Blog Yes & Know

If your business is targeted by a larger competitor, the natural response is to want to play defense--to squeeze pricing, take special care of the channel, maybe do some promotions and guerrilla marketing. We'd never advise you to take your eye off a competitor, but the defensive reaction isn't always the best way to fight. A larger competitor will expect you to do these things, and will usually be well prepared for siege warfare. They'll be ready to match your pricing and outspend you in the channel in order to drive you out of the market. Sometimes the best defense isn't defending at all, it's finding ways to grow the market. If your customers are still early in the adoption curve, and especially if there are new segments you can open up, it's usually more cost-effective for you to bring in new users than it is to defend every inch of the turf you hold today.

SME / SMB's--once the Holy Grail of the industry--appear to be a highly coveted group. Moving from being an enterprise player to play in the mid-market is incredibly challenging. We've worked with a few companies of late who have asked us to come in and help them achieve this new market summit. Having done this a bunch with some Silicon Valley blue chip names, I can see the common pitfalls they face and want to tell you how to avoid them.