Susanne Dansey’s Blog

If you typically sell to small businesses then if the only thing you take away from my blog is that you should treat your customers in the same way you like to be treated.

What do I mean by this? Well, how many of us sit on hold to our utility provider chatting aimlessly to the recording that tells us how much they appreciate our patience and that someone will be with us shortly? I’m going to put money on it that no-one likes being treated like a number.

So customer or Small Business consultant, we are all human and appreciate the ‘touchy, feely’ approach by those who we chose to work with.

‘Gurus’ tell us that we need to maintain the work/life balance but for many this just isn’t going to happen. If the client needs us on Saturday to fix their AD then we will fix it much to our family/friends disdain. But we are all in our businesses because we chose to and our advantage over many of the retail guys is that we care what happens to our clients after 5pm on a Friday night (because we know they’ll phone us if we don’t!).

Our enthusiasm for the technology extends beyond work (servers etc.) and spills out into our personal lives (Media Centres etc.) and this is the same for our clients. So if a client decides they want their iTunes to work on their laptop when they are waiting in an airport then they will ring you to help them. More and more of our time is spent trying to understand a plethora of technologies that fill our market up and it is up to you to keep things simple and stop the customer getting confused with it all.

So what do you do? You maintain control of the client. As you sit there smiling with gritted teeth as they tell you how Janice opened a file attachment and how it’s strange that her machine is slow or how Doug knows all the admin passwords which haven’t been changed since he left three months ago; you know that it’s time to go back to basics.

I’ve met plenty of Small Business Specialists (those consultants whose core focus is small business) who keep networks in check by reducing all rights and permissions on user machines down to the bare minimum. These customers were those who in a previous life before they were taken under the wing by someone like yourself thought that ‘free love’ on their network was okay despite not having a clue about the security issues and dangers they exposed themselves to.

So why are they happy to be reigned in? Well they trust you! They know that you understand what they are trying to achieve and you understand the direction they would like to take their business. In short, if they had the money to employ you as their full time IT guy, then they would! There are three things that when combined make a powerful and attractive proposition to your customer; empathy, experience, and simple gut feeling.

If you use Small Business Server 2003 then you have your reasons why you rely on it as the backbone to your business. Immediately you have so many sale hooks as to why (if appropriate) they need it too! And you’re a small business as well, so you know how much ‘red tape’ you have to fight your way through before you can sit down and get on with business. You’ll be trying to help ease the annoyances and problems frequently suffered by those of a similar size to you.

Above everything, and this is something that we experience all the time whether at work or in our day-to-day lives, it all comes down to whether you and the potential client get on.

In a bigger business it’s easier to share account management within a department but smaller businesses who pride themselves on delivering accountability and the ‘human touch’ know that it’s harder to deal with a client who they just don’t like working with.

If you have a client who you don’t like and you are finding that you wonder why you bothered then refer the client to a partner in your community who you trust will give the same high level of service that the client would expect to receive from you. Never leave a customer orphaned as it doesn’t do you or them any favours. You may find by referring them to another partner that they may find some opportunities that they can pass to or share with you.

One of the things that I pointed out to my audience at SMB Nation in Amsterdam this year was remember why you went into business in the first place. If it was for the same reasons as your clients which maybe to be your own boss, free up time for the family/ personal pursuits etc., then make sure you’re still sticking to that goal. If you’re not then you need to take stock of the situation and work out if you can get back on track or whether you need to re-think what you really want to do.

Above everything, for something that we do for most of our lives, it’s important to enjoy what we do. If we can do this, then our enthusiasm and positive outlook will be passed onto those who we work with (customers, vendors, colleagues) and this in turn will prove beneficial to us.

From time to time, you may feel like you are banging your head against the wall (don’t we all?) but remember that there are people around to share the odd rant with. Whatever the size or the nature of your business someone else has already gone through the problems you have and they may even tell you the shortcut to the solution if you’re nice to them.

Keep it simple:

• stick to what you know
• don’t confuse the customer with everything and anything and don’t let them confuse themselves in the same way either
• be enthused about what you do and use
• enjoy what you do (for the majority at least)
• don’t forget to take a break - get a hobby that takes you away from technology so that you can keep your brain ticking in other ways
• share with your peers - sharing intellectual property benefits all those involved and will help find you shortcuts