The Most Important Lesson I learned From Harvard Business Review

Early in my career I'd been a regular reader of Harvard Business Review. The articles and insights were rewarding and the takeaways many. There was one article, however, that made an impact to such a degree that it formed one of my guiding principles as a marketing communications manager and later advertising director. The article's premise was this: small companies cannot afford to behave like big companies.

By "behave like big companies" they meant spending. When big companies sneeze they spend more money than our entire net worth. As companies (and governments) get bloated, they become bloated and wasteful in their spending. This is something little companies cannot afford.

When Microsoft bought Nokia for $7.6 billion it was the kind of goof that only a big company can make. Three years later Microsoft wrote off the the loss and 8000 jobs were terminated, but the company continues to roll along. Small companies can't be so careless.

The same with spending on new product launches. Big companies spend, according to one article I'd read last year, something like $73 million to launch a new product. What small company, whose entire revenue stream may be less than $10 or $100 million can spend this kind of money to launch products? It's silly.

Instead, small companies have to be more resourceful and think like Scotsmen. I'm a MacGregor on my mother's side, so it comes natural to be thrifty, frugal, use more prudence when spending. As a result, in both companies I served in an advertising/marketing/PR capacity, I treated the company's money the way I treated my own, always striving to get the best ROI, not being wasteful. In both cases we experienced years of double-digit growth, not through massive spending blitzes but through guerrilla tactics and non-traditional approaches to markets.

Here are two articles from Harvard Business Review related to this message:

Seven Keys to Switching from a Big Company to a Small One

A Small Business Is Not a Little Big Business

Much more can be said, but let's leave that for another time. Have a great weekend. TGIF.