Read any business magazine or newspaper and what you will see are stories about large corporations and their executives. What you will not see, except in a few specialized journals, are stories about small businesses. There are many things that large corporations can learn from small businesses.

Sales

Everyone is in sales. Most large corporations have sales organizations with sales managers and executives. They also have extensive sales processes and infrastructure. The key for a small business is that it is up to everyone to sell. All the time and regardless of role.

Customers

Customers are the beginning and the end and everything in between for small businesses. Somehow large corporations lose sight of that fact. They create special, complex and inflexible points for touching new and existing customers. In a small business, everything is about the customer. Part of that includes making things as easy for the customer as possible.

Planning

Large corporations are not the only businesses that do planning. I have yet to meet a small business owner who does not have a business plan on their desk on in their brief case. The difference is that in a large corporation they are organizations that handle business planning. And there are designated people in each organization who do the business planning. In a small business, business planning is above and beyond the