Georgia SBDC- Small Business Blog

Event Marketing for Small Business

On line media is continuing to grow everyday and the use by small business owners also seems to grow everyday.  It seems that more and more business owners want to have an understanding about social media, its uses, and more importantly how they can apply it to use in their business. Other forms of on line marketing are also important, such as email marketing, SEO, and advertising.

One thing that many small business owners are now doing is making events that their customers and clients can attend.  The traditional way of inviting people to these events was from the telephone or mail.  Now there are several programs such as eventbrite.com or even using Facebook to reach their contacts.  I was using Constant Contact the other day, and noticed that they also now have a function for creating events, inviting people, and collecting payment if that is what you need.  This is convenient for those business owners who use this program to reach their customers with email.  Customers can sign up for your event on line and it will keep track of all guests who are planning on attending.

The use of technology, if used correctly, can help give you a few more minutes in your already hectic day.  The above example is just one of many to help make you and your business more efficient.  Try to understand and use different programs that can help your business grow.

The Customer Service Paradox

As seen on the SBDC blog for the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay.  Well done!

Small business owners will do well to understand the Customer Service Paradox: 

Great customer service will not help sell a product or service that nobody wants, but bad customer service will ensure customers won’t buy something they do want. 

What makes the Paradox true?  In simplest terms, good or even great customer service is not enough to sustain customers, but it can be the single issue that drives customers away.  The challenge for small business owners is that they want to use customer service as a competitive advantage.  Small business owners may rely on customer service as the unique selling proposition that spurs their marketing efforts when really, great customer service is a basic expectation that all customers have.

At its core, customer service is the activities that enhance overall customer satisfaction with a customer’s or client’s experience with your organization.  You will notice that it is not just the purchasing experience, but the total experience with your organization.  When you think of all the ways customers may interact with your organization, you will see that this can become significantly complicated.

The obvious place to strengthen your customer service efforts are with your staff – all staff.  Your sales or customer service reps are not the only contact your organization has with actual and potential clients.  Make sure to communicate your customer service goals to everyone within your organization.  Convey the idea that excellent customer service is an integral part of every employee’s job description. 

In today’s virtual world, many of your customers may never pick up the phone or talk with someone face to face.  Every access to your company is an opportunity to exceed your customers’ expectations.  Is your website easily understood?  Can your customers find the information they want or find a contact person if they have questions.  Do your employees respond well with e-mail? 

If you ask people to share an example of customer service, good or bad, ten to one they go to the bad.  Customers love to share their horror stories of “what went wrong!”  Again, customers have an expectation that they will be treated well, that they will be able to find what they need, and that they will have questions answered.  If they cannot get this basic customer need met, they will find a company who can deliver.

The Customer Service Paradox transcends all industries and sectors, large and small companies alike.  Customers enforce it every day.  While customer service isn’t enough to drive customers to your company on its own merit, remember that it does have the strength to keep them from returning.

Georgia’s Small Business Person of the Year Says Owning His Own Business ‘Fit My Personality’

Scott Blackstock has fond memories of his first experience working in a small business: “I was four years old when my father bought a tire store. He paid me a penny a tire to wash the whitewalls and I made enough to buy two Cokes a day.” Today, Blackstock is Georgia’s 2009 Small Business Person
of the Year, and he’s still washing tires. But now he’s doing it in his growing chain of express car washes, with locations in Georgia, Alabama, and North Carolina.
Blackstock is among the successful small business owners from each state selected by the U.S. Small Business Administration to be honored during Small Business Week in May.

The Tidal Wave Auto Spa company is the latest venture for Blackstock, who has compiled a number of impressive achievements in business development, product innovation, and community service. Blackstock graduated from Georgia Tech in 1979 with a degree in chemical engineering and worked in that field for two years, until his father offered to sell him the tire business in his hometown of Thomaston. “I was only 25, but I already knew owning my own business fit my personality,” Blackstock says. “I like the responsibility and the independence. It’s not easy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Blackstock operated a tire and auto service center for more than 20 years. During this time, he branched out into other successful ventures, including auto parts, real estate development and Thomaston’s first express oil change business.

In 2004, Blackstock opened his first Tidal Wave Auto Spa on Riverdale Road, just south of the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport. The rest is car wash history. His car wash business, which stared with two part time employees and one location, has grown to almost 100 full and part-time employees and 11 car washes, with the 12th set to open in July. His company, which includes Tidal Wave and other entities, has seen sales grow from $271,000 in 2004 to more than $6.5 million in 2007.

In starting and growing his business, Blackstock has made good use of federal and state small business programs for financing and training. He used three SBA guaranteed 504 Development Loans to help finance three of the first five of his Tidal Wave Car Wash sites and took advantage of entrepreneur training programs offered by the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network. In 2006-2007, Blackstock took the Incubator Without Walls (iWow) management class at the SBDC in Columbus. As part of the program, he graduated from the SBDC’s “FastTrac”® Growth Venture and Hypergrow Programs. These programs provide entrepreneurs, like Blackstock, with new skills and training to successfully manage rapidly growing companies. “I highly recommend that anyone thinking about starting their own business develop a relationship with their local SBDC office,” says Blackstock. “There are a lot of free programs and the ones where there is a charge are incredible bargains. It’s amazing how much information you can get from the programs. Entrepreneurs tend to be
independent, but there’s a lot of help available out there and you’d be crazy not to take advantage of it. I know Lori Auten (area director) of the Columbus SBDC office was a tremendous help to me.”
Blackstock sold his tire center and auto parts companies in 2005 to devote his full attention to other businesses that make up S.S. Blackstock Inc. This includes the Tidal Wave business, which is now the core of his corporate holdings.

“Our car washes are designed to make it so convenient, so easy and so cheap that it’s just not worthwhile to do it yourself,” Blackstock says. “It’s also much better for the environment. We only use 15 gallons of fresh water for each wash while the average person washing his car on the driveway uses 90 gallons.” In Georgia, the company has car wash locations in Athens, Griffin, Hampton, Morrow, Decatur,Thomaston, College Park and Stone Mountain. There’s also one location in Alabama and three in Charlotte.

Despite the economic downturn, Blackstock says, “Our business is booming. The express car wash business actually seems to thrive during a recession. People are still getting their cars washed, but instead of paying $35 at other places, they pay $3 at our car washes.”

For anyone thinking about starting his or her own business, Blackstock offers this advice: “First, don’t do it thinking it’s going to be an easy job. It’s rewarding, but it’s not easy. Second, find out all you can...get with your local SBDC office and get advice.

For more information about the Georgia SBDC Network, please go to www.GeorgiaSBDC.org.
Story taken from Georgia Trend Small Business Guide, 2009/2010.

Twitter and Facebook, Now what?

As seen on the Marketing Blog

Okay, despite my greatest effort to avoid the issue, too many people are focused on Twitter and Facebook. How can you use these tools to build a business? I'm here to tell you to calm down, take a deep breath, and realize that social networking can certainly help you with your online marketing but isn't all it's cracked up to be.

What do I mean? We'll if you are trying to earn a million bucks using social networking sites, then I'm here to tell you that you are going to be disappointed. Personally I think Facebook is a great tool for spreading the work and creating awareness. In fact, I recently spoke to an individual who heads up social marketing for a packaged goods company.

His company uses Facebook to create groups around product themes and launch events. For example, developing a video contest where people use his product and submit videos.  By having a fan page, you can reach a large network of individuals and create something of interest. The tie back to product sales may be a little loose, but using Facebook to "spread the word" is really the essence of the social networking tool.

This is very similar to what Nike did years ago by giving athletes and jocks a free pair of Air Jordans. They were influencers and Nike understood that once an influencer puts something on, others want it. Think about Facebook this way and you should come up with some pretty innovative marketing ideas.

Twitter is taking the best part of Facebook (updates) and building a site around it. If you're popular enough to have hundreds of followers, indirectly mention a website or product you're using and you'll drive traffic.

How are you using social media?

HELP! I Have Generation Y Employees!!!

Take a deep breath, and repeat after me, I love my employees, I love my employees, I love my employees.  Do you feel any better yet?

I recently held a forum entitled, "Help, I Have Generation Y Employees!"  It was attended by many people who discussed how the 3 different generations can work together with their different strengths to help further the goals of organizations.  Many organizations seem to be struggling with their employees on areas such as work ethic, use of technology, and sometimes just showing up for work. With Generation Y starting roughly around 1976, many people in this generation are in the workforce and taking heat for the way that they do things.   I think that a major challenge between the generations is communication.  In particular, they communicate in different ways.  Is it wrong to communicate differently?  Or is it wrong that they do not communicate the way you do?  All of the generations communicate a little differently.

The blogger Kyle Lacy wrote an entry called "Is Generation Y Completely Stupid" to describe how he perceives the differences in the generations.  Was Generation X ever perceived this way?

Think of all the positives that this and all generations have brought to business!  The goal is for everybody to learn from each other.  If everyone takes time to learn from each other and the positives that they bring, then maybe a business could do better. 

What are some of the ways that each generation has learned from each other?

Social Media: Fad or Trend?

Every now and then i find an article that I think is well written and thought provoking.  This one on Social Media did it for me.  It can be found here.  It is from the Blog of Guest Relations Marketing.

Enjoy!

We have heard many business professionals question the validity of social media in terms of its value to business communications.   “I don’t need to follow so and so … “ or “I don’t need any more friends.”   Like any media or contact point, social media sites have their own characteristics … and their own limitations.

But, social media is here to stay.   What is uncertain is what formats and sites will thrive and what new applications will take root.  But, the category is growing in acceptance and engagement.

There are some fundamental reasons why:  people have become increasingly skeptical of the credibility of conventional news sources, so they have sought their own.   Private “on the scene” videos of news events have peppered YouTube and rival the reach of conventional news outlets in certain cases.   People still seek the ideal of belonging to a community.  With social media, they can choose to engage with like interests in a manner of their choosing.   On demand.   We want it now.  Everything.   And, finally, connecting to beliefs, interests and other things that are held in passionate terms are now served up in social media.   You don’t need a publisher or agent to blog on a subject you are a Zealot about.

Here is why social media is even more valuable to businesses. As long as transparency and authenticity are practiced, businesses have a great opportunity to show its followers it has a heart, it has employees that are likeable, and it has a story to share.  In short, a chance to share the emotional side of its “brand.”  And, how ironic is that?  In a media that eschews overt selling, here’s the opportunity to make the emotional connection.  Through your story, through your employees, through your customers, and most certainly, through your Zealots.

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Guest Relations Marketing
Transforming Prospects to Guests, and Guests to Zealots

"Hope" Is Not A Effective Business Strategy

Three days every year, all of the consultants of the Georgia SBDC Network get together for training at the state office.  We have several speakers come in and talk about business, marketing, finance, accounting and many other subjects.  This year was certainly no exception and we have had some great speakers and training.

One speaker gave some good advice that every business owner needs to remember, "hope" is not an effective business strategy.  As economic times are tough for everyone, many business owners hope that they will make payroll, hope to have customers walk in the door, or  hope to be able to pay themselves.  Are you hoping, or trying to plan.  By analyzing your expenses, revenues and other factors you may be able to find the seasonality in your business that may show you how your next few months or years may be.  Sales in your business could still be lower than usual, but the seasonal fluctuations may still be taking place.  By understanding your margins and expenses combined with your past performance, you may be able weather the storm for now. 

The Georgia SBDC network can help you review your projections to see how your business is going, or can help you create some if you do not have any as of yet.  If you need to reach any of our offices, go to our website to find our contact information.