Some issues in talking to and about SMEs. Communications // planning. An old presentation on some categorization issues in talking to (or about) SMEs in Ireland.

1. SOME THOUGHTS ON TALKING TO & ABOUT SMES
SME
LARGE
BUSINESS
START-
UP
JUNE 2016
THE AWKWARD MIDDLE CHILD
SMEs: the awkward
middle child
some issues in talking to and about SMEs

2. STUNT
THINKING FOR
CULTURAL
INSIGHTS
QUIDDITY

3. when we talk about businesses generally,
we often do so in terms of their size e.g
"small" or "big" business,
corporations, etc.
the problem with SMEs is that it’s very
difficult to talk about them coherently in
this way…

4. The SME category straddles a huge
qualitative gap between the oppositions that
distinguish descriptions (+ shared
experiences) of individual entrepreneurs,
start-ups and micro businesses from large
businesses and corporates.
SMEs
start-ups / micro business /
entrepreneurs
large business / corporates
- personal
- passionate
- nimble
- agile
- risky
- impersonal
- rational
- bureaucratic
- stable
- proven
is your conception of SMEs closer
to the left or right? What about the
middle?

5. start-ups / micro business /
entrepreneurs
large business / corporates
- personal
- passionate
- nimble
- youthful
- agile
- aspiring
- impersonal
- rational
- hierarchical
- experienced
- stable
- proven
MOST BUSINESSES IN IRELAND
LIE WITHIN THIS MASSIVE
QUALITATIVE GAP BETWEEN THE
CORPORATE WORLD (ITS
STRUCTURES, NORMS,
LANGUAGE) + THE CHAOTIC
WORLD INHABITED BY START-UPS
& SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS.
SMEs straddle a huge gap between the oppositions that
distinguish individual entrepreneurs, start-ups and micro
businesses from large businesses and corporates.

6. It’s hard to find shared experiences
amongst such a diverse group, so we don’t
have cultural myths about SMEs in the
way that we do about entrepreneurs, start-
ups, and micro-businesses or even large
corporate + multinationals.

7. and because they’re more
difficult to talk about generally
than other categories of
business, they often don’t get
talked about.
the sme gap!

8. When they are represented culturally, it’s often through
metaphors that allude to this invisibility and silence: as the
"engine" or "unsung heroes" of the economy (the bits you
don’t really see or hear!)…

9. Or else, it’s a collective moan, expressed through a
discourse of struggle to survive or be heard…

10. ultimately, many cultural representations of
business in mass media are focused on
the extremes of business experience
(start/maturity-big/small)…this makes
sense for mass narratives & story-telling…
but not always for category
communications aimed at SMEs.

11. the difficulties in constructing
resonant SME narratives for the
mass of SMEs between micro- and
massive is mirrored in category
communications aimed at the
sector…

12. SMEs
start-ups / micro business
/ entrepreneurs
large business /
corporates
- personal
- passionate
- nimble
- youthful
- agile
- aspiring
- impersonal
- rational
- hierarchical
- experienced
- stable
- proven
Communications within banking, telecoms & utilities tend to
represent businesses in the SME sector in one of three ways:
1. an idealised small/micro business (essentially an indie
form of the entrepreneur myth);
2. a mini-corporate (an idealised version of the 'big’ business
trying to sell to them);
3. an invisible sme (with the bank/telco’s priorities projected
onto them).
1. the idealised small/micro business 2. the mini-corporate
3. the invisible sme

13. 1. the idealised small (micro) business

14. IN THE ABSENCE OF A COHERENT SME NARRATIVE, AN
IDEALISED SMALL/MICRO BUSINESS MYTH IS CO-OPTED
FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS.
THIS IS A ROMANTICISED VERSION OF THE
ENTREPRENEUR MYTH. THE IMAGES CONNOTE
INDEPENDENCE, FREEDOM, SACRIFICE AND SUCCESS.
IT TENDS TO REPRESENT THE SME SECTOR AS
DOMINATED BY FOOD AND CRAFT BUSINESSES, AND
SPECIALIST RETAIL.
(ARE THESE IMAGES MORE REPRESENTATIVE OF BUSINESS CUSTOMERS THAT WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE THAN OF THE CUSTOMERS YOU HAVE OR ARE TARGETING?)
1. the idealised small (micro) business

15. 2. the mini- (or actual) corporate

16. THIS NARRATIVE REPRESENTS SMEs AS
MINI-CORPORATES: BUSINESSES THAT
LOOK LIKE YOU, TALK LIKE YOU, AND
WORK IN BUILDINGS LIKE YOURS.
2. the mini- (or actual) corporate

17. 3. the invisible sme
While both the idealised micro-business and the mini-corporate
representations are (contrasting) attempts to capture shared
experiences among SMEs, a third representation exists to
undermine both: the invisible SME.
This representation uses safe and non-committal images
and text (or no images/text) to represent SMEs, with no
attempt made to convey any real insight into or
understanding of the sector.

18. This representation might be seen as tacit acknowledgement
of the difficulty in constructing narratives based on shared
SME experiences.
This lack of insight is compounded by titles, urls that construct
SMEs as sharing suppliers’ priorities (their energy use),
rather than their own (turnover, survival, etc.)…
3. the invisible sme

19. Reviewing category communications often demonstrates
the difficulty (or impossibility) in creating narratives that can
speak to a majority of SMEs, particularly if we try to make
sense of them solely in terms of size.
In addition, they also reflect a tendency to create customer
proxies that are:
- romantic (the type of customer you’d like to have)
- recognisable (look like you);
- share your priorities (energy usage most important).

20. WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THESE FIRMS
FIT TYPICAL SME REPRESENTATIONS?

21. The fundamental, problem is that the SME
designation itself invites you to make
sense of companies by their size only.
It makes 'size' the relevant categorisation
of a business.
And that restricts the range of narratives
available to you.

22. SME company discourses

23. SMEsstart-ups / micro business /
entrepreneurs
large business / corporates
- personal
- passionate
- nimble
- youthful
- agile
- aspiring
- impersonal
- rational
- hierarchical
- experienced
- stable
- proven
Quite a lot of talk about SMEs/businesses constructs the
experience of business ownership as a GROWTH
trajectory (left-to-right)…out of the SME category.

24. Indeed, when SMEs (those firms that fill
the gap between micro- and corporate) are
talking generally about their business,
many represent their current
categorisation (start-up, small, SME) as
a temporary status, which they are
hoping or trying to graduate from…

25. growing / trying to grow
"We plan to keep building as we have been. Capacity
is key to the amount of clients we can work with.
Ideally, we'll expand and be able to take on more
staff."
.
"We will shortly be launching another recruitment drive for a
number of newly created roles within the expanding business.
We're working on expanding our range of personal tax services
and on continuing to increase market share within our
specialist area."
"We’ve recorded robust growth across all of our channels.
We are very much in ‘drive on’ mode now after coming
out of a very difficult recessionary period in the country."

26. However, many SMEs aren’t
growing: they don’t want to grow
(because they’re happy with what
they’ve got) or they can’t grow
(because they’re struggling)…

27. not growing / struggling or stable
"At the moment, we’re just hanging on. See what happens.
That’s all you do. We had one full time fella, and we used to
have a couple of part times. We don’t bother with them
anymore, we let them go and just do it all ourselves now."
"We expect the milk market to remain competitive
and we will continue to adapt our business to maintain
our share of trade."
"We are very conservative about how we want to grow
the company. We don’t want to compromise our technical
integrity by growing beyond our grasp."

28. So, the growth narrative is not always a
unifying one and using it to make sense of all
SMEs can exclude many…
As with similar cultural + category SIZE
discourses, these GROWTH narratives
simplify their experiences, stripping them of
detail and context.

29. When SMEs talk about themselves, we notice
they have other narratives available to
construct their experience…and these tend
to make sense of the business / business
owner by what they do and who they are,
rather than just by their size.
Thus, SECTOR narratives (common cultural
myths & shared experiences to communicate
proposition to SME firms within that sector) and
SELF narratives (connecting propositions to
personal values; connecting work to identity & lives
outside work) appear to have broader emotional
resonance & relevance.

30. emmet@quiddity.ie
2016