Why Large Companies Will Pay Millions To Create Something That Comes Naturally To A Small Business

by Noel Peebles

Published on this site: March 16th, 2004

You might not think of a large company as being a one-person business ... yet that is precisely what many are and what many more want to be.

Microsoft, perhaps the most successful global company, is synonymous with one person - Bill Gates. Think of fried chicken and you think of one person - Colonel Sanders!

Then there's Ronald McDonald, Jim's Mowing, Mrs Fields Original Cookies - the list goes on. Each one uses a unique, identifiable character as its "front person."

Fact is; most of us prefer to deal with companies that have personality (or a personality), rather than the cold clinical impersonal approach often associated with larger companies.

To overcome this problem, big companies spend millions of dollars in creating the kind of friendly, personal, caring image normally associated with small business.

Yet, surprisingly, a lot of small businesses hide behind what comes naturally. Many fear that customers won't buy if their small business is seen for what it is ... a small, personal and in some cases, one-person business.

When you think about it, a small business has a huge natural advantage. The owner can be the personality in his or her own business. They can become the Colonel Sanders of their own business.

Alternatively, there's nothing to stop a small business doing what the big companies do. Any small business can have a designer create a unique character for them. The business could have its very own Ronald McDonald or Colonel Sanders type character .... and it needn't cost an arm and a leg to create.

One of the first businesses I ever owned was a shop selling handicrafts. To "front" the business, I created a craftsman-like character who resembled Gepetto from Pinocchio fame. I called him Andy Kraft (a play on the wording handicraft). Andy featured on the shop frontage, on my letterhead and in all my advertising. Although I employed staff, the business was perceived as being a one-person business operated by this wise, old, craftsman character called Andy Kraft.

A few years later I started an up-market gift store and called it Austin Gray. I thought the name sounded more "posh" than my real name. Although I wasn't in the store very often, whenever I was, people would call me Austin.

Both these stores were successful operations and each had it's own unique personality (character) to front the business. It worked! And, I have Andy and Austin to thank for my success in those businesses.

© Noel Peebles, Market Leaders ebooks.

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