In this episode, we take a look at what it takes to win the SMB war.
Who has a reason to reduce YOUR competitive edge? What tools are THEY using?

Okay, everybody, thank you for joining. So a couple episodes ago, I talked about this Harvard Business Review, where they talked about the gap between the large and small companies, how that's growing and why. And if you if you think back to that a lot of it had to do with big companies innovating more and spending more on r&d, as well as having more data. And they were investing in these intangibles. Right, and r&d and technology and artificial intelligence. Well, they also found that you know, the small companies that invested in these intangibles meaning technology, ai data, that they were found to be more resilient, during COVID, as well. So started to think about how can an SMB win, right? What does it mean for an SMB to win in this war, where even the large companies are going after the footprint? that historically has been the small to medium business area meeting, where we expected more innovation and growth and new things to come out? So how can how can an SMB when I started looking at several sources, and one of those is a group called tech aisle, they had done this 2021 SMB challenges, right? What were the top 2021 SMB challenges, thing that was kind of unique about this is they broke it into three areas, one, the top 10, SMB issues. And then the next was to the top 10, mid market issues, and then three, the top 10, upper mid market, that's, you know, 1000 or more employees, okay, so they were doing that based on the size of the company, and the common thread across each of them. That were the issues, right, that the small to medium business owners facing in the areas of business issues, it priorities, and so forth.

The common thread across them, was increasing business growth and increasing profitability. So companies from the size of one employee up to 5000 employees, least according to tech dial, they said, Hey, number one issues is business growth and increasing profitability. Now those shifts are the little as you went is the size of the company grew. But nevertheless, they were on the top two across cross those three sizes. All right, so how am I going to win as an SMB? First of all, I got to take a look at increasing business growth, and increasing profitability. All right now, that's according to tech guy, let's look at another one. So Business News daily, they came up with 12, small business trends for 2021. And the net of it was, I think it was number two or three on their list of the 12 was AI and big data are driving personalization. And they go in to talk about, hey, how the large organizations are leveraging these technologies to create a more personalized experience. Alright, so that's the second second one that's confirming and hey, gotta grow and got to leverage the resources that you have that you know that that you have, let's look at the next one. This is from someone called SMB group. And they said, Hey, here's our top 10 2021 tech trends. The first two was, number one SMBs reinvent their businesses for a virtual world. And number two, the business performance gap between the SMB digital accelerators and laggards grow, what they're really saying is, hey, for those SMBs, that are taking advantage of technology and using it as a differentiator, are actually leapfrogging and getting ahead, and the AI and data usage fits squarely within that. So now we've got three different groups that are saying, hey, in terms of either challenges or trends or opportunities for the SMB space, we've got this situation where AI and data play a critical role in building a key differentiator for the business.

Let's look at another one. So I want I took a look at the guardian. And they had developed this piece on the state of small business and 2021. Now, the course for them, they talked about the uncertainty that's been created by COVID, that a lot of SMBs. As you know, we all face that. There's also an increase awareness of racial inequalities. And, in fact, in one of their examples, one business committed billions to help advance racial equality. With one of the programs adding I think they said 15,000 loans to small businesses that are in the black and Latin communities. How cool is that? I've also seen AI applied to demographics, to also help serve all communities even better. And I think that's a great way to look at using AI to help address this issue. Now, you know, the movement to cloud is certainly lowered the cost of entry for SMBs, to take advantage of these advanced technologies. But I thought, hey, let me go see if I can find some other evidence, right, if I wanted to take an SMB, and win the war, of all of the big organizations that are now leveraging some of the best techniques to actually keep their footprint and grow and make it more difficult for the SMB space, what else others have to say? So here's another one. I tracked down guidance, financial guidance, financials an interesting one, they had this really cool pictorial where they focused on the small business trends in 2021.

They I think it was like 2400 organizations, SMB companies that they surveyed, they came back and said, 78%, expect to survive, and 19 were unsure. So those are interesting, interesting stats. But when it came down to Hey, what were the things that cause a lot of problems? It was loss of revenue, or reduced budget or temporary closure? Those are the most five, you know, most common COVID impacts. But at the end of the day, it came back to, are we taking our resources and using them wisely? To get the insights to now compete more effectively? That was their takeaway? All right. Can you handle one more? Alright, let's let's just talk about one more, a group called Constant Contact, they looked at small business lessons for 2021. And just to summarize, in the top two, they summarize that the leverage the small business has to use its online marketing and tools was number one, and number two, collect and take action on your customer data. Of course, that comes right back to using AI to segment your mark your market and then go after those vital areas to create success. So that was what that five maybe that I looked across. I thought, Okay, that's enough to look at. And then I bumped into this one from Ernst and Young. This one's interesting, because they were talking about, hey, how do we bridge the gap between big and small businesses? Now they wrote this article from coming from the other direction, right? So the first five that I mentioned, were coming from the direction of Hey, what what what are the challenges I you know, that I face as an as an SMB owner, right? They came from that perspective, the E y one, Ernst and Young one came from the other direction, which is, hey, we're in working with the big companies, how can we be more like the small businesses, right? So they're actually peering the other direction? And what's interesting with this viewpoint, is of course, the ask the question, how do we help the companies, you know, that are big? How do we get them to start acting small?

Now, what is it about a small company that a big company would like, and of course, one of the things that you'll you'll notice right away is agility, right, they aspire to have the agility of an SMB. And in fact, according to a recent Innosight survey, they found that 50% of today's s&p 500 companies will no longer exist in 10 years. Holy smokes, that's amazing. So as a result, the larger businesses, they're creating their own internal innovation programs. And what they're doing is they've got this nice blend, this blend of large companies scale, mixed with a small company agility. And what that does is that actually makes it a little more challenging as an SMB owner to compete with that because well, you don't have the skill part, right, we don't have the skill part. So they're trying to be more like the small companies. They're trying to think like that. But you know, sometimes they get up, they get caught up, and you know, all of the minutia that takes for them to turn those big organizations around. So here's what I suggest. It now's the time to think about the key problems, then issues face your SMB and apply AI to efficiently innovate. So they're mimicking your best practices, and they're using AI to propel them. So the question is, then why wouldn't you continue your best practices?

Stop the bad ones, and then use AI to propel yourself. So the second thing in this Ernst and Young articles interesting is that they have developed a practice where they blend large corporate teams with small entrepreneurial teams. Again, they're looking to blend and bring together the big, you know, the small company agility with the big company scale. So when I started this particular podcast episode, I started by asking, Hey, way, how can SMBs win the war? And of course, you might ask yourself, what war? Well, the war is this, the big companies are leveraging the best practices of the small companies with the intent to maintain and grow their footprint, not as they're borrowing the best from the things that you've been doing? Well, so what do you need to do as an SMB owner? Well, I suggest apply some of the big company best practices, which includes leveraging your resources that you have by applying AI. And then here's the here's the trick. Make 10 Smart steps to improve your business before they can make one smart step. And by applying AI over and over again, actually builds your ability to move much more quickly, and get ahead of now, even the big guys are in the competition. Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining until next time, as was said in a Batman movie, I think, be mindful of your surroundings. In other words, get moving on your AI for your business so that today you can win the SMB war. Thanks for joining.

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