Be the Mouse that Roared
Suppose you run an operation with twenty or thirty team members. You manufacture food for goldfish. You operate out of a small town in Southern California.
But when you go out to dinner parties do you like to say, just loud enough so that everyone else can hear you, 'Well, actually, I'm the global CEO'?
It can be a gratifying line to trot out from time to time. And it might even make business sense to think of yourself in this way, particularly if your business has an Internet arm to it. There's really no contradiction in being both small and global.
This is clear for some businesses. Suppose you run a boutique hotel in Miami, Florida. A website could be a great global marketing tool. It probably wouldn't make sense to post out brochures to travel agents in all parts of the world. But you can be sure that, when people plan their holiday, they'll go searching on the Web. And suppose they stumble upon your site, which features photographs of glorious sunsets, beautiful beaches and elegant hotel rooms. Of course, it would help if your business had a name that crops up readily on a Miami Web search, or if you have web links to some major tourism sites.
Now, you don't have to be in the hotel business to benefit from global reach. Marketing guru Philip Kotler points this out in his book Marketing Management. He notes that many of Germany's small and medium-sized companies have managed to grab a large global market share. They are niche operations. However, while their niche market within Germany might be small, they've managed to expand and dominate their niche either in Europe or globally. Collectively, they're earning $1 billion a year.
As examples, Kotler mentions:
- Tetra Food, which sells 80 percent of tropical fish food;
- Hohner, which has cornered 85 percent of global harmonica sales;
- Becher, which manufactures over half of the world's umbrellas; and
- Steiner Optical, which manufactures 80 percent of the world's military field glasses.
There are certain things that these businesses have in common. They have very high service standards, are very responsive to customers, and are reliable and punctual in their deliveries. They're flexible and innovative. Their managers are accessible to customers and keep a finger on the pulse of the market.
Clearly, if you're a niche operator such as this, the Internet offers you a lot of scope to expand. It offers you a marketing tool that has global reach at low cost. It also provides you with the perfect means for keeping in touch with your customers.
You can not only attract customers with a good-looking site, you can also draw them into doing immediate business with you, ordering and paying over the Internet. Of course, you'll need to have convincing Internet protocols, which are methods of reassuring customers that when they pay for something, they'll get it. And you'll need to run a tight operation to make sure that you can distribute goods or deliver services reliably.
However, these are operational problems that can be solved. If you're a niche operator and you think you might want to use the Web to expand, give us a call and talk through the issues. And if you're looking for a terrific training program to get your team even more focused on those customer service issues mentioned above, ask your accountant about the Towards Awesome Service training program.
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