'You've Got Mail' Underestimates Small Business

OK, I know I'm about nine years late on this movie review, but I just have to get this off my chest. After watching a portion of "You've Got Mail" last weekend, I have decided that the movie does a great disservice to small-business owners.

In the movie, a small-business owner (Meg Ryan) closes her children's bookstore after a big-box bookstore (owned by Tom Hanks) moves in around the corner and steals all of her customers. And it wasn't just any bookstore, it was the bookstore her mother opened some 50 years ago and left to Meg Ryan's character, in what she thought were good hands, when she passed away. But she was wrong, because Meg Ryan barely put up a fight. All she did was complain and mope—when she should have been reaching out to new customers, carving out a new niche, figuring out new ways to offer personalized service that a big box couldn't touch. That's what real small-business owners do. They fight for their businesses.

Whether a big-box competitor is in your industry yet, you still have to be ready for them and be able to set your business apart (and above) the competition. That's what Tim Mikkelsen and Phyllis Wright-Herman, owners of MikWright LTD and featured in the current issue of MyBusiness, are doing with their greeting-card business. Even though they're small, they can stand up to the biggest competitors the greeting-card industry because they've found several ways to stand out.