When I started my first business in the early 1990’s, I wanted to appear larger than I really was. This was a time where no one would trust the start up or a small company. Customers wanted to do business with larger companies that had a track record. No one wanted to take a risk on a start up. The smart start up tried to appear larger than it was.
As I write about in my first book, we had to do a little play acting when our first customer came to visit. We programmed the computers to dial the office phones so it would appear like we were a busy company. We even hired a few friends to act as employees to make our business seem bigger. We got furniture on a 30 day money back guarantee.
When I look back on this time, it now seems so ironic to me.
Fast forward 20 years and now the big companies want to appear small! As I write about in my new book, Small Town Rules, big corporations want to imitate the human voice that small businesses have had for a long time. They want a “local community” that is willing to support their business. They want to have the personal touch of a small business. Through social media, the best corporations are coming off their balcony of fancy media campaigns to have real conversations with their customers.
Back in the 1990’s, we competed on how large our companies were and how many employees we had. Today, we brag about how small our companies are and how virtual we can make our business. Back then we competed on how much money we had raised for our startup. Today, we compare how little money we used through bootstrapping.
Small is definitely the new black.
