It’s no surprise that big brands and their marketing deep pockets have the ability to out spend small businesses.
Smart small business owners on the other hand, have been able to out-compete the big brands by forging close personal relationship with their customers.
By being able to speak directly, often face to face with real customers, small business owners have had an advantage. They can directly listen and learn from their customers and quickly adapt to provide better products and/or services.
I wonder how many small business owners are aware that the advent of mobile could threaten our hold on these personal relationships with customers?
I’m proud to have been a small business owner for 30 years. One of the great things I’ve been able to see in that time period is how technology has become a great equalizer between big and small business.
When I started out, big business had major advantages across virtually every technology platform. You name it: computers, software, phones a big business could and did invest the dollars while small businesses waited sometimes years for prices to fall. Yet today almost any kind of technology is affordable and accessible to any small business even a startup.
Recently, I’ve been wondering if too many fellow small business owners may be taking for granted that technology has helped level the playing field between small and big business ? But to paraphrase Heraclitus: nothing is permanent but change.
Take a look at this video and see if you had any of the same reactions I did ?
I saw this video and said to myself:
1) Wow- amazing ! It really dramatically demonstrates the unique personal nature of mobile: always with you; can’t be anywhere without it; my lifeline
2) It seems like Best Buy is making a major commitment to fully integrate Mobile into how they serve their customers . They are asking themselves some important questions: “How can we help our customers while they are mobile” “How can mobile help us solve (fill in the blank customer problem)?”
If you as a fellow small business owner, believe as I do that Mobile offers businesses a very powerful means to personally connect with customers, then this video should be a wake up call. The big brands also get it.
Who will win this race ?
