What Defines a “Small Business”?

The year closing and it seems all we are hearing is of the talk about healthcare and what it will do to small businesses.

What is the best definition of a small business? $5 million or $20 million in sales or under 50 people employed? Does 100 employees grant a big business?

Who actually knows the answer? We prefer to define small business as those that are under 50 employees and innovate quickly, introduce unusual products to differentiate themselves or their products from others and operate year round without losing or laying off employees.

We refer to this product differentiation as a fusion of product design and technology.

For example, we actively seek out innovative designs and new products and receive many emails back about our 'cool' designs and as a small business owner we see these comments as positive and our gamble to innovate as a success story.

(Cool used to describe the new VinoPaQ™ wine BarrelPaQ® pouch and very cool for the new graphics on the draft beer StadiumPaQ™. The variety 12 pack was described as the ShotBox)

We operate a very diverse business in that we sell to the liquor, food, chemical, household segments and across many global markets. Nothing is the routine or the same here!

Each year at this time we look at what went wrong during the year, and ask could we have prevented it and how to recover for next year.

This new business plan is very tough in that we only want to include items that are innovative or use a patent and that the sale can be achieved with the least disruption by competitors.

For example how many machines can PGS sell in 2010? What brands can we sell? What markets need our machines and then we decide what innovation disruption our competitors will throw at the customer to stop the sale. After that, we finalize our budget.

In the BPG market we look at how many more states will be approved for ShotPak®? How can we find the right distributor and partner? How can we convince 100 outlets to buy our 22 Ready-To-Drink cocktail products on a weekly basis? How to introduce our new very GREEN 'Bag-without-a-Box' to the wineries? What's the theme for our new nutraceutical waters? What sport or stadium would be the best to introduce the CarboPouch® for draft beers designed to replace paper cups?

Both divisional plans are fully discussed, scenarios are played back and forth and then we analyze what we think the competitors will do to disrupt our sales team's efforts.

From this we have learned over the years all about disruptive activities in today's commercial world. Big emphasis is made on the new social networks and how they can disrupt plans.

Think how quickly a bad experience can be broadcast by Twitter or a video of an event posted on My Space or Facebook.

Simply said, we ask what can go wrong to prevent sales, rather than how many can you sell and to what disruption can occur to stop the sale?

Imagine our sales team is thinking why won't we sell, rather than we can sell so many units and then hope for the best.

This disruption technique approach forces us to design and be innovative to stay ahead and make the sale and as a small business we can introduce our ideas much faster if competitor disruption becomes a headache.

So next time you wonder why you lost the sale ask yourself what was the disruption that caused failure and how could you have prevented it?

Best wishes from our staff for the Holiday Season.