Here at NuSystems we appreciate our local businesses. We believe you can't beat the personalized service and help they can provide.
But one of the concerns we share with small local businesses of all sorts is increasing competition from big box stores, large national corporations, and internet retailers. And it’s not that we fear healthy competition. The difficulty we face is educating our potential clients as to the differences between the offerings of these seemingly less expensive sources of seemingly similar products.
From a security industry perspective, is the alarm system advertised on TV for $99 by a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest corporations really the same, with the same care in design, installation, and ongoing support after the sale, as one offered for several hundred dollars more by the local company, owned by someone in the same community as the purchaser, who’s owners shop at the same stores, send their kids to the same schools, go to the same churches, and so on.
Can you really compare the equipment supplied by that same local alarm company, to the controls, keypads and motion detectors that have the same part numbers that are sold by an anonymous internet retailer? Who may be nothing more than a guy with a good marketing idea and a wholesaler that will drop ship?
The same challenge is faced by A/V professionals with commonly available displays, speakers and electronics.
We know there is a big difference. We can justify higher prices for engineered, professionally installed systems, with dedicated professionals standing behind them for long term service. We know sometimes we aren’t even more expensive when the comparison is apples for apples. And when we are given the chance we effectively can convey this message to our potential clients.
But sometimes we don’t get that chance. In the news today I read Tyco Corporation, owner of ADT, who monitor over 5 million customers’ alarms, purchased Broadview Security, with their 1.3 million customers, for $2 billion. Do you think their marketing budget might be bigger than ours?
With that in mind I wanted to share a concept I read about in the chamber of commerce newsletter of one of the communities we service. It’s called the 3/50 Project. It was created with the goal of building loyalty and increasing revenue for local businesses.
Here’s what they had to say about it,
“Small businesses are the lifeblood of the American economy, accounting for an astounding 99.7 percent of all employer firms, according to a 2007 study by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Yet locally owned independent businesses are under far more pressure than ever… trying economic times that have consumers closing their wallets, the credit crunch, and shoppers searching for values that have taken a severe toll. It was that combination of factors that was weighing heavily on Cinda Baxter, a Minneapolis-based retail consultant, early in 2009. “It began with a really rotten week in March,” Baxter explains. “The headlines were just dire and abysmal; by the end of the week, more people I knew had turned off the news than were still watching it.”
Baxter decided to take matters into her own hands, so three days later, I wrote a blog post.” That post, meant for only a few friends, was the start of what would soon become an international movement to support locally owned businesses.
The idea is simple:
3: Think of three local businesses you’d really miss most if
all of a sudden you found they were gone. Stop in and say hello.
Pick up a little something. Your contribution is what keeps
those businesses around.
50: Spend $50 – it doesn’t have to be all in that one store.
The idea is to commit $50 each month to local businesses, total.
68: For every $100 spent in independently owned stores,
$68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other
expenditures.
1: The number of people it takes to start the trend…. you.”
Will this alone save local businesses? Of course not. But if we do it for others in our local business community, and they do it for us, and we all spread the idea it’s a start.
To find out more on the 3/50 Project, visit http://www.the350project.net, now with over 5,000 supporters; or check out their Facebook page, with over 27,000 fans; or follow them on Twitter.
Don’t wait until that favorite store, business or restaurant is gone…. act now! Spread the word! Pick 3. Spend $50.
Who are your three?
mike