In today’s world, there’s a lot of online business coaching, often emphasised on social media, that urges small businesses to adopt strategies from massive companies like Apple, Nike, Starbucks, NVIDIA, Tesla, and Google.
The prevailing advice is to mirror these giants in hopes of achieving similar growth. But this approach is fundamentally flawed, and this post explains why.
Many business owners, influenced by this kind of content, attempt to replicate what works at a global scale without considering their own unique context.
For instance, I once worked with a man who ran a business selling products directly to customers.
Customers would either visit his shop or call him, and he would personally recommend what they should buy.
This personal, bespoke service was his unique advantage.
However, he believed that to become a serious business, he needed to emulate large corporations by removing personal interaction and adopting a more hands-off approach. This was a fundamentally flawed strategy.
By stripping away the personal touch that set his business apart, he replaced his unique selling point with a generic, corporate experience. This led to reduced revenue and forced him to take drastic action.
What he should have done was recognize and leverage his unique advantage in several ways:
First, he could have made himself and his team the centerpiece of the brand, showcasing their expertise and personal service.
Second, he could have created marketing materials based on the expertise of himself and his team, using videos or written content on platforms like YouTube or a blog.
This content could explain which products are best for certain needs, how to use them, and who would benefit most.
This wouldn’t replace the personal interaction but would build authority and trust, demonstrating their expertise and strengthening the brand.
Ultimately, this approach of marketing via content would drive more traffic to their shop, allow them to charge more for their expertise, and ensure customers trusted the advice they received.
In short, instead of mimicking large, impersonal corporations, he should have embraced and amplified what made his business special, creating a unique, authoritative brand that customers could trust.
