BC Startup Sales Podcast – Overcoming SMB Inertia with Kevin Petry (Booker)

Overcoming SMB inertia is a major problem for many folks that listen to the Bowery Capital Startup Sales Podcast. While a new generation of IT buyer is emerging in several categories like restaurants, health & wellness facilities, and other brick-and-mortar locations it still is extremely difficult to get a small business to change their mindset and shift off of existing IT tools or buy something new. This week, we had Kevin Petry from Booker on to discuss the problem of “Overcoming SMB Inertia.” We’ve covered the SMB category before focused generally on the high-velocity nature of the sale but never discussed overcoming SMB inertia. Of all the experts we could have had on the show to discuss overcoming SMB inertia Kevin knows this problem first hand from a 30+ year career selling into small businesses. Before joining Booker, Kevin held sales leadership roles at FrontFlip, Groupon, Rubicon Interactive, and Entertainment Publications. He is an industry expert in SMB customer acquisition and retention having been involved in organizations that have acquired over a combined one million SMBs.

We started the discussion on some of the specific high level thoughts around the mindset of a small business and what overcoming SMB inertia actually means. Then we dive in to the 4 key reasons that these SMBs tend to say no and Kevin responds with specific tactical lessons that he has learned throughout his career. We cover each of the 4 in the same manner and for anyone selling into the small business category Kevin gives the listener a fair amount of ways to overcome the specific challenges around each of these. We close with a high level of what to do if none of your strategies are working and also touch on knowing when to kill a deal versus keeping the conversation going.

If you liked “Overcoming SMB Inertia” and want to read more content from the Bowery Capital Team, check out other relevant posts from the Bowery Capital Blog. If you haven’t already, head over to iTunes and subscribe to the podcast to get all our new content each week!

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