David Weatherholt of “Getting Down to Business” invited me on the show to talk about small business strategy and planning. Usually, small business owners think of themselves as firefighters, spending their days putting out many small fires and neglecting the important work of developing a future strategy.
But making these everyday decisions doesn’t have to be difficult and time-consuming for small businesses. By developing an effective future strategy, the answers to these dilemmas become clear. I use the example of a fictitious company, SunBurst Coffee, and how they use their “picture of success” to facilitate decision-making.
I was on Dave Weatherholt’s radio show “Getting Down to Business” with the owners of a startup bakery recently and spoke with them about their journey from planning to pastries. Jerry Lewanski and Janis Fleischman opened Fire Island Rustic Bakeshop in Anchorage, AK. We discussed the benefits of word of mouth and public relations as an economical (and usually better!) alternative to traditional advertising, along with the different aspects a marketing plan should cover.
Jerry and Janis’ business planning skills are very impressive. They managed to plan for every scenario, except one… becoming an overnight success.
In the beginning segment of ”Getting Down to Business,” host Dave Weatherholt interviews Todd Clark, founder and president of DenaliTEK, an Anchorage-based IT consulting firm. Todd credits his business’ success to an effective Mission and Vision Statement. He was able to use these credos to build a company culture, create excitement in employees and improve the customer experience. Todd also added, “If you don’t have happy employees, you won’t have happy clients.”
Later in the show, I analyze what makes an effective Mission and Vision Statement. I explain how DenaliTEK uses their Mission and Vision Statement as an internal marketing strategy to create strong beliefs about their organization’s purpose and future. DenaliTEK has built a very strong internal brand. It is especially impressive how Todd developed a set of criteria called, “The 10 Keys to Success,” that DenaliTEK uses to evaluate prospective employees to determine if they will help build the culture. The company lives its brand every day.
Not every company is this successful in implementing their Mission and Vision. Many times, these items are left as bullet points in the dust-heap of executives’ PowerPoint slides, never to become implemented. Another pitfall is making them too vague, so that in trying to say everything, they communicate nothing.
On “Getting Down to Business” with David Weatherholt, we talked about the holiday shopping season and what it means for retailers.
Black Friday has come and gone, and with it, many retailers hopes of enjoying a profitable November. In this podcast, I explain the history of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year’s performance was worse than last year’s already abysmal showing– consumers spent almost 8% less per person this year than last, resulting in an overall revenue increase of just 0.7%. Black Friday this year showed that we need to revolutionize our concept of how retailing works– for both large and small businesses. Consumers have changed the way they shop. To learn more, listen below:
Dave Weatherholt invited me on his show, “Getting Down to Business” to talk about creative marketing ideas for small business. What’s the most creative thing I could think to say?
“Every experience a customer has with you, they consider that marketing.”
Talk about room for creativity! If everything is marketing, then everything needs to be designed with your customer in mind.
During the show, I did offer listeners some creative marketing campaign ideas, while advising all small businesses to create a good strategy before embarking on creative promotions. Dave and I also discussed effective small business marketing campaigns and the reason for their success.
Dave Weatherholt interviewed me along with Dave Taylor on his small business radio show, “Getting Down to Business.” We talked about marketing fundamentals for small businesses. Dave asked me to discuss how the internet affects small business marketing and how the marketplace has changed.
Zoo in a Jungle Marketing is a full-service marketing company for small businesses. We specialize in being "the complete marketing department for small business." Contact Zoo in a Jungle Marketing to help uncage your potential.
