The pandemic affected and continues to affect both individuals and businesses. Everything is in doubt, uncertainty is very high, businesses accelerated their "virtualization" to survive.

In this uncertain context, there was something that surprised me. Reading the latest report from Fundación Observatorio Pyme (FOP) it was indicated that for 57% of SMEs, their main concern was sales. And another FOP survey indicated that: less than 9% of SMEs had initiated some action to reverse their sales.

This is contradictory, because despite detecting their main problem, most do nothing about it. And so, they continue in that vicious circle added to a pandemic environment that will trigger worse results if they do not take action on the matter.

The 3 fatal mistakes that SMEs are making could lead to their demise in an uncertain and hostile environment:

First, they don't really know their customers. Years of working with companies have taught me that the vast majority of SMEs "perfectly know their products" but really know little about their customers and the problems that their products solve. In a hostile context like the current one, it can be crucial for your survival.

On the other hand, stubbornness to maintain the "Status Quo" turns out to be the second mistake. In my interviews with SME owners over the last ten years, this point comes up early in my conversations with them repeatedly. I hear phrases like: "We've always done it this way and it worked" or "my father who founded this company did it this way for decades and grew it and why do I have to change?"

These phrases are one of the main reasons why the rate of disappearance of SMEs is so high in Argentina, but this does not happen only here but in the world. Of the total number of companies that 10 years ago were on the Fortune 500 list, only 20% have survived.

Third, the most common mistake is a sales force trained for a world that no longer exists. I mean, when was the last time you trained your sales team? Or did you train yourself as an owner in new business strategies for a new world with a new type of millennial consumer?

Sometimes they've been teaching their new salespeople the same way for "decades" and in other cases they have salespeople for decades who "know their stuff" and "always did it that way and it worked."

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But I am afraid to tell you a harsh reality, the world has changed and a very important part of the commercial results of SMEs is due to the fact that they use a form and commercial method that has expired forever, which makes the future look with many dark clouds if SMEs unfortunately continue in "zombie mode" or "status quo mode".

What can we do to resolve the conflict? Where to start?

There are two possible paths that SME owners must decide, on the one hand, the Path of the Status Quo and pray that the world changes and returns to what it was in the past or the path of an "obsessively" oriented company " to the client and their problems making you "strong" in a smaller but profitable niche.

To start and achieve better results, I recommend 1) Inventory of clients and time allocated to each one; I ask each one of them to put together a list applying the 80/20 rule thinking about the best clients, what niche they belong to, what their characteristics are, etc. 2) Follow up for 30 days with which clients your SME "spends" time. This action has generated a phenomenal impact and an "emotional shock" in SMEs.

Of every 10 companies I've worked with this initial action: 84% didn't know who their top 20% were or "believed" they were customers and "discovered" they were others. 92% of the time they were spending it on their worst 80% of their customers while "neglecting" their best 20% because they were spending time on "the most nagging or nagging customers" or unbelievably quitting or not spending their most time and effort on it. your best customers.

For example, in the companies that we have seen that have reversed this and have applied this action that we recommend, they have had growth in their sales on average of more than 45% in just 180 days and in a pandemic that is no less .

The second way is to define what kind of companies you are today. It is impossible to make any change in life and business without knowing where we are.

As a recommendation, it is extremely important that SMEs get to know their customers, know what their needs are in order to satisfy them and that they foster long-term relationships with each one of them so that they later trust in the business of the company. company and refer them to colleagues and owners of other companies with the purpose of achieving more and better sales results.