I was talking with one of my best friends about my business model. We were talking about the fact that I enjoyed working in small business entrepreneurs. These were often small businesses trying to start out or trying to stay strong in a competitive market. They had dreams and lots of potential. They had the drive to branch out of conventional lives and try to go for freedom and growth. They usually had a great story to tell of how and why they got into their businesses and why they continued on the path.
We continued to talk about how this market could be skittish as they didn’t always feel they had the ability to pay or had not realized they needed the help of outside professionals. She brought it home when she likened it to a pond full of fish. She said that ‘We go for the Small Fish.” These fish were not the easiest fish to catch or to help grow. They were not the bigger fish with bigger budgets and lots of media needs. They were the small fish that had wide needs to support however they needed to take time to grow. They were the fish that didn’t make it on most marketing firm’s radars.
This friend of mine has always been so brilliant She then went on to say that “There are plenty of fish, we don’t need all the fish, we just need some of the fish.” This was a very satisfying analogy and made me think of my overcrowded fish tank. We used to have some goldfish and other larger fish in the tank. Over the years the larger fish died and we ended up with only guppies. There were no larger fish to control the guppy population. So as each batch of guppies was born. they grew and lived an easy life in the tank. This sounds idea, but without the larger fish to control the smaller fish population, the tank became so over crowded that the fish were not growing to size and were dying early.
To bring this back to my business… I wanted to be there for the smaller fish in the marketplace, I wanted to help them grow into larger fish and be the ones to survive and flourish. We were not going to take out the big fish in the market, but we are going to make our mark and build our own flavor. I believed in the power of the spirit of these young companies. So I have chosen this forgotten market of individualistic scamps.
Here is to the Little Fish. May we all grow and prosper making the market place a more interesting and healthy place for all.
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