Let’s Be Honest, Size Matters

There’s a big white elephant in the room (or sometimes a tiny white elephant in the room) and that is size. You keep hearing people say that size doesn’t matter- in business, in social media, sometime in boxer briefs- but let’s call it like it is- it’s not really true. When you get to the debate of quantity vs. quality, the real answer is that both matter.

Anyone who purely says that size doesn’t matter is lying or gravely misinformed.

Typically, if you look at the people who say that size doesn’t matter, they usually fall into one of two categories

1- They have size. It is easy to patronize everyone else with the “size doesn’t matter speech” when you are in the “big” category.

2- They don’t have any size. On the other end of the spectrum, if you aren’t well endowed (in business or otherwise), you want to create a justification for being small and start believing your own delusions.

In social media, people say that size doesn’t matter- it is better to have a few loyal fans than 20,000 or more. I call bullshit. You want to have both. The big number, although perhaps not truly indicative of your following, establishes credibility that helps you secure partnerships, other followers and more. Of course, you want the quality fans too, but that doesn’t mean you should favor one over the other. Three loyal fans, unless they have a lot of influence (and money) are not the be-all-end-all to your business.

The same is true with business. Scale establishes credibility, which in turn helps you to secure better clients, vendor terms and relationships, service provider relationships and more. This doesn’t mean that you have to be the biggest company in your geographic region, but being teeny-tiny is going to have disadvantages, plain and simple.

And in other areas where you hear that the motion of the ocean is more important than the size of the boat, well that may be true, unless the boat is so small that you have no idea when it is in the harbor.

The point is that size does matter. You don’t have to be the biggest participant, but you have to have some critical mass to establish credibility in your selected domain.