs do. They love their families, but they can't wait to get to work.)

Informal work environment:
"If I’m doing investor relations, I wear a suit. At the office, I dress business-casual, usually sweaters… when I met with Sir Richard Branson in September, he told me he saw no need to ever wear a tie, and sweaters were the way to go!"

Big-picture guy:
"I find meetings painful at best, unless there are issues to resolve and all parties can contribute. I'm an entrepreneur, not a details guy."

Marketers who shroud their identity or muddle their message should take special note of Laperle’s pet peeve: “Hidden agendas. I just wish people told it like it is.”

New Small Business Statistics

Marketers trying to understand the big picture on small business in Canada will be interested in a new set of reports on small biz stats co-ordinated by Industry Canada.

The data include answers to such questions as:

* How many Canadian Entrepreneurs are there, anyhow? (about 2.3 million)

* Who creates more jobs, small biz or big biz? (pretty much a tie – as of the latest stats, 48% [second quarter of 2006])

* How much does small business contribute to Canada’s GDP? (about 22% in 2005, which is down from 27% 10 years earlier. The decline is probably to be expected, given the phenomenal growth of big business and mergers & acquisitions in this country - due to the fact that so much more risk capital is available to big businesses than to small ones).

* How many small businesses use e-commerce? (about 33% have websites, but only 6% actually sell online).

All this and much more is available from Industry Canada’s “Key Small Business Statistics” report, newly updated for January, 2007. See the full report online .
Or download the PDF version here.

Five tips for selling to entrepreneurs

I had a great lunch yesterday with a guy who’s been selling information and services into the small-business market for many years. Some excellent insights from that meeting:

* If you're selling seminars, beware. Educational seminars have always been a big part of his marketing, but he says it’s becoming harder and harder to get people out. Where he used to get a 3% to 4% response rate from his direct mail, it’s now more like 1% or less. He suspects the technique has been overused, and that entrepreneurs are now seminared-out.

* If you're selling information products, keep in mind that entrepreneurs don't want to be educated. “They want to learn by osmosis,” he says. Turn information into stories, case studies and anecdotes to make it easier to digest and remember.

* Entrepreneurial spirit is not as common in small business as you might think. While most entrepreneurs continue to think freely, weirdly and creatively, very few of their employees are entrepreneurial thinkers. The more employees a company has, he says, the more corporate they are likely to become.

* Don't try and sell features to small-business owners. “Entrepreneurs are driven by pain.” Tell them now what your product or service can do, but how it can solve their most pressing problem now.

* Get in the ground floor with a small-business prospect. Sell a low-cost product or service that will get you in the door. Once an entrepreneur trusts you and your ability to create value, you will find that many of their budget restrictions disappear like magic.

The fifth point is obviously the most important. Despite all the defenses that entrepreneurs put up, they need a few key suppliers with whom to form lasting relationships. And when you scale that wall, it makes you forget all that sweat, all the rejection, and those half-empty seminars rooms.

Small business is always personal

We've talked in this blog before about what motivates small business owners, but one of the key messages they're looking for is respect. They believe they're doing something special, and they want to see signs that other people believe it too. Especially partners, suppliers and anyone else with whom they spend their hard-earned, well guarded budgets.

Example: the other day I received a lovely email from an award-winning entrepreneur I met a few times when I was editor of PROFIT Magazine.

Here's the edited excerpt:

Hey Rick, you may recall being highly supportive of our company... Well, we made it! It was a long road, but we were acquired by xxxx last year and are now working hard to integrate our work into this remarkable company. It certainly represents a BIG change for our little team!
I just wanted to say thanks for your interest over the years. It provided validation and moral support, sometimes when it was needed more than you can imagine."

It was a touching message that I appreciated very much.

I reproduce it here to remind you that the line between success and failure is often very thin. And that behind even successful businesses is a request for respect. If you as a marketer can honour and reinforce the owners' sense of mission and self-worth, you will get through to them in ways that no others can.

Small business is personal.

Marketing in the New You-niverse

Kodak - Winds of Change

This is bloody brilliant. It's a Kodak commercial that evidently was produced for internal use. But it proved so popular they let it out.
It's now all over YouTube, so this could be the best Web 2.0 marketing move ever.
"They've got things in their research labs that will make biometrics look like a Happy Meal toy!"

Respect your customer, even when offside

Did you know that Canada’ s three national credit bureaus not only keep tabs on how much you’ve borrowed and how much you’ve paid back – but on how many times you've been late paying your credit card bills?

I just learned that while researching my column for MoneySense magazine. I looked up my credit reports at TransUnion and Equifax, and there were my late payments – made how many years ago – still on file, still working to make lenders think less of extending credit to me (or charging me more for the privilege). Six years those late payment stay on file!

But I'm here to tell you that it works both ways. Entrepreneurs don't forget, either. And they (okay, we) don’t easily forgive.

As a business owner, about four times a year I get a direct mail from American Express promoting its corporate card for small business.

The letter uses the right language: simple, declarative, flattering. (“As a business owner, it was your idea that opened doors. Your dedication that got customers calling, And your perseverance that keeps them coming back.” And it offers “quarterly management reports” and 200 bonus rewards points a month (whatever those are).

But it will be a cold day in Richmond Hill before I get an Amex card. Why? Because I remember how they treated me when I was late paying off a card one month, 10 years ago. Never mind the exorbitant interest rates (now 30%) they charge – they treat you rudely and dismissively, like a thief in the night. And this on top of the annual fee I (or my employer at the time) was paying.

Entrepreneurs are not always the most organized people. Sometimes they lose track of the trees as they keep their eye on the forest.* If you want to serve them properly, treat them (okay, us) as respectfully when they're offside as when you're first wooing them.

Because power imbalances are temporary. Memories are long.

(*After all, even big businesses slip up. Example: on Jan. 23, 2007, Amex’s website offered this information about the fee for its Small Business Corporate Card: "$30 annual fee ($50 annual fee, effective March 14, 2005).”

Interview with an Entrepreneur

Every entrepreneur is different, yet they have so much in common. The more time you can spend with them to understand the peculiarly creative and self-absorbed way they view the world, the better you will be able to sell to small business.

And if you can't spend time with them, read interviews with them – especially Q&As, where you get to see how their minds work.

In today’s National Post, Libby Zneimer had a great lifestyle-oriented interview with Sam Chebib, president and CEO of Nightingale Informatix Corp., which sells services and software for the health-care industry. Here are a few revealing tidbits:

Q: What are your key functions?
A: I focus primarily on execut­ing our strategic plans, and spend most of my time with my senior management team and major clients. I am very involved in all of our operations, but work very effectively through my executive team.
Q: How many hours do you work each week and when do you start?
A: I work anywhere between 70 and 80 hours per week and 1 usually start at 7:30 a.m.
Q: How often do you take work home?
A: I always have something under my arm when I leave.
Q: How many phone calls do you get? How often do customers call you directly?
A I get 20 to 30 calls a day, and I'll take about 10 to 20 of those. Of those calls, one or two a day will be from customers, which I always take.
Q: How many meetings do you at­tend? Do you like meetings?
A: Between four and five per day. I like some of them, for example, those meetings where I can brainstorm ideas with my team and come up with solutions to strategic concerns.
Q: Are you a workaholic?
A: No, I am just trying to get a job done and I happen to enjoy doing it.
Q: Does your family think you work too much?
A: Of course they do. I've never met a family that didn't.
Q: What is the best part of your job?
A: I get to hire and train highly talented people so they can do most of my job for me.
Q: What’s the best perk?
A I can admit when I've made a mistake without fear of being yelled at.
Q: Do you have hobbies, sports or a fitness routine?
A: I love tennis and skiing, but I don't get to do them often enough, and it's getting more dif­ficult all the time.

Themes to think about: his sheer busy-ness; results-focus; work isn't work when you own the company; the barely-concealed feeling of immunity at the top; scarcity of leisure time; customers really do come first.
How would you market to someone like that?

Small Business: Stronger than you think!

I don't know how many times I’ve heard the statistic that “80% of all small businesses fail in their first five years.”

Put it out of yourhead. I have never seen the source of that statistic, but I’ve always known it's wrong. No one knows how many businesses “fail.”

The best that researchers can do is track companies that go out of business – which means they can't tell the failures from the wind-ups, the retirements, the merged or the acquired.

But even that figure seems overstated, as I've just discovered a statistic that is much more bullish.

In 2005, Statistics Canada reported on the results of a longitudinal study of Canadian businesses that found Canadian firms last longer than most people thought. Sayeth StatsCan:

• “Of all firms that were created during the 1990s, roughly one-quarter ceased to operate within the first two years, according to a new report that analyzes the impact of economic developments on business dynamics during the past decade.
• "Just over one-third of these firms survived five years or more, and only one-fifth were still in operation after 10 years.”

So the 80% “disparu” rate is for 10 years, not five – which supports the contention that many of these businesses were wound down rather than “failed.” If a business needs 10 years to “fail,” it must have been a success for some of that time!

And never forget: most businesses are small businesses. The study found that as of 2001, “only 0.2% of firms employed 500 or more employees, but they represented 42% of total employment. The vast majority (92%) of companies employed fewer than 20 workers, and they accounted for 21% of total employment.”

You can check the stats yourself at http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/050215/d050215a.htm