Re: SMB Linux approaches?

On Sunday, March 21, 2004, at 12:16 PM, Chris Maeda wrote:
>
>
> You may also find your biggest objection is the fact that QuickBooks
> doesn't run on Linux.
>

That is so true. QuickBooks is the essential missing app.

Your FAQ is too technical.

One thing that has worked for me with highly non-technical and even 
math phobic groups is to connect their mental models of cars with the 
mental models of software. SMBs understand "lease, rent, buy" in cars. 
Most buy, some lease.  So I go from utility computing as the extreme 
end of leasing to Linux as the extreme end of owning.

Beware of TLAs. Each TLA decreases by 10% the people who will keep 
reading.

Linux: buy it, own it, use it, run it, keep it, expand it or shrink it
Other: use once, pay once.  use twice, pay twice

Put a little decision tree on there


Today - linux, X$   nxt yr Linux - 0$,  MS y$  (total cost)

Today - ms, Y$   nxt yr Linux - 0$,  MS y$  (total cost)

Use some of Hal's listing of benefits.
Find some examples in their industry - pick some on-line store that 
uses linux.

Have a nail care salon that has a background image of fingernails with 
bits over it, one with a ledge for bits over it.  Make a generic 
brochure, put in ten different images for the ten most dense markets in 
your town. For some el mondo bizarro reason my town has maybe forty 
nail places. I had nails done once- the day I got married - but have 
noticed the local concentration. My point is that your local area will 
have some clustering also. What is it? Dentists? Vets? Replacing the 
central image will be fairly easy and will illustrate that you are 
marketing 1:1 - to their needs not to what you are selling.

Anyway, this free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it because 
I have zero expertise in addressing SMB.

-Jean