Don't call us "Small Businesses"! (We prefer something else)

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. I believe in entrepreneurs, and I also do a lot of work helping big companies sell to small businesses. And I thought I'd create a new series to help these big businesses do a better job of selling to small businesses. So my first tip, my first bit of advice is stop saying small business. Small businesses don't self-identify as being a small business. And I get how it's easy in big companies to, to classify classify people, right? You have enterprise, medium business, small business. It's easy to have a VP of small business or a small business marketing manager. The problem is these small businesses, they don't call themselves small businesses. So you don't want to be running that in your marketing, your campaigns, your advertising, because it doesn't connect to people well. I recently did a survey to my newsletter list, which has almost 80,000 people on it, all entrepreneurs, small businesses, and I asked them, what do you consider yourself to be? And I gave them options: entrepreneur, entrepreneur, business owner, small business. And here are the results: 60.2% of people said entrepreneur, 29.2% of people said business owner, 6.6% of people said small business, and 4% of people chose a different answer. So only 6.6% of small businesses actually self-identify as being a small business. Now if you want to have success in your marketing, right, you've got to be able to speak in the same language that people speak in. I call small businesses small business when I'm talking to big companies, when I'm talking to brands, because that's how they call it internally. But I never say small business when I'm talking to entrepreneurs. And the big businesses have to do the same thing. Internally, maybe you still call it small business, but when you're out public-facing talking to entrepreneurs, stop saying small businesses because that's not how they consider themselves to be. Now on top of that, a lot of entrepreneurs find the term to be offensive. Not everybody, but a number of entrepreneurs find the term small business to be offensive. Here's part of what they said: they consider it to be limiting, degrading, reflective of their ability. Just because somebody is small, it doesn't mean that they are a small person or they have small goals. And some entrepreneurs, not everybody, but some of them consider the fact that you're calling them small, they take that as a personal insult. So at best, you're calling people by something that they don't associate with, and at worst, you're offending them. And that's definitely not something you want to have in your marketing, in your campaigns. Here is some of the specific feedback that came out of the survey. I run a profitable, regular-sized business. I definitely don't think that everything that required a lot of my time, thoughts, and passion as small. I refuse to be degraded. I consider myself as an entrepreneur. I'm a business owner, a one-man band, But I'm not small. I never use the word small on issues relating to my business. I always use the word entrepreneur. The word small actually limits one's potential, in my opinion. First and foremost, I'm a business owner and entrepreneur. The problem is that government defines small businesses as 50 employees or less, and to me, 50 is a big business. A business owner. I'm in my startup phase and it's just me on board. I'm still not a small business. I always refer to myself as a business owner on the basis It is factually correct irrespective of size, status, or any other adjective you care to mention. Interesting question, and yes, being labeled small can be frustrating, particularly so when you feel that it is being used to suggest your ability to impact your chosen market might be limited by size. I struggled to find a polite way to say this, but I would venture that in the context of categorizing businesses, the word small is usually used by someone whose ability to exist beyond the comfortable safety of an established corporate structure might be seriously limited. By definition, I'm an entrepreneur. It is something that has bothered me for some time, although I've never articulated it. I consider myself to be a business owner. If someone were to count my immediate permanent staff, they could conclude that I was small. However, if they also included the specialized consultants who I work with, then I would be considered bigger. If they then consider the influence I have to enable change in other organizations, then I could be considered a large business. I guess it all depends upon whether one sees size in terms of headcount or influence. And in the famous words of marketing giant David Ogilvy, "I don't know the rules of grammar, but if you're trying to persuade people to do something or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language, the language they use every day, the language in which they think. We try to write in their vernacular." David Ogilvy. So stop calling us small businesses and start speaking our language: belief. If you guys like this video, you want to learn more about how I help brands, you can check out evancarmichael.com/brands or subscribe to the channel. Thank you guys so much for watching. I'll see you soon.

Hi, Raquel English here with Mermaid Junkie TV. Are you on Evan Carmichael's newsletter subscription? If not, you should be. I read every single one, and you should too. Ciao!