{"id":1754,"date":"2013-07-04T10:00:31","date_gmt":"2013-07-04T17:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=1754"},"modified":"2013-07-02T11:07:16","modified_gmt":"2013-07-02T18:07:16","slug":"cast-your-net-where-the-big-fish-swim-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/?p=1754","title":{"rendered":"Cast your net where the big fish swim."},"content":{"rendered":"

This is one of those \u201cMy dad used to say\u201d homilies.\u00a0 You\u2019ve probably heard the accompanying \u201cIt takes just as much effort to sell a small deal as a big one,\u201d over the years.<\/p>\n

The truth of this is more nuanced.\u00a0 Some businesses will prosper in the shadow of larger competitors by specializing in those smaller accounts that are just not attractive to those with higher overheads and larger aspirations.\u00a0 But for most, the true sign of success and potential for even more is in the landing of a major account, one that validates the pricing, quality and competitive advantages of a company\u2019s offering.\u00a0 For this reason alone, it makes sense for most of us to aim high once we have worked the kinks out of our offering with smaller customers.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the worst thing you can do is land a big fish when not prepared to reel it in.\u00a0 It is hard to recover from any failure to perform, but doubly so when the customer is highly visible in the industry.\u00a0 So it is worth building the business\u2019s capabilities through stages of customer size if the goal is to serve the biggest and outdistance the competition at that level.<\/p>\n

[Email readers, continue here…]<\/span><\/em>\u00a0 I am on the board of a services company that specializes in the middle of the market, knowing that very large competitors throw lots of resources at the largest accounts \u2013 resources that our company just does not have. Rather than being constantly beaten in this arena, the company has chosen to \"Growing_business\"<\/a>compete in an area of the market it can defend with superior service, which the larger competitors – with their higher cost structure – could not reproduce in smaller accounts without large losses.\u00a0 Further, scaling the enterprise and its infrastructure to go after the few very large accounts would be at the cost of development for the midrange of the market and perhaps subsequent loss of that share to others.<\/p>\n

And I am reminded of a cousin of mine who years ago sold custom window blind product to Sears, by far his largest customer, scaling his plant to produce more and more for Sears as orders flowed.\u00a0 One day a sixteen wheeler full of returned product drove into his loading area.\u00a0 Sears, which granted a no-questions-asked return policy to its customers (even for customer errors in measuring their window blind orders) just dumped the product back on the supplier without explanation, nearly bankrupting the small company.<\/p>\n

Even though there are many advantages to casting your net to attract the big fish, you should be well aware of the risks involved and have resources available to manage those risks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is one of those \u201cMy dad used to say\u201d homilies.\u00a0 You\u2019ve probably heard the accompanying \u201cIt takes just as much effort to sell a small deal as a big one,\u201d over the years. The truth of this is more … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1754","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-growth"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/berkonomics.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}