Small Business Quote Of The Day

14 July 2006 at 7:08 am | In Blog, General, Small Business | No Comments

Persistence for any business is vital. I’ve always believed that, in small business PR, persistence and being able to adapt and review what’s working and what’s not is what ultimately turns a campaign into a success. It’s about mental agility, spotting and converting opportunities.

But this applies not just to PR, but to any area of business in my experience. Plans are great, but in executing those plans you need to be flexible and fast on your feet.

The power of persistence seems to be wrapped up in a beautiful Chinese quote I spotted today courtesy of the Work For You blog.

“The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”

Technorati Tags: Business Motivation, Business Success

Blogging Sorcerer’s Apprentice Required

11 July 2006 at 11:07 pm | In Blogging, Small Business | No Comments

The small business blogging magician and master tailor, Tom at English Cut, is looking for an apprentice.

I wonder whether he’s put the word out around Saville Row or whether this will become an example of how blogs can attract and inspire exactly the people a business is looking for?

Technorati Tags: Apprentice, English Cut, Recruitment

Who’s Wagging The Long Tail?

6 July 2006 at 10:54 am | In Marketing, Small Business, Social Media, Web | No Comments

Chris Anderson who came up with the concept of the Long Tail has a new book out, “The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More”, which was recently reviewed in the New Yorker.

Why is the theory of Long Tail potentially important for small businesses? Well here’s Chris’s summary:

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-target goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

The New Yorker’s review raises an interesting but flawed criticism of Chris’s thinking. It suggests that it is only the big online names like Amazon, Ebay, and iTunes that can ‘house the long tail’ i.e. the massive array of goods and services that cater for very particular customers, tastes and passions. They are therefore wagging the long tail. In control. An online oligopoly.

Of course, these big online brands are making a bundle of money, but what about search and word of mouth. I know very few people, for example, who browse iTunes looking for podcasts on a particular subject. It’s the online word-of-mouth network combined with Google et al that is the primary guide in this space. Large aggregators of Long Tail content may be the one stop out of town megastores, but it’s the growing interaction and sharing of online communities and networks that means the internet high street is thriving in its diversity.