Serve Your Community and Build Your Business
Serve Your Community and Build Your Business
As a speaker, I set aside one or two days a month for donated speeches to community groups. Once, I gave a speech to a high school class of at-risk teenagers. In the room was a school volunteer from a major corporation.
Soon, I had a contract to speak at her company.
Part of strategic marketing is using non-traditional marketing vehicles, and finding ways to build your sphere of influence without having to send out a mailing or pass out your brochures. Community involvement is a valuable marketing opportunity that is often overlooked. While you are giving back to the community, you also feed your soul, participate in a great opportunity for personal growth, have a lot of fun, and meet people it can be good for your bottom line as well. People like to do business with companies that care about their communities. This creates a good feeling about you and about your business.
Many community service based organizations are looking for small and large companies to get involved. Habitat for Humanity, The Red Cross, The Salvation Army all want you.
To be strategic about the time you spend volunteering, identify what you think your clients care about or ask yourself if there is a niche market you would like to be more involved with that could use some help. Set aside a portion of your time or your money to community involvement.
Use Your Store Front
If you have retail space, you have a unique advantage. Put a box by the cash register to collect quarters for your favorite cause. You can collect clothes or canned goods, or donate all or a portion of your window display space to a group for a certain period of time to promote their cause.
Support Your Local Schools
Elementary and high schools in your area need old computers, paper, and other supplies, as well as volunteers, guest speakers and a whole lot more. Contact the school's volunteer association in your area and find out how you can help.
Door Prizes
You may be asked to donate your products or services. Decide ahead of time how often you want to donate and what makes it worthwhile for you. Make sure all the requests you accept meet this criterion before you say “yes”.
Special Discounts to Members
Extend a discount to members of the community organizations you want to support. This will get you exposure as well as new customers.
Intern and Apprenticeship Programs
Many youth and job training organizations have intern and apprenticeship programs that are always looking for workplace experience for participants.
Find out how you can help.
Check With Your Accountant
You can get a tax break for your donations. Have a chat with your accountant to identify the best way to make the most financially of your contributions.
Take The Lead
Organize an effort to plant trees, or hold a blood drive or refurbish a building. You can do this through one of the professional organizations of which you are a member.
There is no shortage of possible projects you could undertake to uplift your community while uplifting yourself and your business at the same time. Start today to involve your business in your community and both will benefit.
Serve Your Community and Build Your Business - To learn more about this author, visit Caterina Rando's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
I spoke to a new business owner today. Two months ago, Joan launched her meeting planning company. Two weeks into her new business, she signed her first contract with her first client. To get that client, she called the four organizations with whom she had volunteered. This is a great example of how involvement in your community can result in business.
As a speaker, I set aside one or two days a month for donated speeches to community groups. Once, I gave a speech to a high school class of at-risk teenagers. In the room was a school volunteer from a major corporation.
Soon, I had a contract to speak at her company.
Part of strategic marketing is using non-traditional marketing vehicles, and finding ways to build your sphere of influence without having to send out a mailing or pass out your brochures. Community involvement is a valuable marketing opportunity that is often overlooked. While you are giving back to the community, you also feed your soul, participate in a great opportunity for personal growth, have a lot of fun, and meet people it can be good for your bottom line as well. People like to do business with companies that care about their communities. This creates a good feeling about you and about your business.
Many community service based organizations are looking for small and large companies to get involved. Habitat for Humanity, The Red Cross, The Salvation Army all want you.
To be strategic about the time you spend volunteering, identify what you think your clients care about or ask yourself if there is a niche market you would like to be more involved with that could use some help. Set aside a portion of your time or your money to community involvement.
Use Your Store Front
If you have retail space, you have a unique advantage. Put a box by the cash register to collect quarters for your favorite cause. You can collect clothes or canned goods, or donate all or a portion of your window display space to a group for a certain period of time to promote their cause.
Support Your Local Schools
Elementary and high schools in your area need old computers, paper, and other supplies, as well as volunteers, guest speakers and a whole lot more. Contact the school's volunteer association in your area and find out how you can help.
Door Prizes
You may be asked to donate your products or services. Decide ahead of time how often you want to donate and what makes it worthwhile for you. Make sure all the requests you accept meet this criterion before you say “yes”.
Special Discounts to Members
Extend a discount to members of the community organizations you want to support. This will get you exposure as well as new customers.
Intern and Apprenticeship Programs
Many youth and job training organizations have intern and apprenticeship programs that are always looking for workplace experience for participants.
Find out how you can help.
Check With Your Accountant
You can get a tax break for your donations. Have a chat with your accountant to identify the best way to make the most financially of your contributions.
Take The Lead
Organize an effort to plant trees, or hold a blood drive or refurbish a building. You can do this through one of the professional organizations of which you are a member.
There is no shortage of possible projects you could undertake to uplift your community while uplifting yourself and your business at the same time. Start today to involve your business in your community and both will benefit.
Serve Your Community and Build Your Business - To learn more about this author, visit Caterina Rando's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
| |||
 |
No article feedback found. | ||
|
Leave Your Feedback | ||
|
|||
 Six Reasons to Give
| |||
| If you run a business, you undoubtedly feel many pressures on your time and money. Why would you want to add "giving to the community" to your "to do" list? Here are six reasons ..... |
|||
|
Community Involvement the Wrong Way
| |||
 There are wrong ways to demonstrate community involvement as well. If you volunteer to work on a committee but are never available for meetings, or if you sponsor a little league team and don't show up for games, yo... |
|||
|
Secrets To Building Community Relationships
| |||
| Can those we might think of as our competition actually help us to be successful? Learn the secrets to building highly successful community relationships. |
|||
|
StartupWeekend: We need this event in Kenya
| |||
| Yesterday as I prepared to go to sleep I decided to head to my favorite technology and web 2.0 blog Techcrunch just to see if I'd missed something of interest (this happens a lot bearing in mind that I'm running aro... |
|||
|
What is Social Responsibility and How It Can Work For You
| |||
| What is social responsibility? The attempt of a business to balance its commitments to groups and individuals in its environment, including customers, other businesses, employees, investors and local communities. U... |
|||
| |||
Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
|||
Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
|||
Michel NerayMichel Neray has over 25 years of experience as an award-winning copywriter, an Internet pioneer, a tradeshow pitchman and a senior sales and marketing executive. An online pioneer, he was one of the first marketing professionals to embrace the Internet by building websites as early as 1993. In 1994, Michel co-authored a book entitled "The Great Crossover: Personal Confidence in the Age of the Microchip", which made it to Jack Canfield's Achiever's Recommended Reading List. Michel founded Portfolios.com in 1995, the world's first online source directory for creative professionals and one of the first websites based on community generated content. Since creating The Essential Message in 2003, Michel has helped thousands of independent professionals and entrepreneurs as well as growing corporations find a better way to differentiate, position and brand themselves. In 2005, his chapter "Everything Starts With A Conversation" was selected as the lead for the book, "Sales Gurus Speak Out" and re-published in 2008 for 'Awakening The Workplace Volume 3'. He is also a co-author of "In the Company of Leaders" (2008) with 40 top North American leadership experts. - Visit Michel Neray's Website |
|||
David BarrDavid Barr is the President of Venture Opportunities, Inc. David has been a professional business broker/intermediary since 1980 focusing on General Business Brokerage and Mergers and Acquisitions representing client transaction value from $400,000 to $20,000,000. Mr. Barr has handled the sale of over four hundred and fifty companies. David earned a university degree from the State University of New York majoring in economics and business. David holds the Mergers and Acquisition Master Intermediary and the Certified Business Intermediary designations from the International Business Brokers Association. He is also a Senior Business Analyst and a Texas licensed Real Estate Agent. For more information about David and Venture Opportunities, visit www.bizdealmaker.com. - Visit David Barr's Website |
|||
Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
|||
Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
|||
Casey GollanCasey Gollan, Business Coaching & Mentoring Programs. Add $1 Million to $10 Million in the next 1 to 3 years. Since 1996 Casey has to added hundreds of millions of dollars to businesses. Watch a free video see client results Business Coaching website. - Visit Casey Gollan's Website |
|||
Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
 Caterina Rando (Visit Caterina's Website) Caterina Rando, MA, MCC shows entrepreneurs how to succeed with ease. She is a professional speaker, best-selling author, business success coach and creator of the Expert Advantage- How to Attract Clients with Ease tele-coaching course. To gain many more business building ideas via podcasts, articles and other free resources visit her website www.attractclientswithease.com Caterina can be reached at 415 668-4535, by email at cat@attractclientswithease.com.
|  |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
 |
 | ||
|
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
|
 |
 CAN-Spam Checklist Business Checkup 10 Areas of Differentiation Easy Product Ideas Loyalty Strategies |
|
 | ||
 |
Top 50 Niche Blogs 2009
Top 50 Niche Blogs 2009 | |
 |
Choose A PR Topic
Press Release Builder | |
| ||
 |
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
||||||||||
