Xerox Ignite Small Business Conference

On Sunday evening, Xerox invited myself, 4 other SMB bloggers (Chris Brunner, Patrick Cook, James Gaskin, and Denise O'Berry), and research analysts from IDC and Gartner to fly to Orlando, Florida and help them devise a selling to small business strategy.

Xerox's challenge is that they have a well respected brand name but are not considered to be an option for small business owners. Xerox has the perception of being only for "big business."

I did an informal poll with a few of the entrepreneurs in my network to find out what their experiences with Xerox have been and get their suggestions for improvements. What I found was that none of them even knew Xerox had a small business line of products! Needless to say a lot of work had to be done.

Yesterday afternoon we had a roundtable discussion to give Xerox suggestions on how to increase their awareness level in the SMB community. I then met 1 on 1 with Paul Gleason, Vice President of Small and Medium Business for Xerox. The roundtable is set to be podcasted - I'll let you know when it comes out!

Overall it's been a great experience. We gave a number of ideas that could really help Xerox differentiate themselves and penetrate small and medium sized businesses across North America. The key will be can they act on the suggestions and how quickly.