- Employ people that understand small business. If possible employ people that have owned a small business in the past or were brought up in a family of entrepreneurs.
- Small business owners want to deal with people that respect some of the challenges they face on a daily basis. Get your HR department to get your sales people trained up on how to deal with small business
- Be open and honest when dealing with small business. If we realize you’ve lied to us we’ll bad mouth you forever
- Get involved in the small business community. We love buying from corporations that support small business
- Simplify your pitch keep the jargon for the big companies. Keep it simple tell us the price and the benefits and give us 3 options
- Get testimonials from happy small business customers and include it in your marketing materials and on your website
- When calling a large corporation entrepreneurs like talking to somebody that can make decisions quickly. Empower your employees that deal with small business to make quick decisions
- In small business all relationships are personal. Our business is our life. Don’t be afraid to ask us for referrals. If we love your product or service we’ll tell our friends
- Make it easy to do business with you. We’re impatient so ensure your website and other order processing systems are simple
- Make it easy for us to return stuff if we’re not happy. I just bought a new printer and the process to return the printer is taking me more time than it took to buy it. I’ll probably recycle the 3 month old printer and buy a new one. I won’t buy from your company again
- Educate us how to use your products or services, never assume we know. Use short videos or webinars. It’s ok to speak about your product but don’t oversell
- Segment your market and develop products and services for different stages of growth. Small business owners are loyal so you want to get them while they’re in start up phase
Want to learn more about selling to small business contact Andrew at: andrew@bizlaunch.ca http://www.bizlaunch.ca
