• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

An Entrepreneur's Life

Entrepeneurship + Rapid-Growth, Local and Small Business Marketing

  • An Entrepreneur’s Life
  • My Blogs +
    • On Entrepreneurship
    • On Advice & Information Marketing
    • On Local Business Marketing
    • On Teleseminar & Webinar Marketing
    • On Marketing To Small Businesses
  • Work
  • Schedule
  • Get In Touch

Job #1 when marketing to small businesses

August 28, 2006 by Michael Cage 2 Comments

Three professional service businesses with the same marketing problem, only they don’t know it:

  • An accountant offers an amazing tax planning service for fast-growth start-up businesses … and FAILS.
  • A marketing “expert” has a system to increase repeat sales … and CAN’T GET A SINGLE CLIENT.
  • A web design firm knows they can build web sites that increase small business sales … but CAN’T GET ANYONE TO LISTEN.

What’s the problem?

Your first job when selling to a small business entrepreneur isn’t to convince them how wonderful your product or service is. It isn’t to tell them how your product or service will solve a killer problem or help them reach an amazing goal.

Nope.

Small business entrepreneurs work haaaaaaaard. Many believe they need to do anything and everything in their business. They try to pack 24 hours of work into an 18 hour day. Most are too busy to even think about how to reduce their workload and increase their efficiency.

Now, all of these things are enormous mistakes. But they are common mistakes. And if you are selling to small business owners and entrepreneurs … this is the mindset you must a) be aware of and b) address going in.

Your first job is to understand the lives and businesses of the people you want to have buy from you … the chaos and the turmoil and the frustration and the dreams … and then, you must convince them that the most important thing they can do right now isn’t put out the 97th fire of the day … it is to step away from what is happening in their business and learn about what you have to offer them.

If you are thinking you’d better have one hell of a compelling message to do this, you are right. It’s also why most marketing to small business owners and entrepreneurs falls flat on its face.

Filed Under: On Entrepreneurship Tagged With: accounting, b2b, entrepreneurs, marketing, On Marketing To Small Businesses, small business marketing

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Anonymous says

    March 4, 2007 at 4:48 pm

    Really great point made here, would be great to expand this with some specific b2b marketing advice as well.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous says

    March 4, 2007 at 9:48 pm

    Really great point made here, would be great to expand this with some specific b2b marketing advice as well.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • On Advice & Information Marketing
  • On Entrepreneurship
  • On Local Business Marketing
  • On Marketing To Small Businesses
  • On Teleseminar & Webinar Marketing
  • Skunkworks

Recent Posts

  • Restaurants with Flash web sites and menus
  • You have to love the work
  • Automating Replays of Teleseminars & Webinars in InfusionSoft – and other CRMs?
  • 11 Ways Local Retail Stores Profit from Blogging
  • How Local Email Marketing LOSES Money
  • 3 Secrets for Easy Local Referrals in your Business – Audio Referral Marketing Training
  • On Information Marketing, Internet Marketing & Choices
  • Writing about Information Marketing and (G-d help me) Internet Marketing
  • Teleseminar & Webinar Automation + Replay Profits
  • Spotting Business Ideas by Getting Pissed Off

Archives

  • January 2011
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • July 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • April 2006
  • March 2006
  • January 2006
  • December 2005
  • November 2005
  • October 2005
  • September 2005
  • August 2005
  • July 2005
  • June 2005
  • May 2005
  • April 2005
  • March 2005
  • February 2005
  • January 2005
  • December 2004
  • November 2004
  • October 2004
  • September 2004
  • August 2004
  • July 2004
  • June 2004
  • May 2004
  • April 2004
  • March 2004
  • August 1999

Copyright © 2019 · Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in