Big vs small company influence: are you a church or a key maker? Episode 68

John Mark Troyer – The Geek Whisperers

Big company, small company – does it matter when you’re trying to sway people with community and influence marketing? Since influence is earned, does it really matter if you work for a giant church of technology or a small startup? Will people drive miles for the best chai?

• John says that he had a harder time getting people to pay attention when he was at a startup than when he was at VMware. He likened being a startup to being a tiny mouse standing on a cup.
• Matt, now at a startup, says that although he has a much bigger relative share of voice inside his company, his overall potential audience is smaller.
• Amy refutes: social media has changed the game, or at least the relative difficulty of using a multiple of tools that make you look bigger than you actually are.
• At a small company, everybody has 10 jobs – so there is often no one social media or influencer marketing or evangelist role.
• At a small company, goals may be more tactical.
• Do you need to be selling big expensive products to afford to hire a community manager?
• How does the company even know you’re doing the right thing, contacting the right people?
• How does a small company create that “X” factor?
• Veeam certainly did it.
• Bay area startups are starting to hire community managers very early.
• Does influence go with the company or with the person? Can you go from a large company to a small company and keep your influence?
• Good influence marketing is relatively cheap, so company size may be irrelevant.
• John has been reading a lot of Paul Ford. @ftrain.
• tilde.club
• Would John Troyer always have been John Troyer without VMware?
• Effort = Ability.
• The Anna Karenina Principle: Big companies are all alike, but small companies are all unhappy in their own way. There might be a wide range of influence programs in a small company, but in a big company all influence marketing programs are all alike.
• Maybe it’s easier to be influential at a small company where you have more of your own voice rather than having to echo the corporate voice.
• The consensus seems to be that the big company ammo is balanced out by small company freedom. Your influence is up to you.
• John’s key-restaurant-church theory: some companies are like churches, some are like restaurants, and some are like key makers. It’s easier to do influence marketing for a church (often a big company) than a key maker (often a small company)
• John’s chai guy, Raman Bechar, differentiates himself by making great chai, and only making it his way. Best cup of chai this side of Bombay. (He’s moved down the road a bit since that article, but is still in Half Moon Bay.)