This week I was in Chicago, Illinois attending the Warrillow Summit.

The Warrillow Summit is the leading event for those selling to the small business market, especially large companies that sell to small businesses. It is put on by the Warrillow Company, based in Toronto, Canada, and led by John Warrillow. John is a rather young guy, who has made it his mission to help companies get inside the heads of small business owners. (Yes, that’s his book cover to the left, shown drilling into a business owner’s head).

The Summit was attended by many of today’s biggest company names that sell products and services to small businesses. Let me share some overall impressions from the Warrillow Summit:

• Everyone I met was sincerely interested in understanding YOUR needs as a small business. I did not encounter a single attendee who expressed cynicism or passive hostility or who even questioned the value of small businesses as customers. If anything, it was completely the opposite. Everyone emphasized the importance of the small business customer to their own business initiatives.

• These large companies are investing significant sums in product development to make our businesses better. Listening to their case studies and experiences, it was quite obvious that many of them devote substantial people and money resources to their small business products and services. We small business owners are living in a wonderful time, with more resources and support than at any time in history. While our challenges as business owners are sometimes daunting, having wider choice of products and services eases some of that burden.

• Just like the rest of us, large companies are scratching around for answers too. They freely admit they have room for improvement. Many were at the Summit precisely because they were looking for ways to improve. I know that may not feel like consolation when, for instance, we have trouble getting through to a live customer support representative at one of these large companies. But attitude counts for something. We are much more likely to cut the vendor some slack if we think the vendor cares and at least is trying to make things better.

The theme of this year’s Summit was “word of mouth” marketing. I will be bringing you several more posts about insights into “word of mouth” that came out of the Warrillow Summit.

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