I have been hired to work in business models located in small communities. A lot of my leadership roles have been placed in communities that have less than 10,000 people. Many of those smaller communities have less than 5,000 people. Some of the business models I have managed in these smaller market areas were models designed to provide products and services to these little communities. I happen to like small communities. It is a good thing. They are peculiar to market. They can become very sensitive to sour grapes.
In order to perform well in these smaller communities, the business model must operate in a very strategic fashion. If the revenue of the business model is dependant upon the active trade coming from the patrons of the small community, the need for a strategic approach was more acute. Small social mistakes can mysteriously diminish patron support in smaller communities. A local social mistake, sour grapes, can appear as if the business model is offering the local patrons something that carries an insensitive desire to ignore the needs of those local patrons. It can become so serious the business model will feel as if it is trying to offer the patrons some kind of plague. Sour grapes will not help the business model perform well in that market.
Small communities are amazing markets to develop for volume success. They can be very peculiar. You have to become part of them before they allow your business model to become part of you. Otherwise, you are an outsider and your business model will never become a part of you nor will you ever be allowed to become part of them. You and your business model will be 'left out.' If you do not understand this marketing process, do not expand your business model into a small community. You will suffer greatly until you practice what they preach! When in Rome, do as the Romans do. It is a simple concept. It is so difficult to design your business model to honor it, however. Sour grapes are difficult to monitor. Sour grapes are difficult to identify. Sour grapes are difficult to anticipate.
Sour grapes can come from anything that socially sets them off. Once they are 'set off' they can become very difficult to attract. Small communities work like little pockets of information centers. If one of those little pockets becomes offended by some social mistake your business model performs, that pocket will see to it that many other local pockets get this offensive information circulated about. You will not 'see' this activity. Your business volume will only 'feel' it. It is not a mysterious scenario. It is real, however. Be aware of how much sour grapes can produce terrible business wine.
If you are not 'family' to those in a small community learn how to become everything else to them. Learn how to provide them the feeling that you are just like family. Make sure you hire locally. Help them find work for those they love and care about. Make sure you participate in their social lunch meetings at the grange halls. Make sure you honor their children in the high schools, sports, academics and community recognition and honor programs. Make sure you help them with their community events. Make sure you are center in the media process they find important. Attend their precious funerals. Become part of what they are. Become family.
When you fail to respect these things, your business model is a foreigner. Sour grapes to a small community.
One of the best defenses you can arrange in marketing a small community is to bring on new staff members who are part of their key locals. Key locals are the people in their family and social fold who are 'in-the-know' of what is socially happening in that region. They can become very good ears for your leadership roles. They can help your business model prevent producing some very sour grapes. The sugar of every small community is often times hidden. They are well protected commodities. Find the sugar. Use local leaders and family members to help you discover where the sugar is hidden.
Keep in mind, small communities are more than skeptical environments, they are cynical as well. They have developed the art of deception, too. It is part of their protective defense mechanisms. They will lead a 'foreighner' to believe something completely erroneous to 'see' how the foreigner responds. It is a subtle test of family. Having a key local person aboard your business ship will help to head off some of these tests and provide your model with some hints on where to turn. Bring in employees from somewhere else, other than the local area, and you may have written your first line to the business death of your epitaph. Sour grapes.
Small local regions are like cynical little measuring machines. They are searching for the chinks in your armour. They will evaluate your every step. They will try to undermine your sense of family with them. They will work to prove how you are trying to take money away from them instead of working to help them solve their small local problems. Marketing these regions successfully is an incredible movement of human art.
Get rid of any sour grapes.
Now, for the good side. Small local regions will cover your bases if you are 'in' with them. They will break down walls to save you in times of trouble, give you the shirt off their back, feed you, volunteer for you, offer great advice to help you win in their region, rally support for you and they will be side by side with you when you suffer great loss. Small local communities will sweeten sour grapes. The real trick is that your business model will need to earn this position of support. You will need to be their problem solver for the kinds of things you do for your business model. Your business better help them solve their problems. Your business model needs to become their business model. If they want better gloves, get better gloves. If they want cleaner water, get them cleaner water. If they want better transportation, get them better transportation. It is not difficult to know what to do. They will tell you. Do it your way, sour grapes. Do it their way, more sugar. It is an easy market to get to know.
Kill your ego and market your desire to become one of them. Your revenues will eventually become a little gold mine. Their people will become part of you, work for you, trade with you and depend upon you for their solution solving efforts. You will finally become part of their community.
Get rid of any sour grapes. Every business model has the tendency to produce some sour grapes in every marketplace. Your business model does not need to be located in a small community to learn how to behave in this improved 'family' fashion. This type of design will work best in a larger community. The only difference is, in larger communities you will discover that when you design your business model to behave in a small community atmosphere like this...you will have absolutely no competition! Very few business models understand the advantage of this kind of marketing design. The larger the population, the more rare this type of marketing design becomes. Therefore, when your business model practices this kind of 'family respect' marketing, when that happens, your business wine will taste very sweet! You will discover the competition is very thin at this level. Maybe you need to 'get caught' doing some of this kind of work. Your business model will love what it is able to do when your marketing learns how to get rid of sour grapes.
Regardless of the size of your market, learn how to design and manage your business model to become a part of the family where it does its business. Make sure you are not just another bunch of foreigners trying to take money away from the locals. Get rid of those sour grapes, they do not make good business wine.
Until next time...
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