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Obstacles to Innovation in Small Business

By Brad Shorr | May 12, 2008


A good deal of my time is devoted to singing the praises of online marketing — especially social network marketing — to small and medium size companies in traditional industries. Adaptation is slow, although moving at a much faster pace than two years ago.

Why do you think adaptation is slow? Why aren’t all companies blogging? Why aren’t more firms creating dynamic Web pages that encourage customer conversation? These are a few things I’ve noticed.

  • Limited internal resources — nobody to spearhead a new marketing effort
  • Distrust of outside experts — entrepreneurs like to be hands-on
  • My own inability to convey the benefits of engaging in new marketing methods (I’m always trying to improve, though!)
  • Bad economy — people tend to hunker down, stick with what they know, when profits are squeezed
  • Good economy — people are too busy in the trenches to start something new
  • Total sales orientation — no direct and immediate impact on sales automatically devalues any idea

So what do you think? Will corporate blogs be as pervasive as copy machines or will they be concentrated in particular industries or business models?

(Susan Quandt and Phil Gerbyshak may be interested to know this cartoon was done for Bill Welter not long ago!)

Related:

  • Cartoon - How Do We Innovate?
  • Can a Small Company Innovate?
  • Strategic Planning–How Anyone Can Become a Business Genius
  • Cartoon - Unwinding the Clock of Innovation
  • Opportunity for Small Business in the New Public Relations

    • 3 Responses to “Obstacles to Innovation in Small Business”

    1. amypalko Says:
      May 12th, 2008 at 6:58 am

      I would like to think that business will embrace blogs and blogging as a way to better communicate their ethos and connect with their market. However, for that to happen, I think bloggers will need to be employed specifically for that purpose, and unless businesses are very sure of a financial return, I don’t expect they’ll make that recruitment. I think, as with most new things, there will need to be a few successful trailblazers before the rest follow suit.

    2. Obstacles to Innovation in Small Business | Inc News Says:
      May 12th, 2008 at 7:10 am

      […] Anurag wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptA good deal of my time is devoted to singing the praises of online marketing — especially social network marketing — to small and medium size companies in traditional industries. Adaptation is slow, although moving at a much faster pace … […]

    3. Brad Shorr Says:
      May 12th, 2008 at 7:17 am

      Amy, you’re right. Connecting blogs to profits is important, though not always easy. If a company is thinking about blogging to improve SEO, it’s measurable. If the purpose is to establish thought leadership, still measurable, though not so easily. I’m finding clients whose business depends on strong customer relationships are the most motivated to blog. They are comfortable investing in customer care for the long term and do it all the time. “Transactional” businesses tend to be more concerned with short term ROI, and certainly not as eager to hire a blogger.

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