Can Technology Help You Grow Your SME Business?

What’s the secret of a great SME business? How much would you invest to learn why certain entrepreneurs succeed in every venture they start? Do you believe great entrepreneurs are born or made? Last week I shared a new role I’m taking on as A Sage Global Business Expert.  Thank you for all your kind words of support and sharing it with your communities. I really appreciated it.

Sage and I would like to invite you to participate in a twitter chat on the topic of ‘Enterprise and Entrepreneurship’ on June 28th, 12 noon (EST) #SageInspire @sagegroupplc. This will be a great opportunity to see why I joined their team.  This event is designed to open the conversation related to Enterprise and how technology is furthering growth in SME business.

This is one of the topics I share with my SME (Small to Mid-size Enterprise) clients. To be candid, I’m so passionate about it whenever I decide to have a corporate seizure, this is what they tell me why they hire me. I always thought it was boyish charm and rugged good looks. They are always quick to remind me it’s all about increasing revenue, profitable growth, and increasing market share.

Today I thought I’d share a technology adoption process I use and help implement with my SME clients. The key question I use to engage and empower my SME clients is: If we can, should we? The response I get is what do you mean? I’m saying just because technology can do it, is it a good decision for you to do it? It’s the key concepts of my SME coaching. I believe elimination is more important than addition for many SME CEOs. Most have way too many things to do every day. We will talk about this in detail on future blogs.

How can technologies help you manage and lead your organizations better? Will the technology you acquire make a noticeable difference in your customers’ lives? For my SME CEOs: Will it make a difference in how you do your job? Meaning, does it make your life easier and provide you with the freedom you expected when you founded your business?

Over the next two blogs I’ll show you where I believe the leverage exists in your business. As importantly, how we can leverage technology to give you control of your emerging SME organization? As importantly have fun doing it!

Good technology helps you manage your business. Great technology provides you the platform for extraordinary success and profits. Your most important technology isn’t technology. It’s your people. Success in technology and your business comes down to empowering your people with tools they need to become more autonomous in how they deal with potential customers, clients, and partners.

If you want technology to do this, you must be willing to invest in helping your people get up to speed with leveraging technologies. In the past, it was an option to use technology in your business. The speed of change, global competition and your fast-evolving markets now ensure you need technology in your business if you intend to grow your business.

This is where I typically do my poor imitation of “I want my MTV.” You can hear it, can’t you? The anthem for our generation. The music video revolution.  This time imagine it being your next generation of organizational leaders saying “I want my tech nol logy” and a great guitar riff playing in the background as you millennials go to work on your business on their mobile devices.

Now back to future. Show up on Thursday at the twitter chat and I guarantee you’ll be glad you did. If you retweet and share your ideas, but don’t get what you want from the event, drop me a note and we will do a webinar on what you were hoping to learn by attending.

Thursday I’ll begin sharing at Developing High Performing Teams what technology can do for your SME. It will lead up to our chat on Thursday at 12:00.

I share the blog in the morning early and then see you at the chat on Thursday!