Forging A Strong, Lucrative Relationship With Small-Biz Clients

Andrea Peiro, CEO of the Small Business Technology Institute (SBTI), said small-business customers can be a lucrative source of revenue and continued business for solution providers willing to reach out to the fragmented small-business market.

“For small businesses today, it&'s moving from zero to somewhere, and that zero to somewhere is an incremental step in value that is much bigger than anything you could ever offer to enterprise markets today,” Peiro said late last month at the World of Difference Learning and Development Conference in New York, sponsored by SBTI and Intel.

“Your job is to make them figure out fast that without technology, they can&'t go anywhere,” he said.

In an interview with CRN, Peiro laid down the ways in which small businesses can benefit from technology, as well as how solution providers can tap into the small-business market.

“There are a number of very important and critical elements that any solution provider, small or large, has to very carefully pay attention to when marketing itself to and targeting small business,” Peiro said. “The small business isn&'t interested in buying boxes. They&'re interested in buying solutions to their problems.”

Small businesses have the same basic structure as midsize and enterprise companies. They must deal with operations, marketing, financial management, general productivity and management needs. Where they vary is in core competency.

The small-business market is complex, covering everything from the mom-and-pop deli that could benefit from a POS and inventory management system to a small office that needs e-mail and mobile capabilities.

With a fragmented market that has limited notions about the specifics of technology, Peiro said that solution providers can find success in the market by pitching the business benefits that technology can provide.

“Small businesses don&'t want to hear about technology. They want to hear about addressing their business issues through technology and how technology can do it, how technology can be of help. They want to know how that can happen in a very straightforward, clear and approachable way,” Peiro said.

“They&'re very pragmatic, very centered on the benefit rather than how to get to the benefit,” he said. “To address the issue, it&'s extremely important for solution providers to understand small businesses and to focus on connecting with them on their own level.”

How then can solution providers connect with the small-business community?

By acting locally and investing in bridging the knowledge gap between small-business owners and the technology they can use to make more money, Peiro said.

“You can be as big or as small of a company as you want to be, but the majority of small businesses have very localized interests, and they want to have individual, personal relationships with their vendors for areas like technology where there is a good amount of mystique,” he said.

“The trust factor becomes absolutely essential. Many small businesses really rely, almost in a dogmatic way, on their technology provider,” he said.

Building that trust can begin with marketing efforts in the local community.

“You can offer simple classes or training, like a workshop on improving your retail business through computer-based point of sale and inventory management systems,” Peiro said.

For example, a solution provider at the local level can put together a one-hour seminar on how to improve the retail operations through POS and inventory management systems.

Peiro also recommends partnering with trusted advisor organizations such as local chambers of commerce and small-business development centers.

“Educating the market is critical at this point, because the [small-business] market is largely unaware of what technology is out there and how you can help,” he said. “Through education, they will understand that you understand, and they will probably consider you as a first point of reference for any type of additional purchase.”