The importance of SMEs to the
economy has been reflected in the
wealth and diversity of research which
has appeared over the past two decades.
Since the 1980s and particularly in the
1990s there has been an explosion of
research into entrepreneurship and the
small and medium-sized enterprise.1–12
The link between entrepreneurism and
small businesses has been examined and
reported on, and the similarities between
the characteristics of successful small
businesses and entrepreneurs put under
the microscope. Competence in
marketing is often cited as a key
determinant in the success of the small
firm, many authors13–20 go so far as to
say that lack of marketing skill is a key
cause of company failure, which goes
rather further than statements to the
effect that lack of marketing limits
success. There are many practical
publications of the ‘How to do
marketing in small businesses’ variety and
many nuts and bolts manuals on running
elements of a marketing campaign.
Carson21 sees the characteristics of
successful small business owners as ‘being
highly motivated, ambitious, domineering
and inspirational’. In his view, small
business owners tend to be generalists
rather than specialists, they take risks, and
are task oriented. In most cases the
owner-manager is personally involved in
all aspects of the firm’s operations and his
or her culture and background play a
distinct and important part. Carson also
states that inadequate marketing is a
commonly identified reason for small
business failure and is recognised as a
weakness for small businesses generally.
The scope of marketing is often
misunderstood by small businesses which
regard marketing from an operational
sales-orientated perspective (’I don’t need
a marketing man, I want men who can
sell!’).
Smallbone22 concluded that marketing