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Small Is Better

Polls show that more and more Americans distrust the government. Other polls indicated that banks, insurance companies, multi-national corporations, and the recipients of government bailout monies are also suffering from distrust on the part of a large part of the American population.

Big in all its organizational forms is on the outs.

The distrust of government is nothing new; after all, America was founded on the distrust of large government. There’s nothing more American than distrusting politicians and government, whether national, state, or local.

Aside from government, look at who’s getting creamed in terms of trust issues: banks such as Chase, Bank of America, Citi; financial services firms such as Merrill Lynch, UBS, any company with the word ‘insurance’ in it; GM, GE, Chrysler, Exxon/Mobile, Halliburton, McDonalds, Walmart, and dozens of others.

What do they all have in common?

Size.

These are all huge corporations that have attracted a considerable amount of distrust, some because of their financial weakness, others because of real or perceived greed, still others because of political correctness. But no matter the cause, they’re currently on the trust hit list.

What does that mean for small and mid-size companies?

A void to be filled. An opportunity to take advantage of. A chance to penetrate markets. A bit more level playing field—at least for a time.

Just because consumers don’t trust major corporations doesn’t mean that they don’t need and/or want the products and services those corporations provide.

Banks are still needed.

Financial services too.

People still have to shop and eat. They still buy cars, appliances, electronics.

If the politically correct turn from Walmart, where do they go? Possibly a local or regional retailer.

If they refuse to purchase from GM but want a Tahoe, what do they do? Possibly purchase from a local used car dealer.

If they reject Chase and Bank of America, who do they bank with? Maybe with a local or regional bank.

If they’re not going to McDonald’s or Burger King for lunch, where are they going? Maybe they eat at a local or regional restaurant.

Maybe they buy from you.

Big is out and it has to be replaced. Why not by you? Why can’t you step in and fill the trust void?

In today’s economy where those who seem to be thriving are doing so as much by cutting payroll and expenses as by maintaining sales and profit margins, finding and exploiting any advantage you can find is critical and taking advantage of the current populist anger toward big business can certainly benefit those small and mid-size businesses and their salespeople who recognize the advantage they currently have over their large competitors.

Rather than sitting back hoping to continue to survive, hit the streets and start calling on those prospects who didn’t think you were big enough, experienced enough, or had the financial strength to earn their business.

We’ve certainly seen that experiece, size, and financial strength don’t mean much. All those well educated and experienced Harvard MBA’s made a mint while destroying the companies they were supposed to be running. Those old line companies were the ones ‘too big to fail’ that should have been left to fail. Those financially stable behemoths were anything but financially stable.

Now isn’t the time to be hiding and hoping, it’s the time to be aggressively seeking new business because as has happened in the past, the anger at big business won’t last forever, so take advantage of it while you can.

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