Most chamber events skip over the non-retail businesses. How can foundries, insurance agents and other non-retail businesses promote themselves through events? Photo provided by Deb Brown.

Events that showcase your non-retail small business 

You want people to learn about your business. Events sometimes help with that. You’re just not sure how to create an event for non-retail businesses that people will come to.

Who goes to the insurance agency if they don’t need insurance?

Who goes to the packing plant unless they work there? 

When the chamber of commerce or other groups put on business events, they don’t usually feature non-retail businesses. 

One event that can work is something like A Walk Around Town Event featuring non-retail businesses. The object of the event is to set a time frame for people to visit businesses in town.

We have a Foundry in my town, Webster City, Iowa. They love to do events. The office staff put hard hats, safety glasses and heavy aprons on everyone (and make sure you have closed toe shoes). Then the boss takes the visitors around the plant. I got to see the hot steel being poured and how it turns into a product by the end of the visit. Employees on the floor explain the process and answers questions. Everyone gets a small steel gift.

These backroom kind of tours are fascinating and create a new, fun learning experience for more people to learn about your business.

Imagine if you could combine your backroom tour with several other businesses, so people could tour more than one business in a day? That could be your Walk Around Town event!

This could be tricky to plan by yourself. Mainly because each business involved will have a different outcome in mind. You might be looking or employees. The insurance firm is looking for new customers. The construction company wants referrals. All those outcomes are related – they require people to know more about you first. Having an event to showcase your business is a great way to get started. 

You don’t need the chamber or economic development people to do all the work for you. You don’t need permission to plan an event!

Then how can you create events that people will attend? Here’s the secret: don’t plan it all yourself. Leave it half planned and have room for the other businesses to step up and add to the event. Gather your crowd, ask other non-retail business owners to join you for coffee or a beer. Talk about the big idea – having an event to bring people to your businesses to see what you do. 

Ask each other what kind of things you need to have this event. Can you do it on the same day as a community event? See if  someone has connections to the chamber or others who are doing events so you can check their schedules. Maybe check the school and sports schedules to avoid overlapping an important event there. Do you need a bus to take people around? Someone can find the bus or use their own work bus. This is building connections, and often you might use these connections for other things too.

Finally take some small steps. Not all the business owners will want to be involved. That’s ok. This kind of event works if there’s only a couple of businesses involved. Ask the business owners who are participating to prepare some hands-on activities that tour visitors could do. Remember, you are not doing all the work, they are.  Each non-retail business is responsible for their business. 

Maybe some of these businesses don’t have any idea how to create interesting or exciting activities. Why not ask your employees for ideas? Offer them the opportunity to plan it out and make it happen. A small step could be to tell your Chamber about it and see if they want to help with the marketing part of it. Another small step is to tell your Economic Development folks too. They might have some people in mind they’d like to invite on the tour. You might even want to partner with another business. Are you going to serve coffee and cookies? Is there a business in town that could help with that? 

SaveYour.Town has a video this month that focuses on creating events that people will attend. You’ll get more ideas from events I’ve planned to promote businesses in my community, and how I let go of some control and half planned events in cooperation with others. This video is available for purchase only until September 15, 2019. You’ll get two weeks to watch the video with as many folks and as many times as you want.

We tried it once. Does that mean we can never try it again? Photo by Becky McCray.

Guest Post by Paula Jensen

When was the last time you heard someone say, “We tried that before and it didn’t work!”  In my early days as a local leader those words spoken by an experienced leader often stopped me in my tracks. Their words indicated to me that they had the experience of knowing what worked and what didn’t work in the community.  Sometimes I would ask, “Why?” and rarely get a strong explanation about the failure that occurred, which left me determined to learn more.

My confidence as a leader has grown over the years and I have gained much more experience. Now when someone says, “We tried that before and it didn’t work!” my response is…”and, what did you learn from that?”

Learning about failed attempts, missed opportunities, and community history requires honest and focused conversations with local leaders. I strongly believe that as current leaders, we must know the history of things tried in our community, the work that has been accomplished and why decisions were made.  So often, the reason history repeats itself is that leaders don’t own their part in the community’s history. We must look back and own our part of history to move ahead.

Let’s begin by asking a question – How do we start an honest and focused conversation with community leaders about what has been learned in our past?

4 Steps to Learn from “We Tried That Once!”

There is an art to initiating and carrying out a conversation that creates positive results.  Here is a 4-step method that enables your conversation to flow from surface to depth. You can lead this conversation through a series of questions at these four levels:

• Step 1. Objective Level – Begin with the data, facts, and external reality. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What did you actually see, hear or read?” or “What surprised you?”
• Step 2. Reflective Level – Next, ask for immediate personal reactions, internal responses, emotions or feelings, hidden images, and associations with the facts you discussed in step one. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What was your gut reaction?” or “What were your biggest frustrations?” or “What has worked well?”
• Step 3. Interpretive Level – Then, draw out meaning, values, significance, and implications. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What are your hopes and dreams?” or “What would you say were your most significant contributions?”
• Step 4. Decisional Level – Lastly, bring the conversation to a close, seeking resolution and enabling the participants to make decisions about the future. Ask your conversation participant(s), “What do you think we should do?” or “What steps could we take to move forward?” or “Who else should be involved in local leadership?”

The results of focused conversations can help develop awareness to accept the things that have been done in the past and follow the lessons learned from each situation to move our work forward. When a leader starts asking “How can we learn from this?”, automatically it affects the future of the community. Having focused conversations is a transformational process that starts with one person wanting to learn more and ends with moving toward a more positive future by learning from the past.

As a local leader I want to empower younger generations to take their ideas and act on them. I want to be asked about successes and failures from the past. And lastly – I, Paula Jensen, vow to never say the words, “We tried that before and it didn’t work!” #Iamrural

Photo provided by Kupper Subaru

Last weekend I took our car in for a routine oil change. As expected the staff were friendly, the service quick, and everything was done right. They provided a comfortable lounge area while I waited with a big screen TV, coffee and water. Those were my expectations and they were all met.

However, there is one more part to the story.  As I was doing the initial paperwork, I noticed some bicycles. They had helmets and backpacks so I asked if staff rode their bikes to work. This is where the routine experience became something amazing.

The response to my question was, “no, those are for our customers to borrow. Do you want to take one out?”  The auto dealership is close to downtown and not far from a bike trail leading to one of our state parks. There was apparently no limitation on where you could with them or how long you could take them out. Check out their program here.

I didn’t take them up on the offer but, as someone interested in helping businesses market and stand out from their competitors, I thought this was great marketing.

Here are just some of the reasons why:

• It was relatively low cost. Bikes, backpacks, locks, and helmets is it. Plus some signs.
• Bike riding engages and offers the customer an experience. Even if you don’t take a ride, I didn’t, the idea gets attention and interest.
• It connects with their brand and many of their customers.  Subaru ads often focus on outdoor activities, experiencing nature, etc. The ideas of loaner bikes fits well with the message they sell.
• May is National Bicycle Month. They connected with that by running YouTube contest showing the bikes ridden on various local trails. If you could name the trail, you won a prize.
• They took advantage of social media for marketing and shot their own video, all low-cost marketing.  See: http://bit.ly/1Jv2CtQ
• When speaking to Jerry Coutts, Service Manager and person responsible for the idea, he noted the idea came from seeing it at another dealership. Good marketing often comes from watching what others are doing. You need, though, to modify them for your situation and to set yourself apart.
• They found a catchy name, #KupperKruiser.

The list goes on but I will end with one final thought.  The most effective marketing comes when others tell your story. This idea is a good one for encouraging this to happen, it takes the routine and makes it something to tell your friends.

As far as growing the campaign, they have opportunities with increased signage and posting pictures and/or videos of customers using the bikes and talking about the experience. This would enhance the visibility, expands customer endorsements, grow social media activity and keep costs low. They can also think about what could be done over winter and again next year.

As a disclaimer, this is not a paid endorsement. I saw a clever marketing idea and appreciated how the idea was developed and implemented. Ideas like this are something any small business owner can do. Small business owners should always have their eyes and mind open for such ideas, ways to get people talking and set your business apart. That’s effective marketing.

Good job Jerry and Kupper Subaru.