I am grateful for the opportunity to have heard Sir Richard Branson speak at the National Retail Federation Retail’s Big Show conference in New York today. He talked about small business and the challenge of competition against much bigger competitors.
Over the decades, Brandon’s businesses have taken on plenty of big competitors. In Australia, for example, we first saw this when they enter east the air space with Virgin Australia.
Branson’s key messages for taking on a big competitor are simple. The small business needs to:
- Provide better service.
- Provide better value – through knowledge and more.
- Be closer to the customer.
- Move faster.
- Have more fun.
- share the fun.
These points are not new. However, Branson pitched them with examples of how he did this with success in a range of small businesses with much bigger competitors.
It is easy to too a big competitor and allow their sheer size turn us away from playing to our strengths as a nimble locally engaged small business.
This conference is a big deal on the retail calendar. This year there is in excess of 30,000 attendees at the conference and massive trade show. The topics being covered include high street retail, small business retail, big data, security, online and some excellent outside the border of history opportunities that I will not cover here.