Why don't small co's just learn?!

[tkn001]

Might sound like an odd rant, and frankly it is.

It *absolutely boggles me* though why so many small/micro co's are so darn terrible at managing sales and marketing. A ridiculously scant search tells you much of what you need to know about *SYSTEMATIC* approaches to this type of stuff - especially w.r.t to message testing, pipeline processes etc... yet the vast majority of small/micro co's don't do any of it.

The knowledge is freely available and the benefits overwhelming. The tools are practically free and the rewards are spectacular.

So why on earth do so many ignore it all and just keep ploughing on using the same broken approaches?!

</rant over>

 

[simon field]

Might sound like an odd rant, and frankly it is.

It *absolutely boggles me* though why so many small/micro co's are so darn terrible at managing sales and marketing. A ridiculously scant search tells you much of what you need to know about *SYSTEMATIC* approaches to this type of stuff - especially w.r.t to message testing, pipeline processes etc... yet the vast majority of small/micro co's don't do any of it.

The knowledge is freely available and the benefits overwhelming. The tools are practically free and the rewards are spectacular.

So why on earth do so many ignore it all and just keep ploughing on using the same broken approaches?!

</rant over>

Maybe they're happy as they are?

 

[Richie N]

And welcome to the forum...

 

[smo]

Maybe they're happy as they are?

Or perhaps they just dont know better. On the whole micro/small businesses have very limited resources, time is always tight and stretched and so if there is a gap in knowledge for example with regard to some of the things in your post they are highly unlikely to ever know what to look for.

 

[S-Marketing]

Business owners don't know what marketing is. Most think they know what marketing is, but they are wrong. Those who do marketing properly don't even know they are doing it half the time. They certainly aren't going to know what to research in order to improve their marketing.

 

[simon field]

Or perhaps they just dont know better. On the whole micro/small businesses have very limited resources, time is always tight and stretched and so if there is a gap in knowledge for example with regard to some of the things in your post they are highly unlikely to ever know what to look for.

Can you clarify which things in my post?

 

[simon field]

Not being funny but I only said two things:

"Maybe" and "they're happy as they are".

 

[smo]

Not being funny but I only said two things:

"Maybe" and "they're happy as they are".

message testing
pipeline processing

I googled the second one, the primary results I could relate to quite a lot, not because they had anything to do with your topic but because google returned a load of engineering related topics relating to pipelines!! (I have an engineering background!)

So in essence i'm none the wiser. I'd love to know more but even this evening I have a massive workload and no time for anything new

 

[simon field]

message testing
pipeline processing

I googled the second one, the primary results I could relate to quite a lot, not because they had anything to do with your topic but because google returned a load of engineering related topics relating to pipelines!! (I have an engineering background!)

So in essence i'm none the wiser. I'd love to know more but even this evening I have a massive workload and no time for anything new

I beg to differ, I think tis I who is none the wiser! :|

 

[simon field]

I do believe that many small business owners are happy at a level, and of course we all need to have one eye on the future but not everybody is driven by the need to expand and pocket more money.

I don't know the first thing about marketing, but then I've never had to. Other people do this for us - they're called our customers. No amount of marketing or however it's done can top that 'word of mouth' stuff, in my experience.

IMHO People opt out of working for someone else for many reasons - the overwhelming majority for more money of course - but in my case it's just a bonus that I can earn 3 times what I could in a "job". Seriously, for me it's all about the freedom.

 

[S-Marketing]

In my experience small business owners who admit to knowing little about marketing are the ones who are doing it right, and the ones who think they are some kind of marketing expert are pretty clueless.

 

[simon field]

In my experience small business owners who admit to knowing little about marketing are the ones who are doing it right, and the ones who think they are some kind of marketing expert are pretty clueless.

That, Stretchy, is a mighty fine post sir.

 

[Cylon]

I'm guessing because these pretentious marketing folk who push such activities have no place in a small business environment owners of which don't have time to faff about with focus groups for message testing and playing with pipelines.

Or they may even be doing it without even knowing it but just need some marketing guru to come along and enlighten them. I'm presuming small business who operate online will be doing this with their ad word campaigns by putting the most relevant call to action text they can think of in an ad and playing around with it till it hits a good conversion rate.

I'm open minded though and just maybe theres something in this so will sit back and wait to read full explanations of these buzz phrases from the op after all every little helps.

 

[S-Marketing]

I'm guessing because these pretentious marketing folk who push such activities have no place in a small business environment owners of which don't have time to faff about with focus groups for message testing and playing with pipelines.

Or they may even be doing it without even knowing it but just need some marketing guru to come along and enlighten them. I'm presuming small business who operate online will be doing this with their ad word campaigns by putting the most relevant call to action text they can think of in an ad and playing around with it till it hits a good conversion rate.

I'm open minded though and just maybe theres something in this so will sit back and wait to read full explanations of these buzz phrases from the op after all every little helps.

If someone is firing buzz words and silly phrases around you can pretty much guarantee that they know less about marketing than you do.

Succesful marketing of small business is about building relationships, finding the most profitable market to sell into, tailoring your business to best meet the needs of that market, and then finding advantages that you can use to do something better than your competition.

Marketing a small business is not about pipelines, Twitter, expensive websites, silly buzz words, or clever advertising.

The only time I use 'marketing phrases' to clients is when I am looking for the easiest and simplest way of explaining something. There are a few phrases that are useful for this, but they are trade secrets as they are my own.

A lecturer at college once told me 'If you cant blind them with science, baffle them with Bull****. I was studying law at the time, which is fine, but the principle should never be applied to marketing.

 

[tkn001]

pretentious marketing folk who push such activities have no place in a small business environment

Wonderfully amusing response! Thought I'd best chip in here and fan the flames

In my experience, and I'm intrigued about other's, I've found a HUGE correlation between company growth and an entrepreneur's willingness to learn. "He who knows not..." and all that.

Ruthlessly focussing on finding ideas and models that have worked elsewhere, across all aspects of business, then doing the same seems to be a fairly good model for growth up to a certain size. With that in mind, learning then doing, not doing then learning seems to be the mantra of the uber-successful. They don't care where the knowledge comes from or how it's delivered is - they just care about whether it'll help their business.

In contrast, a careless disrespect for knowledge doesn't seem like such a sound concept to me!

I guess however this does come down to aspiration more than anything else. There's not a thing wrong with the folks who just want to run their lifestyle business and enjoy it.

Side note: I'm not a marketing professional or anything like it - I'm just a lucky chap who 'saw the light' and was pointed in the right direction years ago by some pretentious marketing folk...

 

[tkn001]

If someone is firing buzz words and silly phrases around you can pretty much guarantee that they know less about marketing than you do.

With due respect, this is tosh. All professions have their own 'buzz words' which sound confusing to an outsider.

It doesn't logically follow at all that they know less because they're using industry language - more often than not it's the contrary.

 

[S-Marketing]

With due respect, this is tosh. All professions have their own 'buzz words' which sound confusing to an outsider.

It doesn't logically follow at all that they know less because they're using industry language - more often than not it's the contrary.

If they know they are confusing to an outsider, why would they be using them when speaking to an outsider?

My guess it to make it appear they know more than they actually do.

 

[tkn001]

If they know they are confusing to an outsider, why would they be using them when speaking to an outsider?

To teach. The best advisors I've ever worked with, in accounting, marketing, tech, and even law, all wanted to educate me by using and explaining buzz words.

Not always, but from time to time industry language serves the purpose of rapidly communicating ideas.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I would say that some people here know very little about what goes on in a small business .One has to wonder what they do with their time all day !!!

You can talk all the ballshit you want but at the end of the day most of the customers you meet are jsut ordanary people that are only doing what they do to make a living . If you walk into a meeting with the idea and impression that you are Mr streamlined high life in the fast lane pipeline sales forcaster cant fit my head in the door but look at my arse type of person. Then most customers are just going to laugh at you and god help you if they see you in the pub later

I myself spend most of my days marketing and messing around with this and that and talking to this person or that and none of these people I talk too are receptive to the type of crap marketing experts talk about .

A small engineering business for example will be so involved in the challenges that devolopment and production demand that they wont even entertain such waffle !!!! What if the five man engineering workshop suddenly became a fools dream and decided to put all their efffort in to marketing and little else . The result would be lots and lots of work and no cababilility to service it .!!! Unsustainable growth .!!!!
So it would pay to take advise from small businesses and not try to advise something that one may not really understand !!!

 

[S-Marketing]

I would say that some people here know very little about what goes on in a small business .One has to wonder what they do with their time all day !!!

I couldn't agree more. Without blowing my own trumpet unnecessarily, I consider myself above other 'marketing consultants', not because of my qualifications or theoretical work, but because I actually own small businesses. I'm 36 now, and have been self employed since I was 18. I don't do nonsense marketing, I only do what works.

Most consultants these days come from corporate employment where the name of the game is to talk nonsense to impress idiots in order to advance your career. I have been to enough Chartered Institute meetings and CPD events to know that the kind of people who attend these aren't (in my opinion) the kind of people who could successfully advise small businesses.

Marketing a small business, is completely different to what an employee does when working in marketing in a large business. IMO, the skills, lingo, and processes are not transferable.

 

[S-Marketing]

To teach. The best advisors I've ever worked with, in accounting, marketing, tech, and even law, all wanted to educate me by using and explaining buzz words.

Not always, but from time to time industry language serves the purpose of rapidly communicating ideas.

Some professions such as law exist around language that would be confusing to an uneducated onlooker, and to a certain extent its a necessary evil. My point is that there is no need for such nonsense in marketing.

And don't get me started on those who 'teach' others marketing.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

I would suggest most small to medium companies do not need to break selling into two parts i.e. selling and marketing, as the whole process is easier to consider as a whole

Many new skills are required in a small company especially those run but two or three Directors who have a range of skills, we have to learn the simples of many functions that time never allows in depth knowledge in all functions

A marketing person would not be required to understand company law, accounts, management accounts, cashflow, productivity, employment law, health and safety, manufacturing, dispatch, advertising, google and search engine positioning, Trading standards, dealing with supplyers, Distant selling regs and a few other area's at the same time.

So yes they are master of none but prehapse have a much wider range of knowledge that would be equal to a degree or more if judged by acedemic standards

Gently gets off his high horse and hides away

 

[Christine Hough]

Because for every marketing expert/blog/website/video/free ebook that says you should be doing A as top priority, another says B, another C..D..E etc to about Z. Then you will find the same marketing expert will say one thing to sell one programme and another to sell another.

They may not even realise how contradicting they are, because old posts are still up there, and technology moves on.

And you end up feeling.. this is all very well but you have not lived with my customers the way I have, you do not understand as I do the reason why they might (should) buy from me. You just turn out general statements which are supposed to 'fit' every company.

I am sure there is stuff out there that I would benefit from doing, but I don't have endless resources finding the right one in time or money. I have gone down some routes that produced nothing. Others that worked for a while.

Meanwhile life remains a learning curve, but not one which I am prepared to pay endless 'guru's' to give me their perspective on.

 

[Cylon]

In my experience, and I'm intrigued about others, I've found a HUGE correlation between company growth and an entrepreneur's willingness to learn. "He who knows not..." and all that.

Oh you soo didn't need to use the word 'correlation' which is a classic BS baffles brains word, or in layman's terms you mean 'connection' or for the really pretentious a 'symbiotic relationship'.

Anyway what I find is that many small business's are driven by those entrepreneurs who have a passion for what they sell and know exactly how like-minded potential customers want to be presented with the products. Course they need to expand their mindset to encompass new potential customers and find phrases and words that appeal.i.e. free delivery (that's always a good one even if the price of delivery has already been worked in).

I'm always willing to learn but when you start a thread with a dig at small business's for not embrassing certain marketing techniques that are more than likely going to cost a packet to implement and in the long run do nothing more than teach them what they already know.

Of course large busness's can benefit from these exercises as they have the budget and workforce to embrace them and tolerate the odd marketing expert who may accidentaly come up with a good idea.

Side note: I'm not a marketing professional or anything like it - I'm just a lucky chap who 'saw the light' and was pointed in the right direction years ago by some pretentious marketing folk...

Nothing wrong with admitting to being baffled by the BS and if it works for you great and I must admit I will try almost anything once but I feel you may have been seduced by the mantra of an impressive marketing guru who has left quite an impression on you...

 

[Nuno]

The OP in this thread reminds me of the old adage, (adapted here):

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, speak management consultant dribble."

or even:

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach speak management consultant dribble."

(This has a symbiotic correlation factor of 90% across all pipelines.)