Sell SMBs By Sharing HR Best Practices

If you have been a regular reader of this blog you will have seen a number of posts on how I believe big companies should share their best practices with their small business customers. The logic is simple: small companies look to big companies for standards, systems, and procedures. If you are a big company, chances are this stuff is second nature to you. By sharing the information with your small business clients you earn their trust and win their business. Develop the relationship first and you will not have to ask for the sale - it will come to you.

One of the biggest problem areas for small business owners is hanging on to their top performers. Entrepreneurs spend an incredible amount of time training and supporting their employees only to have them leave a short while later to pursue other opportunities. According to a survey by Robert Half International, the main reasons why top performers leave small businesses are:

• Limited advancement opportunity: 39 percent.
• Unhappy with management: 23 percent.
• Lack of recognition: 17 percent.
• Inadequate salary/benefits: 11 percent.
• Bored: 6 percent.
• Lifestyle change, such as moving: 2 percent.
• Other/don’t know: 2 percent.

Sharing your HR best practices and giving your small business customers a framework to work within so they can hold on to their top performers can be invaluable information for them. How does your company reward the top salespeople? How do you motivate, inspire, and manage your people? What initiatives has your company put into place to recognize workers and make the workplace a fun and inspiring place to be? How do the top managers in your company keep employees loyal and hard working?

By offering yourself as a resource to your small business clients you become an invaluable trusted adviser instead of a commodity service or product vendor. Understand the challenges your SMB clients are facing and look within to leverage the best practices your company is using to solve those challenges. When you win the hearts of the entrepreneurs you will win their business.

Developing Trust With SMBs

One of the concepts that kept coming up at last week's Xerox small business event was being a "trusted advisor" to entrepreneurs.

Small business owners like buying from people they know and people they trust. Companies who can establish a trusted relationship with their SMB clients have a good chance of retaining them as clients even if the competition has better prices / features.

Rick Spence highlighted this issue in a recent post:

All the more reason, I say, for marketers to develop stronger relationships with business owners before trying to sell to them. You can do that through newsletters, personal calls, blogs, direct mail, invitations to events - anything that sets you up as a trusted partner.

Without that trust, even the best sales proposition will almost always finish second when the business owner has a pre-existing relationship with a competing supplier - whether or not they can do what you do.

Entrepreneurs Don't Trust Corporations

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association recently put out a report stating that 76% of consumers think that businesses do not tell the truth in their advertising.

They went on to discover that the number one way consumers learn about new product ideas is through word of mouth. It helps cut through the advertising clutter and the increasingly busy lives of consumers.

92% of consumers cited word of mouth as the most common way they discover new products, up from 67% in 1977.

I see it happening all the time in my Mastermind Groups. Small business owners are facing challenges with their companies from sales to financing to product sourcing. A recommendation from a fellow entrepreneur who had a good experience with a supplier almost always closes the deal.

Is your company doing enough to encourage positive word of mouth?

Check out these resources for more information on how to build your word of mouth effect.