Owner To Owner Podcast

Ross Cameron from Cameron Research shares some of his favorite and funniest small business owner wisdom based on 30 years of research.

Episode Summary

Ross Cameron from Cameron Research has personally interviewed thousands of small business owners. In this episode and based on that deep insight he debunks some common misunderstandings and distills some of his favorite small business wisdom.

Episode Notes

@RossCameron is the owner of Cameron Research Group who researches #smallbusinessowners. Since starting 30 years ago he's personally done a few thousand face-to-face interviews and more than 700 focus groups. 

He didn't set out to be a small business owner himself. He worked for a company that did similar sort of research and then went overseas. When he came back to Australia he had some bright ideas he thought would make a million bucks. They didn't quite play out so when he needed cash flow he thought  "I'll do a little bit of market research." 

Back then there was no one really focusing on small and medium-sized businesses (#SME). No one was really giving SMEs the time of day and he just found that completely bizarre. 97% to 98% of the businesses in the country had less than 20 people and nobody was actually interested in what they have to say! 

In this time he's marvelled at the unique personal motivations, #resilience and #wisdom of business owners. He's also heard some really funny stories. Here's some of what Ross talks about;

• why most SMEs don't actually want to grow
• how people who run a business can "take it in the ring" and when they get knocked down they'll dust themselves off  and bloody show up again
• the feeling of being  "king of the world" one minute and then when things are down looking in the mirror and hearing that great song Nowhere To Run To Baby, Nowhere To Hide
• owners putting their #heartandsoul into it
• the misnomer that business owners are risk seekers, that they're nuts - they're not that way at all - there was just an opportunity that made common sense
• 17% of these businesses he interviewed actually want to grow and 83% are actually trying to achieve different things not about business growth including achieving and maintaining a particular lifestyle
• #lifestyleseekers
• #passionateprofessionals
• how society puts a lot of pressure on these owners for not growing
• what a very lonely place it can be  and why it's so important for business owners need to stay connected with other business owners, because no one understands the blows and no one can really call it like another business owner
• @smallbusinessmentoringservices in Victoria
• the difficulty for business owners in employing somebody else to truly run the business independently
• the tale of the customer who said  "if you don't sell that to me for 150 bucks, I'm going to put a spell on you." and the business owners response 'you're 25 years, too late. I had a spell put on me when I bought this bloody business 25 years ago."