About Storm Dawg Small Business Marketing Blog
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 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”
Don’t work too hard!
StormDawg
Growing up in a family business there was never a question that I would have my own business. 20 years ago I started PostalExpress. During that time I have seen lots of ups and downs for various reasons. We have always survived them and they were never long enough to cause long term damage. But this downturn started for us in early 2007. It was masked by some very large one-time projects that kept us from seeing the under laying problems. We had long time clients who were being bought and moved from the area. Others who just went our of business and others who stopped using the services we provided. They didn’t leave us to go else where, just stopped spending. It has been very difficult to replace those we lost. The new clients when have aquired have not made up for the lost business.
We made what became a very large mistake by hiring a “seasoned” sales person. The only season they had was how to take us. We cut that as soon as it was effident that it was not going to help, but there was still the financial and emotional toll it took on us.
So anyway, we keep working at it. Networking and making all the contacts we can so we can survive. I missed the days when our main problem was finding good staff. Now its being able to keep the staff we have left. We have cut everything we can cut, moved to a smaller, cheaper space and will keep fight this economy all we can. I’m too stuborn to give up or in to it.
Hi,
So True what you say ”as soon as this crisis is over, something else will come up, that’s life”
I enjoyed
Jay
ePORT Inc
Humble,Tx.
USA
eporteport@sbcglobal.net
stormdawg,
love your blog. i have a random question for ya though…do you by chance know my dad? i think you may have actually gone to college or something with him!?! i miss you and i loved your blog about dean’s wedding… keep writin’ those checks! haha, love you!
amie, creator of term ’stormdawg’
As you can see from my website, http://www.rubyannas.com we own a gift store in Minnesota. We are family owned and operated since May 3rd of 2008. Very young and hard working. We have had road construction for 15 out of the 18 months we have been open. We have tracked our sales and can tell it is definately affected the outcome! So, I have been making lemonade out of the lemons thrown at me. I have been working on my website, I have been on blogging and learning as much as I can on internet & brick and mortor sales. A huge learning curve. I agree with you, that we are in a big change in how the consumers buy and we need to be ahead of the curve. Any suggestions, I am open. Thanks…Sue