A lot of smaller business owners spend too much time worrying about the big guys. They look at competitors with bigger budgets, bigger teams, bigger websites and bigger brands, and they start to feel like they are playing a lesser game.

Don’t worry, I understand, I did that when I first started out in business, until I had more experience with the bigger guys and I realised they weren’t necessarily better, they were just bigger.

But bigger does not always mean better. Sometimes bigger just means slower, clunkier, more disconnected and harder to deal with. And that is where being small can become a serious competitive advantage.

Recently when I needed some pest control done at home. We have dogs, plenty of wildlife around us, and I had no interest in nuking everything in sight just to get rid of a few unwanted creepy crawlies. The most important thing for me was finding a treatment that was safe for pets, people and wildlife.

So, of course, I asked ChatGPT to find me the best pest control company in my city that could work to my parameters. The biggest name in the industry came up first and they were highly recommended by Chat. Their website looked impressive and, according to the site, they offered exactly what I needed, specifically a safe option.

Great. Job done. Or so I thought. I filled in the online enquiry form and waited. A full week later, I had heard nothing. No phone call, no email, no text message, not even an automated “thanks for your enquiry” response.

My unwanted tenants were getting worse, so I resorted to going analog and picked up the phone. The person who answered sounded like I had interrupted their day. I explained that nobody had responded to my online enquiry. There was no apology, no concern, no “let me look into that for you”, no sense whatsoever that this was a reflection on their business, the leading name in Australia for this industry.

Then I asked about the pet-safe and wildlife-safe treatment advertised on their website. The answer? They do not offer that service in my city, even though their website said they did. At that point, my customer-experience meter moved from mildly annoyed to “you have got to be kidding me”. I ended the call and went back online.

This time I found a locally owned pest control business. I filled in their online enquiry form, asking the same questions and explaining the same concerns, wondering if I was going to have the same experience.

Within 30 minutes I had a proper response. They answered my questions, reassured me that their treatments were safe for pets and wildlife, explained what they would do and made the whole thing feel easy. I booked a technician and they could come the next day.

When the technician arrived, he was terrific. Friendly, professional and clear. More importantly, he played with our dogs and reassured us that the treatment would not harm them, the local wildlife or us. He understood what mattered to us. I paid him on the spot and booked a follow-up visit for two weeks later.

That is how a small business beats a big business.

Not with a bigger marketing budget or a national brand campaign or a call centre full of people reading from scripts. They won because they responded quickly, listened properly, answered the questions that mattered, did what they said they would do and made me feel like my business mattered.

Afterwards, I emailed the owner to thank him. I also told him about my experience with the big corporate competitor. His response made me smile. He said they hear that exact story all the time. In fact, their biggest competitor has become one of their best sales tools because so many people have the same experience I had.

There is a lesson in that for every small business owner.

Too many small businesses try to look like big businesses, when they should be doubling down on the advantages that come from being small. You can move quickly. You can make decisions without needing a committee, a memo, three meetings and approval from someone in another state.

But here’s the catch. Being small is not automatically an advantage. Being small and disorganised is just annoying. Being small and slow is painful. Being small and vague is frustrating. Being small only becomes a competitive advantage when you are responsive, professional, consistent and genuinely interested in solving the customer’s problem.

The simplest way to use your size as a sales advantage is to respond faster than the big guys. Most customers do not expect perfection, but they do expect acknowledgement. When someone makes an enquiry, they are interested now. Not in a week. Now. A fast response tells the customer they matter. Silence tells them they do not.

The next advantage is your ability to find out what the customer is really worried about. In my pest control example, I was not really buying pest control. I was buying peace of mind. The local business understood that. The big business did not.

So stop apologising for being small. Stop assuming the big guys have all the power. Yes, they might have more money and more brand awareness, but you have something incredibly valuable: the ability to make a customer feel seen, heard and important.

Use it wisely, be faster, be responsive, be easier to deal with, be more accountable and most importantly be more human. Do the simple things really well and consistently, because a lot of your bigger competitors are dropping the ball in ways they probably do not even realise or to be brutally frank, don’t care.

Being small is not a disadvantage, unless you let it be. Don’t let small stop you from being bigger.

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