Storm Dawg Marketing

Hey all,

Here is a link to a great small business article that talks about some of the loans that are being made available by the SBA for small businesses. Your business can qualify for up to $35,000 for loans that are not to be used for working capital but to pay off those nagging debts and give you some room to get going again. The terms are pretty reasonable, so check it out… it might come in handy.

Remember the recession actually represents an opportunity to gain market share and pick up new customers for those that find a way to invest in their business. The money could also help get the entire economy moving again as, according to some economists, each dollar spent can turn over in the economy as many as 7 times.  (Although other economists are still unsure.)

I’d love to hear your thoughts.  Here are a few more articles about our current economic state… I hope they help.

“Growing number of economists see recovery on the horizon” – CNN Money

“Chapman economists predict economy to start turning around by year end” – 89.3 KPCC

“NABE Outlook: Recession end in sight…” – NABE

Don’t work too hard.

StormDawg

Hey All,

I am kind of changing gears, but I have a story to tell that isn’t really about a business but more about churches, the community and communication. My church, Trinity Methodist in Ralston had a grand opening for a new community center on June 4. The community center has a full gym, meeting places, and a full commercial kitchen. It will give the community a place to get together for meetings, community and social events. This is the result of hard work by folks in the church and members of the local community. They recognized a need in the community and went to work to raise the money for construction and committed to funding the community center in the future.

The church’s ability to fund the community center in the future will mostly rely on commitments and pledges from the existing congregation, but the future also depends on bringing new members into the congregation. Churches by their very nature are conservative and don’t really think they are in the marketing and recruiting business per se, but they are. I suggested to our minister, Reverend Nan, that she should tap into technology to reach out to new people moving into the community and local area. We could use emails, social networking pages, but we need to also use this grand opening as a way to collect data in addition to recruiting new members to the congregation. My company, infoGROUP, has a division, American Church Lists, specializing in marketing to and for church congregations. Using the marketing information that exists in our church database along with information on new homeowners and new movers is a great way to reach out to potential new members of the congregation.

I will have some work to do, convincing the finance and membership committees to do some different things, but with Nan’s help I am sure we can convince them to use the new technology and some of the marketing techniques I talk about. By doing this, we can focus on increasing the church membership, which is essential to maintaining our commitment to the community center and to the community.

I am sure there are some other great examples of how other congregations have raised awareness to increase their membership and I would love to hear your stories.

Don’t work to hard.

StormDawg

Hey all,

So I’ve been writing an awful lot lately about small businesses and what they can do to be successful.  (I can talk about this stuff for years, folks… and I have been… and I plan to continue.)  I recently recorded a short video for my company, infoGROUP, about what small businesses can do to stretch their marketing dollars.  I thought I’d post the video here… enjoy!

Important tips for small businesses to marketing smarter in this economy:

1) Send an email campaign. It’s cost-effective, efficient, and trackable.  There are TONS of great tools for doing this (like the new online email marketing solution from infoUSA.com).

2) Send a post card. It’s less expensive to mail than a regular mail piece.   The message is instant.  Your customers know it right away when they look at it.  (Yeah, we’ve got a tool for that, too.)

3) Incent your customers to refer you to new customers. It’s an extremely cost-effective way to promote, because your current customers do all the work for you!

Keep your head up! Keep pitching and keep promoting. When the economy turns around, you’re going to be in great shape!

Don’t work too hard.

Stormdawg

Hey all,

Opinion Research Corporation, a infoGroup company, just released the results of this poll about small businesses.

The poll reveals that small businesses want to know their local governments are supporting them. The support could be in the form of tax incentives and cutting red tape. The small business poll says that given the choice of further straining the local government with more services or less tax revenue, small businesses would be most happy with local governments just reducing red tape.

The poll shows that the majority of small business will settle for less is hassle, which translates into less time spent on spent on red-tape. This sounds like my sister Jeana!

Your thoughts?
Don’t work too hard.

StormDawg

Hey all,

I’ve been talking a lot about the obstacles facing small businesses and wanted to take a minute to talk about something you can do about it – keep marketing!

Enjoy this short video blog:

Remember, small businesses should think about three things in a down economy:

1) You can reach more prospects with less money. As advertisers scale back, there is more ad space and less competition.

2) It’s a great time to touch base with your customers. They still have needs, and now is not the time to cut off contact.  Reassuring them now will help them have more confidence in you and your brand.

3) Identify successful channels and campaigns. It’s a great time for small businesses to rationalize their marketing spend and to focus their efforts on what is working best.

Hey all,

I  wanted to comment on an article about small business credit that came to my attention today.  The article talks about how the financial crisis and the resulting tightening of credit is really putting the squeeze on small businesses.  Many small business owners need lines of credit or credit cards to meet their monthly working capital needs.  They might use credit to make major purchases of inventory or essential supplies, or even to make payroll.  Without the lines of credit the small business has to change the way do business, lay people off, or take other cash saving measures.

I can feel the frustration building as competent business people who have paid off their cards every month are have credit lines reduced or even eliminated.  It doesn’t seem fair or right that the problems of big banks and Wall Street firms should effect the day to day operations of a small business but apparently they do.

I would love to hear your story and you dealt with the credit squeeze.

Don”t work too hard.

StormDawg

Hey all,

I saw the this small business article on the NY Times website, and it occurred to me as I read this article that the small business bankruptcy rate tends to feed on itself during a recession.  The bankruptcy of one small business doesn’t just affect that small business; it can also put its customers and suppliers out of business as well.

For example a well known cattle operation went into bankruptcy in a small town in Nebraska and because it couldn’t pay its bills.  The feedstore, the local implement dealer, and at least one other business went out of business, too.  The result was that 3 families moved from the small town and put pressure on the remaining small businesses in town.  Less money was spent, the economic multiplier in reverse if you will.

There is no escaping the reality that small businesses are dependent on one another, and when it goes bad for one it can go bad for many.

I would like hear some real life examples you have seen where this happened.  But more importantly, what did the community to do rally around the remaining businesses after the shock of the first bankruptcy?

Don’t work too hard.

StormDawg

Over Memorial Day weekend I drove out to the family farm in Benkelman, Nebraska to check out the wheat crop and to plan with the guy who does the farming. During the 6 hour drive out, I drove through the town of Stratton.  It reminded me of a visit I made to a local banker, and tour of the town he took me on when I ran for governor back in 2002.

It was mid July and it was hot.  My brother Mitch was my driver, and my daughter Jessi was traveling with me as we went from town to town, met with folks and did the stump speech at local spots, interviews with newspapers and radio stations and toured various points of interest.  It was all pretty grueling but the stop I remember most was in Stratton.
We met the president of the local bank in Stratton, and he explained to me how the bank, townspeople, and various government contacts had worked together to save the town.  Stratton is a very small town in Southwest Nebraska of about 350 people. They had recently lost their school through consolidation with another town and were worried the town was about to go under. They decided to make a stand and try everything they could to save it.  The town had an asset that they thought they could use to attract an industry or a business.  It was a large warehouse leftover from a farm implement manufacturer that went bankrupt in the seventies.  The townsfolk worked with state agencies and were able to attract a business using the warehouse, tax incentives and some development grant money as incentive to move to Stratton.

The business, Timber Creek Homes, moved to Stratton in 2000 or 2001, I don’t remember exactly, and started to manufacture homes.  Stratton isn’t near an interstate and apparently you can’t transport manufactured homes by rail but Timber Creek was able to overcome logistics and make the move.   They discovered a very productive and stable work force but there weren’t enough of them.  They starting hiring people from a 60 or 70 mile radius, they even recruited craftsmen from Denver and Omaha.  In fact, on my visit I saw a guy that used to go to my church in Ralston.  He had moved his family to a nearby town and was working at Timber Creek Homes.
With all this activity going on, more housing was needed, so apartments and new homes were built, people opened bank accounts; they spent money at the convenience store, and the local grocery store.  The local economy was recovering and the town was alive.
I think is a great story of how a community rallied to work with local and state governments to attract a business and revitalize a town.
I bet there are thousands of similar stories of cooperation between communities, government, and businesses; I would love to hear about some of them from you.

Don’t work too hard.

StormDawg

Hey everyone,

I just got a text message from my sister Jeana, the bar owner (a small business in North Central, Nebraska).  She was complaining about having to spend 12 hours in car with my other sister Lorrie. They are going to a funeral out in the old home town of Benkelman, Nebraska.  They are an interesting pair.  They are very different but yet in many ways are very much the same.  Jeana is a business owner and Lorrie is typical of the market that Jeana serves in her bar.  Today I am going to introduce you to Jeana.

(We can save Lorrie and the rest of the clan for another time.)

Jeana is fairly typical of most small business owners in small towns.  She isn’t really interested in growing bigger or making millions of dollars; she just wants to make a living and live the lifestyle that she is accustomed to.  She bought the small business from my parents about 20 years ago and has managed to produce a pretty good living for herself and her family.  The problem is that Bassett, Nebraska is a very small town and has a very small market.  In fact, the Corral Bar is the only bar in town.  Several years ago, she bought the other bar in town and basically just shut it down.  She wasn’t really interested in doubling her business… she was interested limiting competition.

Jeana doesn’t advertise or market in the traditional way; she depends on word of mouth marketing and is able to post a sign on Main Street if she has something she wants to promote.  She does a hamburger night, a prime rib night, (some other kind of night), and she does it to attract people that don’t normally go to the bar.  She has great food, personal service and that’s what keeps the business flowing.

It all seems to be pretty good but Jeana has a problem: in the bar business the amount of profit she makes is directly related to how much work she can do herself.  If she is able to tend bar, cook lunch, and handle the vendors bringing in liquor and supplies without bringing in help, she can make more profit.  But nobody can keep that grind up day in and day out for 20 years without being worn down or going crazy.  She hires other members of the family and folks in town to help.  She is not being economically rational in the sense that she is not really trying to maximize her profit.  In fact, it  is very difficult to sell her something that would require her to do something more even if it grows the business.

If you could sell her an hour of free time.  She would buy that.

Funny thing, if you look up the Corral Bar in the infoUSA (infoGROUP)  business database it comes up under Taxidermy shops.  Jeana has never taken an ad out in the yellow pages to promote or market her small business, but her husband Bill does.  He runs a taxidermy business and he uses the Corral Bar as his business address and phone number.  These are two very different businesses with very different methods of reaching their market.  (I’ll save that story for another time.)

I would be interested in your story, don’t work too hard.

StormDawg

Hey all you business owners and marketers.

I am an upper level executive for infoGROUP, but you can call me Stormy, in fact some of my family members refer to me as Storm Dawg.  (You may call me either.)  I’ll be posting my thoughts and musings on what you and your small business need to do to market successfully and survive in a down economy – or any economy for that matter.  I will tell you stories about the small business owners in my family, what they are doing or not doing, to see if we can find some common ground.  Hopefully you’ll see other stories, video clips and examples that are of interest to you, and we can chat about your ideas and thoughts on how to keep our heads above water.  Heck, I’ll even throw in the occasional piece of useful business research or insightful article… you may even find me commenting on the latest business news and events.

I am passionate about the subject because, like I said, my family is full of small business owners that have had their share of successes and failures over the years.  My sister runs a bar and grill in a small town in North Central Nebraska, and much to her dismay I love to tell stories about her.  I’m hoping you have stories of your own to share that will help others figure out what to do or at least to feel better about what they are doing.  Together, we can be successful and make it through the toughest economic times.

Just a few examples of stories we can share include:

• changing consumer spending habits and how they are affecting your business
• tips about marketing techniques
• ideas that can influence your customers’ behaviors
• ways you have been able to invest in your company while other companies are cutting costs, hopefully increasing your market share and ultimately making your company stronger.

I am sure we will have a lot to discuss as the issues and the approaches to solving these issues are endless.  Like I tell my adult children, ”as soon as this crisis is over, something else will come up, that’s life”

Best,
StormDawg