Previously on little GIANTS: The June '25 Edition
Five posts, five minutes, five ideas worth exploring.
June was a busy month. We covered everything from AI search to difficult colleagues, with a few stops along the way to talk about trust, segmentation, and why your customers tell you things they'd never tell the big corporates.
If you missed any of these posts, here's the five-minute version. Each post broken down to the quote that stuck, why it matters, and the main takeaway.
1. Beyond SEO: How UK SMEs Can Thrive in the AI-Driven Search Era
The gist: SEO (Search Enginge Optimisation - or more simply how high your business appears on Google) is not the only game in town anymore. People are asking ChatGPT et al for recommendations, and if your business isn't optimised for AI searches, you're invisible to a growing chunk of your market.
The quote that stuck:
"SEO gets you clicks. GEO gets you quoted."
Traditional SEO is about ranking on Google. GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) is about being the business AI tools recommend when someone asks "Who's the best accountant in Birmingham for small construction firms?"
Why it matters: The average AI query is 20+ words - full sentences, not keywords. If your content still reads like keyword soup from 2015, you're falling behind. The fix? Write like humans ask questions. Structure content clearly. Update regularly. Make it quotable.
The bottom line: Don't just be findable. Be quotable.
2. Certified Human: Why It Makes Sense to Sell Your Sawdust
The gist: In a world where AI usecases are multiplying by the millisecond, proof of human involvement is becoming a premium feature. As seen in the boutique manufacturing world of Etsy where they’re demanding products be clearly listed as whether they have had the human touch or not, or on YouTube where they’re testing labeling of videos to help the user understand whether they’re watching content from bots or beings.
The quote that stuck:
"Trust, in short, has escalated dramatically from nice-to-have to an explicit cost of goods sold."
Remember when "handmade" was just a nice story? Now it's a verifiable claim that customers will pay more for. The market for AI-detection tools is heading for £2 billion. That's a lot of money being spent on proving humans were involved.
Why it matters: "Sell your sawdust" isn't just about showing the wood shavings from your workshop. It's about making the process visible. Film yourself drafting. Share the messy first attempts. Show the thinking, not just the output.
The bottom line: Being human is now a competitive advantage. Use it.
3. Stop Guessing, Start Converting: Use Segmentation to Win More Customers
The gist: Stop treating all customers like they're the same. You already know some clients are dream clients and others are nightmares. Time to make that instinct systematic.
The quote that stuck:
"Think of segmentation like organising socks. You wouldn't wear thin athletic ones to a winter wedding."
Build on the standard demographic knowledge you have of your customer base. As "Tech firm, 10-49 employees" tells you little. Instead dig deeper and you might just unlock the "growth-hungry but strapped for cash" or "scarred by past suppliers" insights that are at the heart of your customers needs.
Why it matters: Generic marketing gets ignored 60-70% of the time. But when you speak to someone's actual situation - their fears, their constraints, their bad experiences - your message lands completely differently.
The bottom line: You're probably already segmenting informally. Make it systematic and watch your conversion rates jump.
4. Customer Therapy: Why Your B2B Clients Tell You Things They'd Never Tell A Corporate
The gist: Your biggest advantage over big corporates isn't price or agility. It's that clients actually trust you.
The quote that stuck:
"B2B sales is actually still H2H - Humans to Humans."
After formal meetings, in lobbies and car parks, clients tell SMEs what's really going on. The politics. The actual budget. Why they really fired the last supplier. Big consultancies never hear this stuff - they're too formal, too connected, too threatening.
Why it matters: That insurance client who says they want "digital transformation"? - might actually wants to look innovative without changing anything, or the FinTech that needs to "define their customer journey"? They're really saying "we're not set up to scale." This intelligence is gold.
The bottom line: You can't invoice for "understanding your internal politics", but you can build it into everything you do.
5. Ego Whispering: Turning Your Most Difficult People Into Your Biggest Assets
The gist: That nightmare colleague or supplier who challenges everything? They might be your secret weapon - if you stop fighting them and start using their expertise.
The quote that stuck:
"Ego often protects expertise. That resistance might be wisdom. That the person driving you mad might be the key to your next level of success."
Every SME has that one person. Twenty years' experience. Challenges everything. Makes you wonder why you keep them around. But what if their resistance comes from actually knowing what works? What if they're difficult because they've seen too many good ideas fail for predictable reasons?
Why it matters: The moment you stop seeing their resistance as defiance and start seeing it as untapped knowledge, everything changes. In the example I used, ‘Steve’ went from blocking every new idea to designing systems that doubled results. Same person, different approach, transformed results.
The Thread That Connects Them All
Look closer and you'll spot the pattern. Every one of these posts is really about the same thing: the human advantage.
AI makes being provably human valuable
Segmentation works because you understand human motivations
SMEs get intelligence because humans trust other humans
Difficult people become assets when you understand their human needs
In a world racing toward automation, standardisation, and scale, your superpower as an SME is that you're still stubbornly, brilliantly human.
That's not weakness. That's competitive advantage.
What’s your take? I’m always interested to know how you’re dealing with this where you work.