Naming massive clients you've worked for when in the micro/SME market

I often see websites of very small businesses, who seem to be aiming their product/services predominantly to very small businesses, name dropping how in a former life they did this for IBM, or that for HSBC.

I'm guessing they do this as they feel it shows a certain level of competence, that an organisation that size would use their work...

Two potential problems with that:

1. I'm normally suspicious as to how significant a role you had.  Did you head up the job, or just make tea for someone who did something still relatively insignificant?...but more importantly
2. I'm a small business.  I want to find businesses who sell products/services to businesses similar to mine, as it provides confidence that what you're selling is suitable.

Am I just jealous, because I haven't really worked for many big name brands (could probably mention one or two, but again my role was so insignificant, it would be ridiculous to do so)?  Or do other potential buyers find it fills them with confidence to see these things?

Would never do it unless I have done proper work for them. I see this all the time when infact I know they have never done any work for them, just one of their employees use to work for them! Just think if they asked you about your time when you worked for them, what would you say? "I made the tea" or come out with a load of crap. Best just to stick to clients you have worked with and can back it up should you be asked.

It works both ways

I had a massive stroke of luck when I set up - I created my own website and did my own SEO work and as a result my site was ranked very highly in Switzerland on Google, in fact with in a couple of weeks I was number 1 for almost all of my key phrases.

The next thing I know I get a call from the Director of Operations for Pepsi's HQ in Geneva asking me to fly out there and solve some of their spreadsheet issues. Over the next 6 months I ended up working out there for about 4 weeks with another further 8 weeks here in the UK.

As a result Pepsi featured heavily on my website for a long time, until I discovered it was putting site visitors off. Visitors thought I was an expensive organisation only suitable for larger corporations. I toned it down and the business started to come in again.

Hello, Though I'd wade in on this one, as bringing the techniques used by big businesses to small businesses is central to my brand. I find that it does work both ways- smaller businesses are often interested in understnading how they can apply similar approaches in a way which works for their organsation, and likewise the few big buisiness I still work with are often keen to emulate the innovation and passion of smaller businesses.

That said, I think doing it at all if you can't back it up (especially in the days of LinkedIn etc) would be pretty risky!!

Isla

My logic is name clients you have worked for as your current business - I have often found myself in the position of working for large named corporates one day & the followng day with sole traders or vice versa. They all get the same high standard of work, the bigger ones just take longer to pay  :)

I did some pretty big stuff for Northern Rock when I worked there, but have never leveraged that as a "past client" or "past work" because

a) Even though it was something relevant to what I do (I built a company-wide web-based productivity management system), and I was the main person involved in delivery, it was still something that was a team effort, and

b) I was an employee of that company; it wasn't a client I pitched for, won, serviced etc; it wasn't something Mimo Media did

Interesting one. I've worked for some pretty big companies, such as LEGO, but as a photographer I have the ability to showcase this work on my website, which shows the potential client exactly what that work entails, which goes to show that I wasn't just handing out cups of tea, I was sole photographer on the job.

When I worked in my father's company, we worked on some massive jobs (pop videos for international stars, etc) but I would never list them on my site now; a) because I was playing an incredibly minor role and b) it was a million years ago.

I have some weddings coming up which are for fairly prominent clients who are well known in the public eye, but whether I'll be able to use them on my website and marketing and even talk freely about them is something else, as the clients are signed into sponsorship deals which limit the usage of other images.

Its an odd one for us. Our web site in an About Us section mentions that myself and business partner Phil have both in the past worked for some pretty big companies. It doesnt mention any more details but each of us have been responcible for some huge projects during this time.

However it doesnt mention that TechSolvers still have a couple of large corporate clients that we still do work for, probably becuase the website is more aimed at smaller clients and I dont want to give the impression that its Corporate clients we are looking for. Having said that if one of the corporate clients gave us a testimonial I would stick it up with the others, but no more than that.

Thanks for the comments so far.

For those of you (eg Carl) who are sufficiently specialist in their field that they do get asked to do work by the big boys, it's a different matter.  I was aiming it at businesses where they're typical client probably has a turnover somewhere between £20k-500k, that's the main market they're targeting, yet they still name drop some massive entity they did a bit of work for in a previous life.

Agree it's about perception, but my perception is "These guys obviously aren't suited to a business like mine" rather than "Wow, they must be good to have worked for XYZ, I want them to work for us too".  Unsure whether I'm in the minority for that or not.

Chris you have fallen in to the same trap my visitors were doing when they visited my site and saw Pepsi splattered all over it. Although I think my service is special there are a dozen others on this forum alone offering similar services. My point was, plastering big names all over your site can work against you as you become perceived as too specialist and/or too expensive.

Pepsi were never in my marketing targets, my main market is and will probably always be those £20k-£500k t/o companies. However I was alienating them with all the talk about Pepsi.

As a result I have downgraded them on my website and replaced with content about clients from my target audience - If you go on there you will see testimonials from 4N members etc.

To me it is about balance, yes mention the big companies, provided you did the work!  Also mention the smaller companies and the work you did for them.  I am working on a series of case studies that cover all my customer base.  I have testimonials but they tend to be from the smaller business, bigger businesses tend to take way too much time doing them and then do them too clinical that there is no use putting them up.