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Don’t take advice from T-Rex

The overwhelming majority of small business advice is from people showing us how Giant Corporation, Inc. managed to free themselves from the drudgery of being small to finally become “great”. It’s time these patronizing forces understood that small business and big business are two entirely different animals.

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small business growth strategy

Run, Gazelle, run!

The overwhelming majority of small business advice is from people showing us how Giant Corporation, Inc. managed to free themselves from the drudgery of being small to finally become “great”. It’s time these patronizing forces understood that small business and big business are two entirely different animals.

The assumption is that a small business is just a big business that hasn’t grown up yet. We’re the adult, you’re the infant. We know what it takes to grow up and we’ll be glad to share those secrets with you young ’uns.

But the problem is that we aren’t a big business that hasn’t grown up. These are two different animals. It’s like saying when a Gazelle grows up it will become a Tyrannosaurus Rex, so all we need to do is show it what T-Rexs do and eventually it can become a T-Rex, too. There are 28 million “small” businesses in America and only 17,000 with over 500 employees. These modern-day monsters are telling the rest of us how to do something none of us wants to do – become them.

Small business is uniquely different than big business in just about every way: how we market, advertise, sell, build relationships, live locally, adjust fast, move with agility, find vendors, do accounting, love employees, relate to customers, etc. They are two entirely different animals.

But there is an incessant parade of articles, books, papers, and research of giant businesses with the intent of showing us small business people what we can look like if we grow up and become T-Rex. I’m really over reading “How Giant Corporation, Inc.” finally freed themselves of the burden of being small, and grew up.

Most of us don’t want to be a T-Rex and for way too many, the parade of big business advice to their supposed infant T-Rex brothers simply confuses the small business Gazelles who are trying to apply it.

We need to stop teaching small business owners to stomp through forests and eat everything in its path. Small business advice and examples of what to do should come from small business Gazelles, not from lumbering T-Rexs. They are two different animals with entirely different sets of requirements, processes, paths, motivations, and outcomes.

Be careful where you get your advice on how to build your business, and especially don’t take it from the “Bigs”. You could end up with a T-Rex telling you how to be a Gazelle.

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