What do you think about: many small business owners are stupid?

I always preferred small business owners because they at least had something on the ball.

When you say "stupid" my guess is that you really mean "cannot see the value in your proposition". Am I right?

Maybe the problem is that you are expecting them to be bright or knowledgeable...in the way that helps sales.

I never expected anything of the sort. Superstition plays a bigger role in people's lives than education. And we are all irrational the vast majority of the time. It's why advertising works...and why hypnosis works. And the majority of laws are there to keep us from doing something stupid.

The vast majority of people that bought from me, bought for reasons that made no sense to me. Just as the majority that didn't buy, gave ridiculous reasons for that as well.

A few decades ago, I adjusted my selling to allow for customer's mistakes, lies, false information about my product (industry), and more.

I always assume my prospect is prejudiced, ignorant, uneducated, and knows nothing about what I sell. That way, I'm always surprised...upward.

If they were already bright, intelligent, and serious business people...they wouldn't need you.

Added later; This may be a tad off subject. One thing I heard from lots of salespeople was "That idiot. He couldn't understand what I was showing him" or "He was too stupid to get it". That never made sense to me. Explaining it to them so that they got it...seemed to be our job.

And if they didn't buy, my thought was always "What did I do wrong?", never "Why are they so dumb?" Why? Because I can fix things like my appeal, my presentation, who I chose to see....I cannot fix the customer.

How can you say 'stats of failure aside'? The same could be said of marketers on this and other forums, couldn't it? Small businesses, to me, fall into two categories - "new" and "sustainable".

What I've seen on this forum many times are marketers talking about small business owners as if they are idiots - too dumb to run a business - don't know much at all. If someone has owned and operated a small business for several years - he's probably more savvy than the marketer targeting him.

I think many marketers who post here about targeting small businesses - have little understanding of realities of small business owners.

They don't survive by buying everything shown to them- cash flow regulates their daily business life. They have people constantly wanting to sell to them - advertise for them - set up displays - push new products. They have merchandisers who want more floor space, employee schedules, and on and on and on.

They don't stay in business by spending their time listening to sales presentations or talking to marketers over the phone. They have to run a 'lean ship' - know where every dollar goes...and why...and support their family at the same time they stay in business. I think those small business owners are better at managing their time/work/business than most marketers are at selling to them.

The easiest small businesses to sell to, in my opinion...are the new ones with new owners. They are more likely to buy, to be impressed with their "I own my own business" status....but they are not likely to be long term customers.

If you want to sell to long established small businesses - you need to do your research and know the business and have a compelling reason for the owner to buy - or try - your product.

Fear.

4 letter F word.

Most small business owners are starting a small business with some excitement but also, because they are afraid. Meaning they vibe predominantly from an energy of fear. They fear working a job to pay bills for the rest of their life, and instead of feeling the fear, and releasing it, they bring this fear with them to their small business. Or they are vibing with all other types of fear.

So.....when you are kinda afraid....not in terror or panic save rare moments....but in the lack and limits and scarcity mode most of us are conditioned to vibe at....you do silly things, because you cannot see things clearly.

Some say silly seems stupid, others just see a scared person doing stuff mainly from fear. Always an inside-out thing because how you act is based on how you choose to feel.

I have genuine compassion for folks doing silly stuff. Sometimes I tough love the crowd but always know they do as they do because they are largely driven by fear, deep down.

Ryan

Obviously, many are ill-equipped to run a business, but I give huge kudos to those who try. Unlike the mere opportunists who are attracted by the prospect of easy money and flit from one project to another, starting a business at least shows an intention to take responsibility for your own welfare. It takes guts - not fear. Fear is what keeps people in dead-end jobs all their lives, lamenting their lot.

Successful small business owners are canny - when it's your money and livelihood on the line, you need to be. That's why it's easier, in general, to sell to some middle-management bod with no skin in the game.

Well, I have two vastly different opinions on whether or not "stupid" is the term I would use for many small business owners.

I do know some that could be called stupid, when it comes to running a business, but manage to succeed in spite of themselves, simply because the are so incredibly good at their craft that in spite of their ignorance on many common business strategies, they do very well. I guess I would refer to them as ignorant, as opposed to stupid.

When I used to sell advertising, I would encounter business owners that would tell me, "Business is slowing down. I'm cutting my advertising budget to the bone." One word - STUPID!!! None liked hearing that their ad budget was the absolute last thing that should be trimmed. They acted offended to hear it.

Call it what you want. :-)

One day during the week I was downtown Auckland
and noticed a line up of people out on the footpath.

They were waiting to get inside a Thai restaurant, my client.

If you hung around Facebook forums for Internet marketers
that restuarant owner would be stupid, dumb, crazy
and certain to be another biz failure waiting to happen.

Why?

Because he never did have...

website
social media accounts
paid advertising media

What he knew and mattered more than any of the above was
where the office workers were.

So he sent lunch menues to the offices.

That's it.
No discounts or new customer incentives.
No come-back programs.

Being ignorant to all the incoming marketing and sales noise
was good for him.

He also owned another restaurant.

Best,
Ewen

What a lot of marketers and consultant types don't consider is the operational level.

It's important in war and business.

The reality "on the ground" often neutralizes gains made at the tactical level.

I believe good business owners develope an instinct that identifies coming failure. Again it's an instinct that they can't articulate and if they could they wouldn't want to.

Chet Holmes is one of my heroes and he understood the operational level and the amount of will power it took to make strategy work in reality.

It takes an absolute maniac for a leader to hammer his advantage into the market place successfully OR it takes highly incentivized individuals working for you, not people being paid crap.

So are most business owners stupid? No. They have good instincts but never take the time to figure out how to overcome the obstacles but rather say "that doesn't work." They'll never get anywhere beyond owning a job. But certainly not stupid.

Few are enlightened.

And yes a few are morons.

I prefer to look at business owners who may be struggling with their business as an opportunity to help them and educate them on how they can improve their business. As long as they're opened and willing to receive help or advise I may be able to help them. If they're someone who thinks they know it all and don't like to take advise or help from someone then there is nothing I or anyone else can do to help them and they will continue to fail, unfortunately.
There are so many small business owners who need help with marketing their business. They may do some dumb things like open their business and think people will just magically find them. This our opportunity to help them understand that they have to market their business to make some money.
I'm working with a couple of business owners now who have websites but SEO on the sites. They keep wondering why their company doesn't show up on the first few pages in Google search when they put in their geo location and industry. Heck, even a brand name search doesn't yield page one results for some of these businesses.
One business owner has 176 errors on his website that he had no idea about. He thought that Godaddy was doing everything for him. When I showed him that I couldn't even find him in the first twenty pages of Google search he finally understood he needed some help.
Ignorant of some things is a better word to use for many small business owners. Yeah, there are some stupid owners too. I try to avoid the stupid owners and work with the owners who are ignorant of some aspects of their business and want help.

They don't need to understand the online stuff - they can hire you to do it. Marketers love to put business owners down for some reason - and the generalizations are widespread. For many small local businesses, the 'online site' is far less important than you might think.



My guess is that those complaining that small business owners are dumb - probably earn a lot less than the business owners they want to feel superior to. New small businesses often go out of business - but I doubt it's more often than those offering "SEO services"...isn't that a small business in itself?

Just about everybody is good (and knows a lot about) at least one thing.

Calling a person stupid because he or she doesn't know very much about your area of expertise is short-sighted, don't you think?

Alex

I agree that there are a lot of business owners who buy into a business unprepared. But I don't think they're stupid. I think they went into business so focused on just one aspect, they forget that they have to consider the other aspects of a business as well.

That's why you see a lot of businesses where there's usually a technical/operations guy and a business guy. Because knowing how to create a great product doesn't necessarily mean you know how to create a great business.

And I think this is where your frustration stems from. You're looking at it from the perspective of a business owner and the actual business owner still looks at it from the perspective of a product creator. His actions seems "stupid". And I am willing to bet that from his side, your actions would also seem "stupid".

Is it a good idea to eliminate this type of business owner when offering a B2B service? I don't think so. I think business owners like this are a great opportunity because it allows you to educate potential customers from a position of authority. You don't have any competition at this point. If you have the time and patience to educate and guide these business owners, you could a have a potential goldmine.

You can consult them, but you cannot say they are stupid. They have their own reason. You are not in the same situation as them to judge them.

Sound to me like you are in the wrong line of work as sales is not your bag.

For you to call a small businessman stupid just because he did not jump on whatever you were selling just shows me how poor of a salesman you are.

I am 82 years old and have been in outside for over 55 years until I retired a few years ago. It was a brick and mortar business and I had inside and out side sales people.

I think you are running into small business owners that see thru your line real quick and just want to get you out or off the phone as they are trying to make sales to meet payroll and do not have the time to waste on someone that think they are stupid, it probably come across in your remarks.

Maybe you dropped in without an appointment and they had customers to take care of so they just brushed you off.

I am sorry but you do not come across ,to me anyway, as someone that is very well trained to do sales work.

Just my opinion I could be wrong

John

In a Facebook group some guy gives unsolicited advice to an old timer who claimed to be doing well. The advice was a crtisism of the guy's website such as copy was too long.

Watching The Profit the other night and Lemonis is stunned that the struggling business owner dismisses advice from the 22 year veteran Lemonis has brought in to consult, the younger business owner equating her opinion as being just as valid as the business veteran's.

When people think the other person is being stupid these days, often all we're really seeing is where the Critic is along their still early learning curve. And how they don't know what they don't know.

Kind of like how teenagers view their parents who don't get it.

I eliminate:

- Anyone who gives bad vibes or is "prickly" or is otherwise too aggressive given the circumstances. Being "challenged" by a prospect is bullsh*t. Some people just like to argue, and someone else can deal with 'em. You don't grow with this kind of attitude - it just beats you down.

- The dreamer/aspirational type with a wad of cash to invest but no current business and no clear concept of the business they want to start.

- Most one person businesses and everyone who claims poverty.

The good thing about selling to small businesses is that they're easy to get into, generally... you don't need to go through a purchasing department or know anyone with inside connections. That in my opinion is the only reason to preferentially deal with small businesses or to create products or services that are targeted to them.

Small business owners indubitably have problems with limited mental bandwidth, often poor or inadequate education (they may have started the business because they couldn't find a "good" job,) over-focus, excessive cheapness, and lack of general industry or formal knowledge.

Above all, I've found that the ones with any kind of supposed success are over-focused. They're almost paranoid about being knocked off track by an "outsider" and they're ultra-defensive about what they know and what they lack knowledge of.

Also the small business is influenced by the unbuffered ego and pride of the owner. When a small business fails it's often because the owner never got out of his own way when biz conditions changed.

A book that I highly value which I bought a few years ago called "Outfoxing the Small Business Owner" by Gene Marks pretty well walks through how small business owners reason, their blind spots, and their general lack of long term (or much of any) vision. To anyone considering the SMB and solopreneur markets I recommend it, but it's out of print.

I don't know, I think as far as small business owners go, it is what it is. They're approachable but selling to most of 'em and dealing with them are like dealing with the general public: they're short termist to the max, their pride takes center stage, every penny comes out of their personal wallet, and they don't want to delegate any decision making.

One can say "yeah, but there's opportunity there" but I assure you that if you have a steady diet of the small biz owner mentality over several years it will burn you out.

I think the word would be ignorant, not stupid

depends on the person doesn't it?

small business owners raise me up
I guess a quiet of people are accustom to buying DVD or BD and then play them on TV. Well, don't you curious how to create a disc yourself? I once tried to convert MP4 to DVD, I think it is fun and interesting.

I do not agree fully. Every person might be as stupid and as ignorant. Take any statistically random person in the word and give him the business - big chance he will act the same.

successful small business owners are different to unsuccessful one and newbies.
It's nothing to do with business owners. But people

You are correct. 90%+ of people have no business in business. Lack of education, Closed minds, poor emotional intelligence and lack of common sense.

I have just described about 90% on here....People hate the truth.

I would argue that most small business owners simply do not understand their real business. They think their product or service is their business, whereas selling and marketing that product should be their real business.

For example, if you own a restaurant, your job isn't to make good food. Of course, you need good food to succeed in the long-term, but your most important responsibility is filling the seats. If you can do that, everything else will fall into place.

Most small business owners spend way too much time working in their business when they should be working on their business.

What experience do you have in business? I'd appreciate if you could share wisdom about business so I can learn. I would much rather that than some whiney post about people making the wrong decisions, instead of complaining, how about you actually help people where you see they lack instead of ranting. Entrepreneurs are problem solvers not jerks

I'm not an "Offline Marketer" ... However if I were I would treat my Prospects/Customers/etc. like gold.

Something I have always remembered is Joe Girad's (who is in the Guinness Book Of World Records for the seller of the most cars in a year) ... Sending his Prospects greeting cards on their Birthdays and Holidays.

Just thought that was a nice thing to do.

2C

First of all one should not use the word stupid for anybody..
And second thing is small business owners are also working hard for thier business. Do not judge everybody.

"Entrepreneur" is a word viewed so differently from one group to the next...and it's only a word.

To a new IMer it often represents a dream of lifestyle and riches and 'doing what I want to do' and 'not workin' for the man'....they view the word as an impressive title.

To potential lenders, 'entrepreneur' listed as occupation means 'broke'. A lender told me successful applicants will list 'own my own business' as occupation. Interesting that he also said those who put "CEO of my own business" are usually on the entrepreneur level...and broke.

Labels don't work - seems to me those most willing to put down 'employees' or dismiss 'small business owners' as ignorant....are usually not as financially successful as those they love to criticize.

In any role there are people who are better equipped to handle it than others, who have more nous, savvy or just more luck to succeed. But calling a business owner stupid - or having that mentality - is just arrogant and likely to cause you problems.

Any business owner has already got a lot of guts and drive to turn nothing into something. If they're doing at least alright and hiring other people, that's one person who's probably wearing a lot of hats - strategy, finance, HR, customer service, product development etc. as well as marketing. When you're that busy, it can be hard to be an expert on everything.

A little humility and understanding of your client or prospect's strengths as well as pain points are going to make your relationship a lot stronger.

I don't think it's stupid. I believe it takes guts, intuition and good decision-making.

I've had the privilege of poring over the bank statements of probably thousands of business owners in my lifetime.

When you are able to look at 6 months to a year worth of bank statements for landscape companies, restaurant owners, construction companies, and so on you come away seeing things for what they are. The vast majority of business owners are ill equipped to be business owners. It doesn't make them stupid. It doesn't make them bad people. It just means they're bad at managing and mitigating risk.

Billions upon billions upon billions of dollars is generated by the not so savvy business owner.

Examples...

1. UBER EATS charges restaurant owners up to 30% of each order. How many restaurants operate at a +30% profit margin to make this a solid business move. They're biting the "exposure" carrot being peddled to them. You run $20,000 in sales through Uber eats you better be able to show how the $7k you gave them produced ROI.
2. GROUPON - need I say more. Same thing. Groupon charges the crap out of them for a thin value prop. There's a reason why you don't see the creme de la creme of restaurants on Groupon. They got hip real fast.
3. UCC Filings - A UCC lien is filed when a small business owner takes a high interest, short term merchant cash advance. Filings are EXPLODING. Business owners are lining up around the block to pay $14,000 for every $10,000 advanced and they're signing up to do it in 3-12 months. My experience tells me that very few of them "invest" that money. They're in a jam and they're bailing themselves out.

Regarding point #3, there are many players in the small business high interest loan industry that would swear to you that 90% of applicants are of low character. On the flip side, I left the industry because 90% of the guys inside the industry are of low character.

A related statement to "Buyers are stupid" is "Buyers are liars".

To me, it's a statement that limits your effectiveness. Just saying "Buyers are liars" lets you off the hook. It blames the buyer.

When I hear this from a rep that woes for me..or in rare cases, at a seminar I am giving.... I say ...

"Buyers are liars. But not any more than the rest of us. My question is, what did you do to cause them to lie to you? Why do they find it necessary to lie? What questions do you ask that makes them feel the need to lie to you?

And at what point in your sales call do you notice people starting to lie? That's where you need to fix what you are saying or asking.

Do buyers lie to me? Sure. About the same amount as we all lie to each other. But I arrange my questions in a way where lying doesn't pop into their mind as often. And ....you presentation shouldn't depend on them telling you the absolute truth all the time.

And I like to ask questions that, if they lie, I know they are lying. And it doesn't matter if they lie. I can see the direction of their lie. Are they lying to derail the sale, or are they lying to speed it up? I've experienced both.

And who do you normally lie to? People you want to avoid, situations you want to escape, in conversations you want to avoid. The lie from the customer is a way to tell you that they are no longer in rapport. The lie didn't derail the sale, the customer feeling they had to lie did. And that's almost entirely in your control".

This little talk is never...never...what they wanted to hear.

When someone says "Buyers are liars", they are positioning the buyers as the enemy. And they are not.

%90 can't use Google. %70 do not want to move past the "simple life". %50 can't. People have the "idgaf" mindset. They just "live". I am hungry for knowledge and power. It's an addiction.

"you can't fix stupid".

you think the guys right at the very top (hhmmmm...you know who i mean) are much better?

I've seen "stupid" at all levels....some hedge Fund managers i wonder how the hell they ever got there...

At big corperate banking level it's much more about "who you know" than what you know.

I am sure it is the same at the very top...Power trumps brains.

Well, not stupid per se. Just unlucky.

What is smart? It's probably taking as few risks as possible. Smart people would never start a business in the first place - too much risk, right?

But sometimes "stupid" ideas make people rich. I'm sure people thought Google was a stupid idea when there was Yahoo already. There are plenty of examples like this, basically everyone is a general after the battle, but nobody thought of actually taking action at the right time. That's why the world is full of smart people making decent living but never becoming rich, often even judging entrepreneurs who risk and fail.

Sometimes you probably have to risk looking or sounding stupid. If you were smart, you would have never started a business in the first place.

That's why they are owners, but ideas come from other ones, who are imployed by them.

Hi Gordon,

I believe there are some people that are not cut out for business. They may not have the discipline, the drive etc. that is need to become a successful entrepreneur. However, I would not say a lot of small business owners are stupid, they may not be as knowledgeable as you think they should be, but no one was born knowing everything. It is a process, it takes time to learn, so hopefully these small business owners are becoming more knowledgeable as time goes by.

As someone that owns several businesses I can tell you all business owners are not stupid...

plus adding that I invest in several tech startups that bring new things to marketing, I'm way ahead of most.

I recently bought a company that will bring a new idea to mobile sign ups. I guarantee you that within a week or two of the idea going viral on the internet I'll get a load of people calling some of my companies pitching
the idea.

What I've always been amused by is that once I see a guru pitching an idea, small business phone lines are bombarded with sales calls.

There are business owners that are unaware of new technology...which is why most of it is suspect.

My belief if that most business owners just don't have time to do all the internet stuff so are willing to hire someone to do it. But they're not looking for someone that comes in and just immediately starts pitching new age stuff.

Another turn off is someone calling from 4 states away or another country that wants to handle your local marketing.

I've always said, there's a gold mine right outside the door in your own hometown.

There's a ton of money to be made locally.

ADDED: Get off the phone and walk in to your local businesses and offer your services.

I know many small buisness owners and they are not stupid!

You need to understand the dynamics of business management before you begin to make your statement that has not been empirically proofed.Owner of small businesses should be credit for their willingness to take risk.Let us do everything to encourage them.

I completely understand your point, because I have been in the trenches and trying to sell effective digital services to many different small business people. However, we have to accept that many people out there simply do not understand that having a website does not assure them of participating in the digital economy!
For a great many folks, the world of the internet, of building funnels, of setting up social media campaigns, of communicating on the WWW is a very confronting, obscure practice!

Many of these people listen to their friends, colleagues, customers and read blogs-and they gain a certain picture. We are confronted by such a range of understanding. For each business area the outcomes are achieved in different ways.
This is why it is valuable to focus on one, specific business type and become the 'go to guy' in your area; there are too many of us trying to be generalists.

The digital divide continues to be the differentiation point of success, there is no absolute solution!
We have to speak the language of our chosen community, and commit to helping them, we need to explain our benefits, the value of what we offer, and make them understand.
Best of luck

Wow! this was really a great post. There are so many useful information in a single thread. Really i appreciate this post.

Also, we should bear in mind the money. People don't like losing money. The fear of losing money greater than profit expectations.

I don't think like you.

My prediction for Warrior Forum 2022 ...


Prolly this post gonna be bumped without appearin' to be bumped.

I don't agree with that, we must salute them for being positive, having the courage to do the business, they might start from crafts but what important is the goal they have for the long run. It is normal to start from nothing because as time goes by if the owner is dedicated and committed for sure, success will come. There are so many things that we should compliment., in my opinion, we should not underestimate them, they might be an asset, who knows. I myself have plans to build a business, small business to start with because I still need to work on my funds.

They probably stupid because they don't know how to put their business on the internet and scale it.

If you speak of failure you will fail.

If you talk a lot of money.
You will get a lot of money.

Antony Robbin

Nope, I don't think they are stupid. I rather admired them, a lot of well known businessman started from scratch.

Success is subjective. Just because an SMB owner is not focusing on maximizing profits doesn't mean he's stupid. It means he has other priorities. Some people prefer a higher quality of life and more free time over a bigger bank balance.