Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) are most often defined by the number of employees; small businesses are usually defined as organizations with fewer than 100 employees; midsize business are organizations with 100 to 999 employees. The SMB group makes up the vast majority of American companies.
At TeleNet, more than 60% of our outbound teleprospecting calls are to small & medium businesses (the SMB market). Over our years of tele experience targeting this segment, we’ve learned and created many best practices. Here are just a few of our messaging tips…
- SMBs tend to put more value on attributes like trust, loyalty and “home town” knowledge.
- Incorporate verbal examples of how your solution is working in businesses like theirs
- Have case studies on hand for a call-email-call
- SMBs are looking for solutions that fit them, specifically. They are not interested in watered-down versions of products designed for large companies.
- Share value points that demonstrate how your solution can meet their needs
- Beware of terms that imply “expensive” or “large.” Words like “global” or “enterprise” may sound to the SMB listener like your describing a solution that was not made for them.
- No matter how small, no one wants to feel small.
- Be careful of referring to your prospect as a “small business”
- And definitely don’t refer to them as “SMB.” While common place in the marketing world, many business contacts are not familiar with the SMB acronym
- Many SMB companies purchase when they have the funds, which may depend on external factors, like gas prices, elections, weather patterns, and other economic dynamics.
- Don’t assume a fiscal year purchasing cycle
- For companies that purchase “as needed”, the sales cycle is typically much shorter than in enterprise markets. It may be unreasonable to plan a purchase for 12 months in advance. Keep this in mind when defining lead criteria, relating to TFTB.
Again, these are just a handful of our best practices relating to the SMB market. Contact us to learn more about our approach and success stories targeting small & medium businesses.