Introduction: Many small businesses that make it past their first year achieve little success other than producing an income akin to a salaried position that the proprietor might otherwise get. It is wrong to assume that all these businesses are not meeting their owner's expectations because there are many, often personal, ways to measure success. However, for many small businesses, no matter how hard the owner tries, how good their product is and how many hours they work, they still don't manage to achieve the success that they had hoped for.
Hard work is not the only ingredient that makes a small business successful. Most of us know of at least one small cafe that's the result of an owner's dream for their own mix of atmosphere, service and food. Too often such enterprises fail to meet their owner's expectations, not through the lack of hard work, but more so because the business is so demanding that they spend all their time working 'in' their business, but insufficient time working 'on' their business.
It's like we're under-cover cops. Nobody knows we're here. Even our sign is rusty and obscured by a tree is how a member of an organization I've been working with explained its community engagement to me. Another member bitterly complained that the local council gave no support to the organization. However, this complaint was met with a dressing-down from a new (personally successful) member.
"How do you expect someone to sponsor 'you' when you're not one of 'their' gang! You're in a community and you're not participating in it! Do you know your local councillor? Have you made an effort to meet your local councillor? Do you hang in any of the places where she hangs?..."
Shameless self-promotion was the key to this new member's success it was later explained to me. It's a lesson that many small businesses need to learn. It doesn't mean 'selfish' self-promotion. It means that in life what you get of something often directly relates to what you put in. Do you think its any accident that your most successful local business people are also prominent in local community organizations such as Rotary, Lions, Scouts, School, Hospital Boards, etc? What flows out of community involvement for them (whether they realize it or not) is that they become well known community members. Who would you rather buy a motor car from? A trusted community servant you know or a complete stranger?
A small business needs to embrace and use social media. I'm not suggesting that small business owners should go out and join service clubs. But many of the small business owners who are looking for ways to improve their businesses are unaware that there are tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Google and Foursquare that allow them to find, build and engage with their local community. Most mobile telephones are now internet enabled and people are using this functionality to talk to their friends, arrange meet-ups, and search for businesses. Small businesses need to be in this space so their local community has the best chance possible to get to know and trust them.
