We Are Loved!

I read in the 28 May 09 Wall Street Journal a full page B7 ad, or Valentine really, to small businesses. The ad says, among other things, “America’s Economic meltdown has driven a wedge between big and small business.” The ad promotes a 3 day Vegas confab in which big business is to learn how to reach small businesses, which everyone agrees will be the engine the leads us out of the economic downturn.

The Warrillow web site lays it out:

The SMB market opportunity:

* Roughly 27 million firms in the U.S.
* Growing — while the enterprise segment is shrinking
* Loyal to its vendors
* Allows for healthier profit margins, given a lack of buying power when compared to enterprise customers

The SMB market challenge:

* Diverse market, making it hard to find and reach
homogeneous segments
* Cost per account acquired needs to be low to make
economic sense
* High service expectations on vendors
* Large and difficult to cover without partners
and alliances

As to the conference, the web site explains:

“As small business owners weathered the economic downturn, they developed a deep distrust for large enterprise companies and are increasingly shunning national providers in favor of local businesses they trust. In small business circles, national banks are being overlooked in favor of local banks, and big company advertising is being ignored in favor of the advice of local brokers and dealers. “

I am guessing “enterprise” is the term used to define big business.

The list of attendees and sponsors is impressive. It would be easier to list who is not there than who is. Since I am scheduled to teach at UNLV on Small Business International Trade that week I was doubly interested.

Day One is devoted to big business telling big business how to sell to small business.

Day two is devoted to big business telling big business how to sell to small business. Well, OK, that is what is advertised.

Day three is devoted to... big businesses telling big businesses how to sell to small businesses. Wait a minute. Aren’t they missing something?

Now on day two, the do have a session that reads:

“What Are They Thinking?

As small business owners weathered the economic downturn, they developed a deep distrust for large enterprise companies and increasingly favored the local businesses they trusted. Our first session will get down to the business of answering why small business owners really connect to local suppliers and initiatives. We’ll delve into three main areas with the goal of better understanding how enterprise companies can succeed at making the small business connection:

* Understanding the value of a person-to-person experience for small business entrepreneurs
* Exploring urgency as a factor in buying local
* Learning how economic uncertainty is driving small businesses home”

but it does not say who is explaining what we are thinking. I suspect it is probably some summary of studies, an no doubt good information, as far as it goes.

And on day two there is an hour and half devoted to:

“This is your chance to get inside the heads of real, live small business owners during our small business panel sessions. The panels will be divided into two groups.

Panel One: Includes owners of small businesses less than three years old, and the discussion will focus on what “local” means in the 21st century.
Panel Two: Features established small business owners (in business for more than three years), and will focus on gaining insight into how to reach a more traditional target. “

Now admittedly this conference is directed at big business, so we in small business have no reason to attend. This is not for us. But is “buying local” the issue to examine? And here again there is no notice of who the small business people are that make the presentation.

See the problems here? The emphasis is how to reach us, with zero consideration for what we would buy. This conference will lead to more satellite TV salesmen calling me, and me wasting more time ignoring more ads and hanging up on more telemarketers. there is nothing in this confab that will lead to big biz offering what I would buy. Give me a cell phone, computer or email that works! Give me SEO that works! Heck sake yes I buy local, because I can talk to someone if the product is no good. The entire confab is based on a false premise that the economic downturn has driven a wedge between us. Again, the damage was done in the boom, not the bust. The bust is just where it is decided who will pay for the damage done during the boom, and big business and government have agreed it will be small and medium sized businesses that will pay... thanks a lot, fellas!

Big business can easily serve small business. I made a lot of money working with ancient huge Libbey Glass. Their business is simple, they know their costs, and can respond to a mutually beneficial proposal.

On the other hand I am a world class expert in international payments and happily Visa is leading the way in demolishing the letter of credit system in favor of credit cards in small business international trade. Visa is missing a couple of items that would benefit us, and I have over a thousand people on my listserv and I am required reading in over 25 colleges in USA and Canada. But in three years of trying, I have not been able to make contact with a human, let a lone a decision maker, at Visa. That is typical of the experience of small business.

I am sure Warrillow will be around a long time, but in the future I would recommend they focus on what small business would buy, and have actual small businesses present the information. Warrillow should have each attendee invite (and pay for) one small and medium sized business owner to attend and populate the confab. So say Fedex is attending (they are) Fedex picks one small and one medium sized business customer and pays for them to attend next year’s confab. In this way the 500 attendees would be surrounded by 1000 real target customers who would observe and feed back.

I’ve got a thousand names on this list that I would nomiate as attendees.

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