In Seth Godin’s book, “Small is the new big“, Godin details why he believes that personal relationships still matter, that a one-to-one relationship is worth more than a big name brand with countless awards, sales people or account managers.
“Small means that the founder is involved in a far greater percentage of customer interactions. Small means the founder is close to the decisions that matter and can make them quickly.
Small is the new big because small gives you the flexibility to change your business model when your competition changes theirs.
Small means you can tell the truth on your blog.
Small means that you can answer e-mail from your customers.
Small means that you will outsource the boring, low-impact stuff like manufacturing and shipping and billing and packing to others while you keep all the power because you invent something that’s remarkable and tell your story to people who want to hear it.A small law firm or accounting firm or ad agency is succeeding because they’re good, not because they’re big. So smart, small companies are happy to hire them.
A small restaurant has an owner who greets you by name.”
I tend to agree.
So, when deciding who to do business with you might be tempted to go with the one with the most awards, the best sales pitch; but instead — what if you made a decision based upon a personal level of service?
Maybe you could do business with the actual business owner, or person who made the product?
What if you were involved, at every aspect, ensuring quality throughout; rather than working with someone over a telephone whom you never meet, or even know is still working at the organisation?
To me, working with a smaller organisation represents making the leap of faith on trust. We’re told constantly by the media that we can “trust” big business, bigger is better.
But why?
The bigger businesses have employees, business rent, an office, and they’ve probably juggling 6-8 projects all at the same time.
If I had to choose between spending time reading long, pointless and frankly dull proposals written by big name brand organisations that promise the world, or working with someone who relies on a personal tailored service, then I’ll pick the tailor every time.
If, like me, a personal service still matters to you, and you’re longing for one-to-one relationship with the person who actually created your product/service, then the answer is to choose small.