Small doesn’t necessarily mean local anymore
Reading this post on the Duct Tape Marketing blog inspired me to think about how technology has not only really changed how businesses conduct their day-to-day tasks, but how it has altered the fundamental expectation of what a small business is. Gone are the days when small business = local business. Technology has allowed a geographic and temporal shift, making it easier to reach customers and collaborators who sometimes live in completely different continents and time zones.
An example that I’m personally familiar with is a small natural beauty products company that friends of mine run. One of the owners is in Los Angeles, on the West Coast of the United States. The other lives in North Carolina, on the East Coast. They collaborate using the regular tools of phone and email, but also employ VOIP to save on phone bills. Online collaboration tools from Zoho and 37 Signals allow them to share and edit documents in real time and track the progress of their projects. A company website and online advertising helps reach their customers, Paypal handles invoicing and payment, and online estimation and tracking tools from the United States Postal Service and UPS get estimates for shipping.
This has allowed them to run their business more efficiently and extend the reach of their business beyond their respective towns, enabling them to reach customers they may never have been in contact with otherwise. (As a side note, isn’t it amazing that email is now commonplace when just 15 years ago, its use was still relatively limited?)
How has technology helped you expand your business beyond the confines of your local geography? What technology products do you use to run your business more efficiently? What technologies do you wish existed to allow you to achieve your geographical expansion goals? (yes, teleporters are fair game, but you heard it here first!)
