3% of all business owners make 84% of all private biz income. Why? They’re not covering for unknown weaknesseses.
Don’t take advice from T-Rex.
Run, Gazelle, run!
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This article was published on May 09, 2011. So far, 4 people have left their thoughts. Share your own thoughts.
The overwhelming majority of small business advice is from people showing us how Giant Corporation, Inc. managed to free themselves from the drudgery of being small to finally become “great”. It’s time these patronizing forces understood that small business and big business are two entirely different animals.
The assumption is that a small business is just a big business that hasn’t grown up yet. We’re the adult, you’re the infant. We know what it takes to grow up and we’ll be glad to share those secrets with you young ’uns.
But the problem is that we aren’t a big business that hasn’t grown up. These are two different animals. It’s like saying when a Gazelle grows up it will become a Tyrannosaurus Rex, so all we need to do is show it what T-Rexs do and eventually it can become a T-Rex, too. There are 28 million “small” businesses in America and only 17,000 with over 500 employees. These modern day monsters are telling the rest of us how to do something none of us want to do – become them.
Small business is uniquely different than big business in just about every way: how we market, advertise, sell, build relationships, live locally, adjust fast, move with agility, find vendors, do accounting, love employees, relate to customers, etc. They are two entirely different animals.
But there is an incessant parade of articles, books, papers, and research of giant businesses with the intent of showing us small business people what we can look like if we grow up and become T-Rex. I’m really over reading “How Giant Corporation, Inc.” finally freed themselves of the burden of being small, and grew up.
Most of us don’t want to be a T-Rex and for way too many, the parade of big business advice to their supposedly infant T-Rex brothers simply confuses the small business Gazelles who are trying to apply it.
We need to stop teaching small business owners to stomp through forests and eat everything in its path. Small business advice and examples of what to do should come from small business Gazelles, not from lumbering T-Rexs. They are two different animals with entirely different sets of requirements, processes, paths, motivations, and outcomes.
Be careful where you get your advice on how to build your business, and especially don’t take it from the “Bigs”. You could end up with a T-Rex telling you how to be a Gazelle.
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Thoughts
Holly Mais
05/10/11
This is so true and to the point. I’ve spent the last 2 years following Chuck’s advice which flies in the face of big business practices. I am well on my way to my 3to5 business maturity date.
Elvi Bjorkquist
05/11/11
Years ago a friend of mine started and grew a medical company that was a tremendous success and when it grew so big and began to operate as a large company he felt it was not doing as well. He complained that they could not react as fast as they could when they were a smaller company. I believe the company was not as successful or fulfilling to him as the larger company version it had grown into. They had taken on the structure of a large company and he felt it was a monster that could not react to the needs of their customers.
Chuck
05/11/11
Holly/Elvi,
Great comments. We’ve all been taught to assume that the nature of all businesses is to want to grow up and be big. Even Michael Gerber in the E-Myth says this. A great book challenging the old saw “Grow or die.”, called Small Giants, by Bo Burlingham. I think it is a must read for local business owners.
05/14/11
I’m thinking that it isn’t called “low hanging fruit” for nothing… Else why would 28 million of us non-giraffe companies be aiming at it? Let the giraffes reach for the tender leaves; we’ll thrive down-low.
Lynn Williamson